Email marketing is a direct marketing strategy that uses email to communicate with current and potential customers. Its primary purpose is to promote products or services, build customer loyalty, and share company updates. By sending targeted messages, businesses can nurture leads, drive sales, and maintain relationships with their audience.
Always prioritize permission-based marketing by building your email list organically instead of purchasing one. This ensures you're contacting an engaged audience. Segment your list to send highly relevant content, which boosts engagement and builds trust with your subscribers.
Craft compelling subject lines and keep your design simple and mobile-friendly. Structure your message to be easily scannable with a clear call to action. Continuously monitor your analytics and use A/B testing to refine your strategy and improve performance over time.
Email marketing platforms, often called Email Service Providers (ESPs), are essential for managing campaigns efficiently. These tools provide a suite of features to streamline the process of creating, sending, and analyzing email communications at scale. They help automate workflows and ensure messages are targeted and compliant.
While related, email marketing and digital marketing serve distinct strategic functions for businesses.
Measuring the success of your email campaigns is crucial for understanding what resonates with your audience and optimizing future efforts. By tracking key performance indicators (KPIs), you can make data-driven decisions to improve engagement and ROI.
Navigating the complexities of email marketing involves overcoming several persistent hurdles to ensure campaign success.
How often should I email my list?
There's no magic number. Frequency depends on your audience's expectations and the value you provide. Test different cadences, from daily to monthly, and monitor engagement metrics like open rates and unsubscribes to find the sweet spot for your specific segments.
How can I improve my email deliverability?
Focus on list hygiene by regularly removing inactive subscribers. Use a reputable email service provider, authenticate your domain with SPF and DKIM, and avoid spammy subject lines. Consistent sending volume and high engagement also signal trustworthiness to inbox providers.
What's more important: open rate or click-through rate?
While open rates indicate subject line effectiveness, click-through rate (CTR) is a stronger measure of engagement and content relevance. A high CTR shows your message resonated enough to inspire action, which is a more direct indicator of campaign success.
A Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is a concise statement that clearly communicates the unique benefit a customer gets from your product or service.
Customer centricity is a business approach that puts the customer at the heart of every decision, aiming to build loyalty and long-term value.
Dynamic data is information that updates in real-time. Unlike static data, it reflects the most current state of information automatically.
Subscription models are a business strategy where customers pay a recurring fee at regular intervals for access to a product or service.
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CPM, or Cost Per Mille, is a key advertising metric. It's the cost an advertiser pays for one thousand views or impressions of a single ad.
Sales prospecting software automates the process of finding, contacting, and tracking potential customers to help sales teams build their pipeline.
A vertical market is a niche where businesses cater to a specific industry or group of customers with specialized needs, not the mass market.
Technographics is data that outlines a company’s technology stack, helping B2B teams identify prospects based on the software and hardware they use.
Data hygiene is the practice of ensuring your customer data is clean, accurate, and up-to-date by removing duplicates and correcting errors.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) software helps teams coordinate personalized marketing and sales efforts to land high-value customer accounts.
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An Application Programming Interface (API) is a set of rules that lets different software applications talk to each other and share information.
Sales performance metrics are key data points that measure a sales team's effectiveness in achieving its goals and driving revenue.
Webhooks are automated messages sent by an app when a specific event occurs. They push real-time data to another app's unique URL.
Customer Retention Cost (CRC) is the total amount a company spends to keep an existing customer over a certain period of time.
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Customer experience (CX) is a customer's total perception of your business, based on every interaction across the entire customer lifecycle.
Compliance testing ensures a product or system adheres to specific regulations, standards, or policies set by governing bodies or organizations.
Social selling is the art of using social media to find, connect with, build relationships with, and nurture sales prospects.
Outside sales reps sell products/services in person, traveling to meet clients and close deals face-to-face, outside of a traditional office.
A touchpoint is any time a potential or existing customer comes in contact with your brand, from seeing an ad to receiving an email.
OAuth is an open standard for access delegation. It lets you grant apps access to your data on other services without sharing your password.
Inbound lead generation is the process of attracting potential customers to your business with valuable content and tailored experiences.
NoSQL ("Not only SQL") databases offer a flexible alternative to relational models, excelling at managing large and unstructured data sets.
Account management is the post-sales practice of building and nurturing long-term relationships with a company's most valuable clients.
A sales enablement platform centralizes content, training, and analytics to help sales teams engage buyers and effectively close deals.
Event tracking is the method of collecting data on specific user actions, or 'events,' on a website or app, such as clicks or downloads.
A Sales Director leads a sales team, develops strategies, and is responsible for meeting a company's revenue targets.
A channel partner is a company that works with a manufacturer or producer to market and sell their products, software, or services to customers.
Siloed describes the isolation of data, teams, or systems within a company, which blocks collaboration and creates operational bottlenecks.
Account-Based Selling is a B2B strategy where sales and marketing treat high-value accounts as markets of one, using personalized outreach.
Multi-channel marketing uses various platforms—like email, social media, and direct mail—to engage with customers wherever they are.
A Digital Sales Room is a private online space where sellers share all relevant content with buyers to streamline the sales cycle.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) is a web security vulnerability that allows attackers to inject malicious scripts into trusted websites.
Customer buying signals are the actions, behaviors, or statements a prospect makes that indicate they are moving towards a purchase decision.
Predictive analytics uses historical data, statistical algorithms, and machine learning to identify the likelihood of future outcomes.
A complex sale features a long sales cycle, multiple stakeholders, and a high-value transaction, demanding a strategic, consultative approach.
Channel partners are third-party firms that help market and sell a company's products or services, acting as an indirect sales force.
Employee advocacy is the promotion of an organization by its staff members, who share positive messages and content through their personal networks.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a digital marketing strategy that uses paid tactics to increase a website's visibility in search engine results.
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The decision stage is where a well-researched buyer chooses a vendor. They compare specific products and pricing before making their final purchase.
Cold emailing is sending unsolicited emails to potential customers you haven't contacted before, aiming to start a business conversation.
Overcoming objections is the process of addressing and resolving a prospect's concerns or hesitations to move a sale forward.
Intent data tracks a user's online behavior—like searches and site visits—to identify signals that they are ready to make a purchase.
A value chain is the series of business activities required to create and deliver a product or service, from conception to the final customer.
A firewall is a digital barrier that protects a network by monitoring and controlling traffic, blocking unauthorized access and malicious content.
Content syndication is the process of republishing your web content on third-party sites to reach a much wider audience.
Think of a trademark as a brand's unique signature—a word, symbol, or phrase that legally protects its identity and sets it apart from the rest.
Average Selling Price (ASP) is the average price at which a particular product or service is sold across different markets and channels.
A sales dialer is software that automates outbound calling for sales teams, allowing reps to connect with more prospects in less time.
A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is a tool that centralizes customer data to help manage interactions and nurture relationships.
Reverse logistics is the process for goods moving from the customer back to the seller, covering returns, repairs, recycling, and disposal.
Inside sales metrics are quantifiable measures used to track the performance, activities, and effectiveness of an internal sales team.
A sales demonstration is a presentation showing a prospect how a product or service works and how it can solve their specific problems.
AI data enrichment uses artificial intelligence to automatically enhance and update raw data, making it more complete, accurate, and valuable.
Phishing attacks are fraudulent attempts to trick you into revealing sensitive data like passwords or financial info by posing as a trusted source.
A performance plan is a formal document outlining an employee's goals, expectations, and metrics for success over a specific period.
A sales stack is the suite of tech tools—from CRMs to prospecting software—that sales reps use to close deals faster and more efficiently.
Direct-to-consumer (D2C) is a sales strategy where a brand sells its products directly to end customers, bypassing any third-party retailers.
CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) software is a sales tool for creating accurate, configurable quotes for complex products and services.
A data pipeline is a set of automated processes that move raw data from various sources to a destination for storage and analysis.
A Statement of Work (SoW) is a document that outlines a project's scope, deliverables, and timeline. It acts as a contract between parties.
User-generated content (UGC) refers to any form of content, like images, videos, or text, created and shared by users on online platforms.
Functional testing verifies that software performs its intended functions as specified in the requirements, ensuring it works as users expect.
Workflow automation uses rule-based logic to run a sequence of tasks that would otherwise require manual human effort to complete.
Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) is the portion of the market you can realistically capture with your current resources, sales, and marketing.
Programmatic display campaigns use automation to buy and sell digital ad space in real-time, targeting specific audiences across the web.
Real-time data processing is the method of analyzing data the instant it's generated, enabling immediate actions and decision-making.
Key accounts are a company's most valuable customers, vital due to their significant revenue contribution and strategic importance for growth.
Sales intelligence is technology that gathers and analyzes data to help salespeople find and understand prospects and existing clients.
Total Addressable Market (TAM) represents the maximum revenue a company can earn by selling its product or service in a specific market.
Customer data analysis is the process of examining customer information to uncover insights that drive business decisions and improve experiences.
Time on site, or session duration, is a key web metric that tracks the total time a visitor spends on your website during a single visit.
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is the predictable, recurring income a business expects to receive each month from all active subscriptions.
Platform as a Service (PaaS) is a cloud model where a provider delivers a platform for users to develop, run, and manage applications online.
An account is a company or organization that you're targeting for sales. It can be a prospective, current, or even a past customer.
LinkedIn InMail messages are a premium feature that lets you directly message any LinkedIn member, even if you're not connected to them.
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Call analytics is the practice of analyzing phone call data to extract insights, track key metrics, and improve overall business performance.
Salesforce Object Query Language (SOQL) is a query language used to search your organization's Salesforce data for specific information.
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Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is the total revenue a business expects from a customer throughout their entire relationship with the company.
Contact data is the set of details, like names, emails, and phone numbers, used to get in touch with a person or business for outreach.
A sales bundle groups multiple products or services into a single offering, often at a discounted price to provide greater value to customers.
De-duping, or data deduplication, is the process of eliminating duplicate copies of data within a dataset to improve accuracy and save space.
A Letter of Intent (LOI) is a document declaring the preliminary commitment of one party to do business with another, outlining the chief terms.
Generic keywords are broad search terms that lack specific details like brand or location. They attract a wide audience with less specific intent.
Pipeline management is the process of tracking and managing potential customers as they move through the different stages of your sales process.
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Guided selling simplifies complex sales by giving reps step-by-step instructions and data-driven recommendations to close deals faster.
Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) is the portion of the market your business can realistically serve with its current products and sales channels.
A version control system (VCS) tracks changes to files over time, allowing you to recall specific versions and collaborate without conflicts.
Account match rate is the percentage of target accounts successfully identified and matched against a specific database or data provider.
Forward revenue is the total value of all active, committed contracts that are expected to be recognized as revenue in the future.
A sales call is a real-time conversation between a salesperson and a prospect, aiming to persuade them to purchase a product or service.
The buying cycle is the journey a customer takes from first realizing they have a need to making the final purchase decision.
Cold calling is a sales tactic where reps contact potential customers by phone who haven't previously expressed interest in their product or service.
Trigger marketing uses customer actions or events to automatically send highly relevant, personalized messages at the perfect moment.