Email marketing is still incredibly effective—especially when handled by the experts. Here are some key factors to consider during your evaluation process.
As we have mentioned in our Guide to Hire a Digital Marketer, email marketing is one of seven types of digital marketing. In this guide, we will discuss the purpose of email marketing, how it is beneficial for your business and why hiring an expert may be the right choice for you.
What is Email Marketing?
You may have heard that no one likes to read anything anymore, so why would they read emails? Well, surprisingly, email is still one of the most effective marketing techniques. Email marketing is great because it provides indirect marketing, like content marketing—building trust and relationships with your target audience over time; but it also keeps your customers in the know of what is going on with you as a business, including if you have a sale or if you are offering new services. It is information that lands in their inbox without them having to search for it.
Who Needs To Use Email Marketing?
The short answer is anyone who owns a business.
Email marketing is the perfect blend of providing content with measurable results. While not everyone may use social media or be active on it, everyone has an email address. Emails and the content they provide appeal to a wide range of customers who you are trying to target. Depending on your business needs, it may be your number one form of connecting with your customers and provides much-needed conversions!
What Are The Best Software Options?
There are several standard email marketing software options available like Constant Contact, Cyberimpact, and even smaller businesses like Get Response. However, UpCity surveyed their clients and overwhelmingly the favorite was MailChimp.
“MailChimp is one of the greatest and oldest email marketing tools ever created and is still the industry leader still with the arrival of newer contenders with the latest technologies.”
—Shad Elia, CEO, WeBuyHousesHere.com
“This tool not only sends emails to your clients at the most appropriate times, but it also provides comprehensive analytics that can be used to improve the company’s Digital Marketing efforts in the future.”
—Dusan Stanar, Founder & CEO, VSS Monitoring
Hear From Industry Experts
Read the latest tips, research, best practices, and insights from our community of expert B2B service providers.
Why Email Marketing Remains Important In 2022
It may be surprising that email remains relevant in the age of social media and mobile marketing, but it is important. Email marketing, if done right, produces unbelievable results. In fact, its ROI can be as high as 4400%. That is $44 for every dollar spent on an email marketing campaign.
However, it must be done right. Just sending an email for the sake of sending an email or because you “think” your customer “may” want to hear something, does not automatically translate to a high ROI. This is where careful consideration and email marketing mastery comes into play.
What Is A/B Testing?
A/B testing (also known as split testing) is a process of showing two variants of the same marketing item to different segments of audiences at the same time and comparing which variant drives more conversions. In this case, A/B Testing in email marketing would be sending one email campaign to two different email segments, with email A and email B being slightly different.
The point of A/B testing is to figure out what is working and not working with emails. Perhaps Email A has more images, where Email B has less; or Email A has more calls to action where Email B has fewer. By hiring an email marketing agency or consultant, they would be able to take the time and test emails for your business to see what captures your audience’s attention. Once success is found, your emails will begin to have higher click rates and ultimately ROI.
Why You Should Hire An Email Marketing Consultant Or Agency
Email marketing software can offer many different analytical measures, but two that marketers are always striving to improve are the open rate—the percentage of recipients who opened the email, and the click-through rate—the number of recipients who opened the email and clicked on a link in the email. While it is certainly an option to opt into paying and servicing email software in house, hiring an email marketing expert will support you in the following ways:
Maintain Your Email Lists And Segments
Your business will likely receive new leads every day. This coupled with those former clients who are no longer interested, maintaining your email list for emails can become unwieldy, even if there is some automation set up in your account. It is important to maintain your list and segments (essentially a sub-list) so that your click rates are high and bounce rates are low.
In the past few years, many regions, including the EU, have enacted privacy laws that have prevented email marketers from sending emails to just anyone. As a result, software companies and email servers like Google, are looking at the strength of your email domain and bounce rate to ensure that you are not spamming inboxes with your content. By hiring an agency or consultant, they will be carefully tracking this information so that all your emails go to your target audiences’ inboxes and are read.
Track And Understand Metrics
Your business will likely receive new leads every day. This coupled with those former clients who are no longer interested, maintaining your email list for emails can become unwieldy, even if there is some automation set up in your account. It is important to maintain your list and segments (essentially a sub-list) so that your click rates are high and bounce rates are low.
Here are a few metrics to consider when evaluating your email marketing campaigns:
- Open Rate: The percentage of subscribers out of the total number of subscribers who open an email.
- Click Rate: The percentage of subscribers who click a link within an email that leads to your website.
- Bounce Rate: The percentage of subscribers who did not receive an email due to an invalid domain address or blocked message through a spam filter.
- Unsubscribe Rate: The percentage of subscribers who clicked to not receive any further email outreach from your business.
All email software platforms compile this information, but they do not always tell you what the information means. For example, if you sent an email and there was a low open or click rate, you would have to do research on the email and campaign to figure out why that is. However, by hiring an email marketing expert, they will likely already know the reason and fix it quickly for you. If they do not know the reason, they would find out, so you do not have to.
Strategize
As this article explains, many mistakes can be made when it comes to sending emails. This includes sending an email just to send it, failure to personalize an email, no call to action, or sending too much information. However, by hiring an expert email marketer, they discuss this with you so that you are getting the information out to your potential customers in a personal, effective, and exciting way. This would include goals and timelines that align with your business goals and audience needs.
While an email marketer is a pro in email marketing strategy, they will understand all other types of digital marketing, including SEO and content marketing. As a result, when your business needs change, they will be able to seamlessly move your marketing needs in tandem with all other forms of marketing as well.
Hiring An Email Marketing Specialist
You may have decided that you are ready to hire an email marketing agency. Now here are some questions and answers that will help guide you with your search:
How Much Does It Cost To Develop An Email Marketing Strategy?
The short answer is anyone who owns a business. WebFX states the following:
“On average, a mid-size business can expect to spend $9-$1,000 per month on email marketing if they self-manage their campaigns (depending on the platform and number of subscribers) or $300-$500 per month if they work with an agency. Reports show that 82% of marketers spend between 0% and 20% of their marketing budgets on email. However, it’s recommended that you dedicate 16% of your total marketing budget to email marketing.”
How much you plan to pay for email marketing is up to your business needs but if you are a small business, hiring an agency could save you hundreds of dollars a month.
How Do I Find A Reliable Email Marketing Partner?
UpCity has this taken care of for you. We have curated a list of agencies that will fit your needs. If you are looking for an award-winning agency, you can also find them here.
What Skills Should I Look For In An Email Marketing Company?
Email marketing is about blending content and analytics to find high ROI and lead generation for your business. As a result, you should be looking for an agency or consultant that is driven by results but is able to be creative and write a compelling copy.
When doing your research be mindful of how they present themselves as a business and their core values. If you notice that their website or social media has typos throughout, the emails they would send out would likely have typos too. If they have an easy-to-read website with clear calls-to-action and use words that are results-driven, it is likely they will approach your email copywriting the same way.
What Questions Should I Ask When Choosing An Email Development Company?
In general, here are some questions you should ask when looking for an agency:
- What is your specialty?
- Are you a full-service agency or do you specialize in email marketing services?
- What is your pricing structure?
Many agencies or consultants may specialize in your type of business, even in email marketing. There are also many consultants that do other forms of digital marketing, such as SEO or content marketing. You may find during your search that you would prefer to work with an agency that provides full or ad hoc additional marketing services. If you do not, then you should eliminate these options from your search. However, the most important piece is the budget. Make sure you have a budget in place when starting your search for an email marketer.
Post-Hiring Expectations
If you have already decided to hire an email marketing agency, you can expect them to gather information, identify key opportunities, and use the information collected to build out the deliverables.
After signing with an agency, you can expect:
Conversations around business goals and objectives
Initial work gathering information and data on your existing email platform (if any) and other marketing platforms
Conducting a site audit to identify content gaps and technical opportunities
Using this information to create content and web assets; build links and visibility
Regular reports on successes and opportunities for change or growth
Do you have any questions about hiring the best email marketing team for your business? Let us know in the comments below or check out our picks for top digital marketing agencies in your area.