9 types of email marketing campaigns to consider sending

“Welcome” emails. “Re-engagement” emails. There are so many types of email marketing campaigns. What is one type of email campaign that more businesses should consider sending?

To help your company with utilizing email campaigns, we asked PR professionals and business leaders this question for their best email campaign ideas. From storytelling to check-ins, there are several different tips that may help your company create better email campaigns.

Here are nine types of email campaign that more businesses should consider sending:

• A Plain-Text Email from Someone Real
• Targeted Industry Email Campaigns
• Create a “What I Heard” Campaign
• Storytelling Email Campaigns
• Online Coupons
• Operational Emails
• Nurture and Alignment
• Check-Ins
• A/B Testing Campaigns

A Plain-Text Email from Someone Real

Too often, email campaigns are selling, selling, selling. From the copy, to the design, to the number of CTAs, marketing emails are blatantly trying to funnel us into the sale. Rarely, do I get to hear from the CEO or CMO, or someone at the front-lines about their story. It would be nice. I’d like to hear about real experiences. First-hand accounts. Maybe there was a customer that had a similar experience as me and there are learnings I can use. Or maybe something cool is going on at the company that I can benefit from knowing. All of this would be great. And even better if I can attach a name and a face to these stories. I’d like to feel like I’m heard and part of a community. Stop spamming me. Talk to me.

Husam Machlovi, With Pulp

Targeted Industry Email Campaigns

One of our main customer segments is healthcare and medical providers. Rather than mass-blasting a generic case study, a smart email campaign takes the time to segment a list by industry and target the content accordingly. For healthcare, we may highlight HIPPA compliance. In the finance industry, we may consider talking about GLBA compliance. The more targeted content is towards an industry, the stronger an audience will connect a use case to their business.

Eli Patashnik, iFax

Create a “What I Heard” Campaign

Years ago, after listening to many prospects inside of a specific industry, I heard a very consistent phrase, month after month. It didn’t matter if I was talking to someone in Seattle, or Pennsylvania, or New Mexico… this consistent phrase was said the same way across the various roles, inside this specific industry. An email campaign began with that consistent phrase reframed as a question in the subject line. As a result, the long tail sales cycle time went from 9 months to a little over 2 months.

Mark Jamnik, Enjoy Life Daily

Storytelling Email Campaigns

The one type of email campaign that businesses should send more are blogs and videos of their brand story, their team’s passion and why they love what they do. People will unsubscribe if all you do is send them sales and discount emails. Film your staff and tell your brand story—and send that out! I bet it will be your most click-throughs ever of any email campaign. Brands should also create emails of how they are staying safe during COVID and how you are keeping your consumers safe with photos and videos.

Trevor Rappleye, CorporateFilming.com

Online Coupons

Exclusive online deals encourage customers to spend more time on your website and purchase your products without leaving their homes. Such customer behavior is critical nowadays when extensive in-store shopping is often discouraged. You can combine online coupons with different marketing strategies in your email campaign. One idea is to create coupons for product bundles or use an upselling to increase your customers’ average order value. Whatever you decide, remember that even the best customer emails won’t work if you don’t spend time getting to know your customers and approach them with a communication style that fits their profile.

Dorota Lysienia, LiveCareer

Operational Emails

These campaigns contain operational information about businesses, such as, holiday closures, under maintenance reminders, pending system updates, or changes to your service availability. These emails are not exactly sales drivers but do not discount their importance. Its message is simple: A business is going out of its way to inform its valued customers about the constant updates and improvements that it’s going through to better serve its customers. It builds on trust and engagement, especially if it is crafted creatively to improve a business’ sales and image.

Anton Konopliov, Palma Violets Loans

Nurture and Alignment

Emails that should be sent more often are nurture and alignment emails. These are the ones that help your clients connect with your brand and want to learn more about your business and what they can do for them. From personal stories to employee shoutouts, choose something that makes your email stick out from the crowd of emails and has something compelling and interesting to offer.

Loren Howard, Prime Plus Mortgages

Check-Ins

A lot of benefits are coming from your mailing list. If you aren’t asking your customers or users to subscribe to your mailing list, you are losing out on future business. This can be done after the first purchase or sign-up, but also as a follow-up after the first purchase or interaction (for non-subscribers only of course). A simple email “check-in” if everything went well and pointing to the additional value your newsletter provides often already gets the job done. While this isn’t a typical email campaign, it can drive a lot of value.

Wesley Burger, CloudTask

A/B Testing Campaigns

A/B Testing is a great way to experiment what kind of campaigns will be successful. Not sure which subject line will get the most opens and clicks? Think there might be a certain time of day your customers are most likely to make a purchase through your campaign? Setting up A/B testing can confirm the answers to these questions and determine what kind of impact these campaigns can have.

Kayla Centeno, Markitors