Email marketing tip #5: The 4 most important email types that should be part of your email marketing

bysmartketeer

6.8K followers

Updated 6 years ago

I admit, the decision of what to send to your clients, prospects and actual customers can be somehow intimidating especially for beginners. Don’t worry though, it’s not an exact science, and I have a very simple, yet highly effective tip for you … Whenever you are crafting a new email, ask yourself a simple question: how can I improve my customers’ day today? Just follow this simple rule and the results will come …

OK. There are four main email types or categories you can use in your email marketing and each one has its own characteristics and conventions. Let’s check them out together:

1. Communication emails

Well, the term is quite self-descriptive … These emails will have pure communication purposes and they may include account confirmations, TOS updates, triggered transactional emails, purchase-related information (order status, shopping cart abandonment, purchase confirmation, shipping details, etc), simple “chatting” messages, pitch emails, etc.

Evidently, at the end of the day every single email – even a basic communication email – is about revenue generation, so adding a basic “white-handed” marketing element to an essential communication email is acceptable and recommended. Of course, I am talking about delicate, fine-spun tactics, for example simple, short notes like “you may be also interested in …” or “customers who bought this product also purchased …”.

2. Sales emails

These are your main revenue generators. Basically, these are promotions, product announcements, coupon codes, discounted opportunities, tailored individual offers, unique incentives, etc. These dedicated emails usually are well-targeted, personalized and visually appealing content pieces and they always contain a strong call to action element.

3. Relationship-building emails

As you have already guessed, these emails are about establishing an ongoing long-term relationship with your customers, partners, collaborators, etc. Often, they will contain story elements (company story, personal experiences, etc), useful insights, relevant tips, valuable market trends, etc. A well-crafted, value-packed and nicely branded relationship-building email has a major unique advantage: over time will help you to get your customers in the habit of opening your emails and clicking your links.

Similarly to the previously mentioned communication emails, they should also contain at least one lightweight marketing element, such as an eye-catchy call to action or a link to a given resource, sales page, etc.

4. Newsletters

The main goal of these periodic emails is to – regularly – share useful new information with your clients and subscribers. Usually, they will include news about you and your business, product announcements, answers to frequently asked questions, links to relevant and useful resources, information about past or upcoming events, etc. Also, they are typically image-heavy and well-branded content-pieces often structured like chronological news groups.

The newsletters are representing an excellent way to develop a habit of regular communication, to share a wide variety of information, to keep your customers and subscribers engaged, and more importantly to get valuable insights into the mindset of your target audience and to discover what your customers are really interested in.

Wrapping it up

In a well-balanced email marketing you will – you should – use all these email types to find the perfect balance that really serves value to your customers in accordance with your business goals and your overall marketing strategy. People respond to different content types and formats in different ways, so using a wide variety of content structures and email formats in your email marketing, will help you to send the perfect message to the right audience group.

And one more thing … From a strictly technological point of view there is a difference between a one-time message sent “manually” to your list (for example, a newsletter) and an automated email series containing multiple messages scheduled for different dates (for example, a marketing funnel). The former one is known as a broadcast email and the latter one is the famous autoresponder email.