The term “email blast” is often tossed around whenever the subject of a conversation is email marketing. But the question is: what exactly is an email blast? And most important of all, how does it work?
Let’s start off by talking about what the concept of an email blast actually is.
Imagine you have a whole bunch of contacts and you want to send out a promotional email to all of them. Are you going to email each contact individually? While the idea of emailing each one of your contacts and adding your personal touch does sound cool, it’s not actually feasible. It would take a whole lot of time which you can devote to handling different aspects of your business.
That’s where the idea of an email blast comes in.
The term itself is pretty self-explanatory:
You write a single email, and then you send that out to every single contact you would like to reach. In other words, you blast them with emails. Since blasting anyone with anything does not really have a positive ring to it, many marketers prefer to use the gentler term of “email campaigns” when describing this method of email marketing.
This “one-size-fits-all” approach to marketing allows you to reach all of your audience base at the same time. However, it can have its downsides, which we will talk about later.
What is an Eblast Usually Used For?
Since you can target everyone in your contact list with this method, it is usually used to send out promotional material, special offers, and newsletters. Basically, anything that’s interesting enough to pull traffic to your website, and help generate sales.
Do Email Blasts Actually Work?
Well, yes and no.
If you stick to the traditional form of an email blast, it will probably not yield fruitful results. Just like we mentioned earlier, blasting people does not really sound like a fun thing to do.
Generally, when people think of email blasts (especially ones that are poorly carried out), they often end up with one word: spam.
That’s right. Because of their lack of definitive strategy, email blasts are generally associated with spam. You don’t want that, do you?
You don’t want your email blast to scare away your contacts and make them unsubscribe. You want it to attract them more toward your products and services. You want that click-through rate to go higher, not lower!
A lot of people receiving email blasts tend to quickly mark them as spam, and boot off the sender, marking the email as spam in the process. That’s because email blasts usually come out of the blue, and are very, very random. Remember when we said a “one-size-fits-all” approach might be problematic? This is why. Email blasts are sent out to everyone, regardless of their segment. And this is the scenario in which email blasting will not work.
But here’s the good news: when executed properly, email blasts can and will work!
Here’s a friendly tip: in order to effectively use an email blast, you need to change your perspective toward them and redefine the whole concept!
There are ways of doing that!
Let’s talk about how to send an email blast – let’s call it an email campaign for a change – that is effective and worth your effort!
Number 1: Declutter Your Email List and Stop Blasting Right and Left!
We’re willing to bet that not all of your subscribers fit the same demographic of people. When preparing a decent email campaign – that’s right, not a blast – you need to factor in the location, and other characteristics of your contacts to create different lists. What you actually achieve by this is called audience segmentation.
Why do this? Well, because once your audience is segmented into different categories, you can send out more personalized emails that will reach someone who is actually interested in reading them!
Another thing you need to keep in mind is the factor of sending emails to clean data. To do so, you need to hygiene your data, which is something that we at PMG360 handle, as well as Data Verification. Prior to licensing a contact to a customer, we run it through a 15-step quality control process. This extensive process includes multiple email communications, third-party verification, engagement tracking, and social media cross-referencing to ensure that the data is current and accurate.
Number 2: Trust an Email Marketing Services Provider with Your Campaign
Does step number one sound like too much of a headache? No worries! Email marketing service providers, like PMG360, are there for the rescue! An Email Marketing Services Provider will monitor the entire process for you, making sure that your emails hit more than they miss! While they are taking care of the campaign side of things, you will have more freedom to focus on other aspects of your business. An Email Marketing Services Provider will become especially useful as your contact list gets bigger and is harder to manage on your own!
Number 3: Write to Hit the Bullseye!
Even if a contact receives the right email through your campaign, they will ignore it if the content is not attractive enough! This is where marketers join forces with writers! By working closely with copywriters, you need to develop content that encourages the reader to do something. In layman’s terms, this is called a “call-to-action” (CTA) statement. An email campaign without an effective CTA is like an army waiting to attack, but never hearing the commander yell “charge!”
To Wrap Things Up:
As you can see, email campaigns or blasts can be effective tools if and when executed correctly. You can target specific segments of your audience with the right campaign, and engage them in the message in the email they receive.
Nowadays, the more traditional email blasting method is utilized to notify contacts about any essential changes in policies or emergency messages such as news related to the COVID-19 pandemic etc.
Wondering what is the most appropriate way of organizing an email campaign? Our team of experts will be more than happy to assist you in creating email campaigns that actually work and produce the best possible results! Contact us now to see how we can help your business!
Related Articles
