When people think of email marketing, they often assume it only involves sending bulk emails like newsletters or promotional content. However, email marketing can be divided into three distinct categories:
- Everyday Business Email
- Bulk Email
- Transactional Email
While each type serves a different purpose, all three can be optimised to enhance your marketing efforts.
1. Everyday Business Email
These are the daily emails sent to customers, prospects, suppliers, and partners using email clients like Outlook or Gmail. They are typically directed to one or a few recipients and are highly personalised.
Business emails are a valuable marketing tool because they come from a trusted sender to a trusted recipient, leading to nearly 100% deliverability and open rates. Despite this, many companies overlook everyday emails in their marketing strategies. Optimising this channel is cost-effective and can provide a strong return on investment (ROI) since businesses already own and control this communication medium.
2. Bulk Email
Bulk emails are sent to large groups of recipients, often in the hundreds or thousands. These emails usually contain generic content with some personalised elements, like the recipient’s name. It’s important that recipients have opted in to receive these emails, as sending unsolicited bulk emails is considered spam.
Common examples of bulk emails include newsletters, promotions, and surveys. When used correctly, bulk emails can effectively engage customers and prospects, helping to communicate your value propositions and stimulate interest in your offerings.
3. Transactional Email
Transactional emails are triggered by a specific action (or inaction) taken by a customer or subscriber. Examples include order confirmations, invoices, booking confirmations, and notifications. These emails are often crucial for the recipient, such as a confirmation of a purchase, and therefore, ensuring high deliverability is a top priority. Companies can achieve high engagement rates from recipients by optimising transactional emails to include subtle marketing messages.
In conclusion, for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the most relevant and widely used types of email marketing are Bulk Email and Everyday Business Email. Both deliver a high return on investment (ROI) and when used together, they become even more powerful.
Feel free to reach out if you need more information or clarification on any of these categories. We are always here to assist and provide guidance.
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Hermanus is an experienced email media and marketing strategist with a strong sales background. Passionate about helping clients and partners acquire, convert, and retain customers. As a proponent of authentic and honest messaging he believes that done is better than perfect.
Lover of wit, irony, golf, family and Africa.
