Marketing through emails has the highest ROI but If you open your mail inbox, you are sure to see a seemingly countless number of emails from a limitless number of brands.
You may be surprised to know that not every one of these emails is designed to get you to buy a service or a product.
There are a wide variety of uses for email communication.
To make things simpler try looking at emails from a single brand and ask yourself “what is each email trying to do”.
Do you notice any patterns in the email communication?
If you don’t want to look at your own inbox there are other great resources like Really Good Emails to give you plenty of emails to take a look at.
There are two main classifications of emails and what they mean.
- Manual marketing emails
- Automated marketing emails
Manual marketing emails
In reality, you can automate a lot of these but I decided to keep them in the manual section because they require a bit more personalization and forethought than some of the automated emails.
There are different types of manual emails like:
Welcome or Onboarding Emails
Welcome or onboarding emails this is one that you will likely want to automate as your brand grows but what exactly is a welcome email?
Naturally when someone joins your mailing list or enters the top of your sales funnel you want to greet them and let them know a little about your brand this email is not the place to start selling
here we want to make new subscribers feel comfortable and give them all of the resources they need. You can include links to your knowledge base or other educational or informational resources to help prospects learn more about your solution, brand, and products. Use this email to draw up interest and create qualified leads.
Newsletter or digest email
Like welcome emails, these emails typically do not include promotions however they may mention new products or services and provide more background information about your product for example we send a bi-weekly digest with updates from our blog. This provides subscribers with meaningful articles to help them learn more about the world of marketing.
While newsletters and digests don’t make you sales directly, they allow your customers and potential customers to learn more about your sphere and how you can solve their pain points.
Event emails
As you can imagine these emails are specific to online and offline events this typically is a series of emails starting with details about the event reminders and post-event follow-ups.
We’ll talk about the automated parts of this series in a little bit but let’s focus on the initial event promotion email for now.
Here you want to design a template that has all of the practical information the date time and location of the event but more importantly, we use this email to hype up your event and focus on the benefits awaiting attendees.
These emails can be fun to design and let you get creative.
Lead Nurturing emails
These are another prime target for automation in the future but when you’re just getting started they require thought and specialization so we’ll leave them in this category the purpose of lead nurturing emails is to keep a lead interested and pave the way for a future sale. Again you want to provide information but take it a step further. This time here you can consider offering a demo or trial of your product or service. Use this email to nudge prospects closer to making a purchase by reminding them of the benefits of your product.
Promotional emails
These are likely what comes to mind when you think about emails from brands.
Unlike the previous emails, these are mostly for leads at the bottom of your funnel.
Here you want to show off new products sales or any other promotions you’re offering.
There are a bunch of different styles for this email but there are a few that apply to everyone.
First, we have a standard promotion.
This is the email that you send anytime you’re offering a discount or want to promote a new product.
You can use these a few times a year to drum up sales and provide hype for your new products.
Promotional emails are used for promotion.
Use this to offer a discount or show the new products.
You can use these at holidays or create a flash sale if you’re using a flash sale or time-based discount program it’s a good idea to include a countdown timer in your email
That wraps up the five most common “manual” emails again we’re putting air quotes around “manual” because you can really automate anything but these emails will require more careful design and forethought compared to some of the emails in the next category.
Automated Marketing Email
Transactional emails
The first type of automated email is the most common type of email like confirmation emails, placing an order confirmation email, updating your account info confirmation email.
Anything that a user does that you want to have a record of is a prime target for a confirmation email diving into automation.
Anyone can easily set up confirmation emails with Sendpulse in one sitting.
Milestone email
Have you ever gotten an email from a brand on your birthday?
That’s a milestone email.
Use this email to congratulate your customers on their birthday, relevant holidays, or after having an account with you for a set period of time.
These emails can drive brand loyalty and show customers that you care about them.
You can include a small discount or freebie with your milestone email to drive even more sales.
Re-engagement Emails
It’s a fact of life that even if you’re interested in what you’re saying, not everyone else is.
It’s common for leads to lose interest or forget about your brand altogether.
That’s where re-engagement emails come in.
These emails can be used to share a new piece of killer content or even offer a small discount for the lead to return.
When done correctly, re-engagement emails remind leads why they were interested in your brand.
To begin with, just make sure that the email is interesting enough to grab the attention or you risk losing the lead forever.
Abandoned Cart
Similar to re-engagement emails, we have abandoned cart emails.
These are emails sent after someone starts shopping on your site but does not complete their purchase.
Use these emails to remind customers to be what they are missing out on here.
It is best to include images of the products your customer was looking at.
Your goal is to make the customer’s mouth watered with what they are missing out on.
If your first abandoned cart email was not successful you can consider offering a small discount to entice the lead to complete their purchase.
Subscription or Information Trial Email
Lastly, these keep customers up to date on what’s going on with their service subscription. When someone starts a new subscription you can send an automated email with information about the length of their subscription.
Likewise, it’s a good idea to send an update when one’s subscription is ending soon to entice them to re-up their subscription.
These are similar to re-engagement emails and are very helpful in bringing more people back to your website with more subscriptions.
So now you know about five of the most common manual and automated emails.
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