Email marketing is an essential component of an outreach strategy for all small businesses. This investment creates product or service awareness, establishes authority, and boosts sales.
Once you’ve created an established email marketing list, your messages can generate more leads, build relationships, and formalize sales funnels.
The best way to start this process is to send different marketing emails to your subscribers. By varying the information delivered, more value gets added to this relationship.
That extra value is what often leads to more transactions.
Why Are Different Email Types Required for Small Business Communication?
While collecting email addresses is an essential part of this marketing effort, delivering something valuable to each recipient is crucial. Without the brand expertise associations from this messaging, a competitor always has a foot in the door.
By sending different marketing emails to active subscriber lists, you’re eliminating the risk of boredom while creating inspirational moments. That combination keeps people engaged.
If you’re ready to demonstrate that you’re prepared to deliver exceptional experiences as a small business, these emails are the ones to include with each outreach effort.
What Are the 7 Marketing Emails That Small Businesses Need?
Mixing different email content types when reaching out to readers and subscribers encourages engagement. Differentiated content stands out from the competition, fosters relationships, and creates anticipation for each message.
Here are the seven marketing emails all small businesses should start perfecting today.
1. Welcome Emails
The welcome email is sent to new subscribers after they sign up or opt into your email list. It’s one of the most common messages that consumers see because we all know good manners are essential to the relationship-building process.
This marketing email serves a second function. It’s also a way to formally introduce a brand to new leads.
Since the open rate for welcome emails is typically higher than other messages, the goal should be to create an attractive and informative message that delivers a positive first impression. The following information items should be included as part of the content.
- Greet each new subscriber personally and with as much individualism as possible.
- Give the reader an idea of what to expect from your small business in future emails.
- Highlight the best features of your products or services while offering instructions on how to interact with your brand in the best way.
People wouldn’t sign up for an email marketing list if they had no interest in what a small business offered. The purpose of this message is to reinforce the decision the reader made to join your community.
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2. Promotional Messages
Many people sign up to receive emails because they want access to exclusive promotions and discounts.
Although you don’t want to send a sales pitch with every message, it can be helpful to deliver occasional promotional messages that provide this valuable resource.
The goal of this email type is to motivate subscribers to buy something from your small business. It’s nice to have an extensive subscriber list, but it’s even better when you can turn them into paying customers!
Many small businesses make the mistake of sending an email blast to everyone on a list when using this message. It’s a “the more, the merrier” attitude that does more harm than good in most situations.
It is critical to segment the email recipients on your list. When the promotional messaging is personalized based on identified needs and preferences, it’s much easier to achieve a higher conversion rate from each effort.
The best email marketing strategy for this message type is to be as specific as possible. Be clear about your goals and the value offered to each reader in return.
3. Newsletters
This email type is a popular option for small businesses because it delivers valuable information in a template that’s easy to read and understand. It usually contains the latest info about a blog, the company, product updates, and anything else that subscribers might consider valuable.
Newsletters allow a small business to stay in regular contact with its readership. By incorporating links to social media, blogs, and more, it’s possible to use this email type to boost traffic in other directions.
The key to a successful newsletter email is to create well-structured and engaging content. These steps can help to make that result happen.
- Define your content goals. How will you measure success with a newsletter? Do you want a specific open rate, or are you trying to push your conversion rate higher?
- Understand the audience. Content is only valuable when the readers find something of interest in the material. The newsletter needs to connect with enough people in the right way, which means you must understand how each demographic will view the material. Someone who works as an executive above the age of 55 might see the information sent in a different way than a 19-year-old college student.
- Focus on keywords. Even though an email campaign isn’t focused on optimization, readers still have mental triggers when they see specific words or phrases. These prompts can help keep people engaged, provide a call to action, or encourage more brand research.
When composing a newsletter email, it helps to create an outline of what you want to convey. Review at least three critical needs, incorporate your top terms, and then think about how that information can meet the reader’s expectations.
4. Announcement Emails
Some emails can function as a press release when sent to your various lists. It’s an excellent way to introduce a new product or service from your small business.
Don’t reserve this email type for that function alone. If your current products or services are getting an update, you can send out this message to encourage more interaction. It can even be a way to promote a new event your small business is hosting.
Some companies even use announcement emails to talk about their charitable donations, community volunteerism, or the great things their employees are doing.
The key to a successful announcement email is to keep it as simple as possible. You want the messaging to convey excitement about what is happening.
That process begins by clearly stating the announcement in the email’s subject line. You can follow it up with a brief description of the new product or service – or info about the upcoming event.
When structured correctly, an announcement email fulfills the value propositions promised to readers when they subscribed or opted into your list initially. It ensures a small business keeps its branding at the top of the mind and builds more relationship connections.
5. Lead Nurturing Emails
Some people on your email marketing lists have already become customers. When you send out a lead nurturing message to this audience segment, the goal should be to reinforce your small business’s value. Those consistent reminders encourage the reader to keep coming back to you whenever they need what you provide.
Others on your email marketing lists haven’t purchased anything from your small business yet. For this audience segment, the goal is to inspire the reader to buy something by reinforcing your products or services’ value.
Can you see how sending out one message or the other to everyone doesn’t make much sense? If someone already understands the value that your small business provides, you don’t need to convince them a second time!
This email type gives small businesses a chance to optimize their lead nurturing strategy. It works in conjunction with the following ideas to continue the engagement-building process until those readers become customers.
- Host educational webinars. Most leads are at a stage where education and information are necessary to reach a purchasing decision. Although the best lead engagement tactic is to host an in-person event, that option isn’t practical through email marketing. The best alternative is to host a webinar that guides each targeted audience segment through your sales funnels.
- Use multiple channels. Email marketing might nurture 60% of your leads. That leaves the other 40% thinking that you don’t care about them. Instead of letting them delete your messages or decide to unsubscribe, use different channels to keep them engaged. Social medial promotions, retargeted ads, and other strategies can be quite effective.
- Automate the process when possible. Lead nurturing doesn’t need to be a complicated task. You can create emails that trigger whenever people take specific actions, such as a thank you note whenever a download or purchase occurs. If someone abandons a cart, a quick reminder could bring that person back.
6. Special Occasion Emails
Many small businesses confuse this email type with their announcement emails. If you’re hosting a semi-annual sale, that isn’t a special occasion.
This email type should be reserved to celebrate the milestones of your small business. If you’ve hit a specific number of followers on social media, made it to a special anniversary, or want to celebrate a holiday, you’ve got something to share in this category.
Instead of focusing on your small business only with this email type, try to put the focus on each customer. If you know when their birthday is, consider sending them a note with your well wishes and an exclusive discount.
If someone has been a customer with your small business for five years, that’d be something else to celebrate with a special occasion email.
The difference between this option and the announcement email is the celebratory spirit that serves as the content’s foundation. It should make the reader feel important and special.
When you can accomplish that goal, it can differentiate your small business from the competition.
7. Transactional Emails
The transactional email is the message that gets triggered when a subscriber completes a specific action. Technically, a welcome email fits into this category because it gets sent to a reader after signing up to receive this information.
Although transactional emails seem boring or dull, they can be valuable because of the reminders they offer. Imagine that one of your leads signed up for a free trial of your services, but they didn’t find the experience as appealing as they’d hoped it would be.
By sending an email reminder that the free trial is about to expire, you’re communicating to the individual that your small business cares about them more than your profit margin. Even though you might lose a little revenue, that one message might trigger a positive word-of-mouth referral that brings another lead in your direction.
Some of the most common transactional emails small businesses send can include payment notifications, subscription confirmations, and account changes.
The objective of this email type is to deliver required information to the individual. Since most people anticipate these messages, the click-through rate tends to be relatively high. That means you get more brand engagement, which can eventually lead to more sales opportunities.
Is Your Small Business Engaging Appropriately Through Email?
Imagine that someone is interested in what your small business offers. When that person signs up for your email marketing list, there’s an expectation that you’ll provide them with something valuable in exchange for some personal information.
That exchange is a transaction that starts to build trust. If your emails don’t deliver something valuable, it won’t take long for that person to unsubscribe.
The best emails are individualized, adaptable, and focused on creating a valuable experience. Instead of focusing on your business, think about what the reader wants to gain by interacting with each email type.
You can educate readers about your products or services by helping them complete the onboarding process through a welcome email sequence.
With regular newsletters, your small business can inform potential customers about industry updates or company-related information.
You can even use emails to engage leads that have become inactive for various reasons. Each message has a specific purpose. That’s why understanding the different types is a critical part of every email marketing campaign. You can focus on the core details of each outreach effort to ensure each reader understands the value your small business offers.
