14 Type of Email Marketing Campaigns You Need to Send Your Subscribers.

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We’ve already talked about which email marketing software to use and Why an email list is important for your business. But what about the different type of email marketing campaigns you can create when sending out emails?

The first email was sent back in 1971, so you know how old email is and how big a part of it still plays in Digital Marketing. Despite, being old-school, email is easily one of the most effective marketing channels in terms of ROI. Email usage continues to grow approximately 4% year-over-year and has no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

More than 40% of people use Email for communication in business and daily life. Email marketing is a powerful way to connect with people and a direct way to reach out to your target customers. Email marketing is cost-effective and inexpensive. Each person who has a social media account has an email account.

There are as many email accounts as social media altogether (such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and more). So, people will check their emails all the time, and you might get a conversion.

That’s where you’ll need different types of email marketing campaigns to keep your readers engaged.

In this post, we’ll cover 14 types of email marketing campaigns and how to create them, to send to your email subscriber. While collecting emails and encouraging website visitors to opt into your list is a major process that requires a lot of time and effort to perfect.

The end goal is not to have a massive list of subscribers. At some point, you have to convert these subscribers into customers. Effectively turning all those email leads to paying customers really depends on how you create email marketing campaigns.

Things to know before you start your email marketing campaigns:

1. First, you’ll need to choose and set up an email service provider. So let me walk you through the best ones and which are used by, almost, everyone.

I’ve used both ConvertKit and AWeber on separate websites, and I’ve loved both (Read the difference between ConvertKit and AWeber). But which one I would highly recommend you to start with? It’s ConvertKit. It’s really easy to set up and work with.

Reasons why I use ConvertKit:

• It helped me move from 500+ to 20000+ within 6 months.
• Easy to design email templates without the need to code.
• High open rates
• Tag feature
• Hundreds of Landing pages.
• Several integrations
• Sequences.
• You can also create different lists for different reasons.
• ConvertKit is actually cheap compared to other service providers.
• Un-opened can receive automated broadcasts the second time.
• Form Segmentation allowed within emails.
• Visual automation.

This article completely shows how to get started with ConvertKit.

And it’s true. Once I started putting my time in it, I was quickly able to build subscribers from 0 to 500 without putting in much effort. And the tool which helped me a lot was ConvertKit. It’s so easy to set up and create amazing templates, you don’t even need to know to code.

2. Before you can create a campaign, you’ll need a list. To earn more about list creation, read how to build an email list.

3. Create and design a certain type of campaign which will work for you.

Get started with ConvertKit Today!

Why do you need a different type of email marketing campaigns?

The problem with many ineffective types of email marketing campaigns isn’t that they send emails too frequently or infrequently. It’s that the content they’re sending isn’t differentiated enough. If you’re simply sending out the same old weekly newsletter over and over again, your subscribers will stop being interested in your emails before they have a chance to convert.

Oftentimes, marketers do give a lot of thought to email design when it comes time to launch a campaign. It makes perfect sense: You have an awesome new announcement or event, and you want to kick off the campaign right with a darn good-looking email.

The other problem with ineffective email marketing campaigns is they don’t include a good mix of “value” based emails versus “selling” emails. If you are constantly sending either one or the other type of email marketing campaigns, you’ll either turn your subscribers off or you’ll never sell anything.

Be willing to mix things up. Your subscribers will appreciate it, and you’ll enjoy the benefit of higher open and click-through rates, leading to increased sales.

But what about the follow-up email? Or any email that may be included in an automated email workflow? It’s time to stop focusing on the design of just your biggest sends and spend some time spiffing up all those other emails you’re sending.

These are the 14 types of email marketing campaigns your business should be sent to subscribers. But don’t consider this a definitive list — every brand is different so tailor your strategy accordingly.

Will Email Marketing Work For You?

According to Marketing sherpa, 61% of your audience loves to receive promotional emails weekly.

You can tell what type of email marketing campaigns people like, based on their actions. If they are adding products to their cart and leave it, you can send them a reminder with an abandoned cart email.

When people subscribed to your email list for the first time send them a welcome series email.

You might probably know that email marketing is the best way to sell online, but after growing your email list, then what next?

Email marketing campaigns are used to drive sales for businesses; however, a well-written email can be a powerful marketing tool in improving your brand loyalty and expanding the company to the next level.

Most of the email campaigns and marketing automation platforms offer you a wide range of templates and campaign functions that can create multiple marketing opportunities.

14 Types of Email Marketing Campaign

1. Sign up forms

Once you select if you want to go with ConvertKit or AWeber or someone else, the next thing you need to do is create some sign-up boxes to up on your site for people to sign up for your emails. Most email service providers make this pretty straightforward.

Simply follow their instructions to create a box, form or landing page, then copy the code and place it on your site.

If you’re not sure how to create a sign-up form on ConvertKit, read here.

But here’s the most important thing: Don’t just create one form, stick it in your sidebar and think you are done. No. If you really want to maximize your subscribers, you have to put sign-up forms in multiple locations.

Here are some ideas:

• On your home page (preferably in more than one place — e.g. at the top and the bottom)
• You’re ‘About me’ page (if someone’s taken the time to read all about you, there’s a good chance they may also want to subscribe to your list)
• After every post (if someone has taken the time to read all the way to the bottom of a post, they are the kind of person you want on your list)
• In the post itself (So many people will never read to the bottom of your post…so try and include a form or a link to a landing page higher up within the text of your post.)
• A landing page (Make one of these and then you can link to it from anywhere…in the text of a post or page, your social media bios, bios on guest posts, your email signature…)
• Your sidebar — well you might as well do that too — just don’t expect to get much response from that one…I think about 2% of my subscribers come from my sidebar!!
• Add Pop-up forms.

There are also other ways you can do it.

2. The welcome email

Congrats, you’ve gained a new subscriber. Imagine for a second you make a new friend or perhaps a new colleague, it’s only polite to introduce yourself.

A welcome email is an email you send a subscriber within 24 hours after they opt into your list. It’s a simple email that tells them how happy you are that they’ve subscribed, and then lays out some of the things they can expect to receive in their inbox.

You can also include some free resources or discount coupons. Here are some examples:

• In the welcome email, let them know what to expect in a monthly newsletter, information about their products, special offers, updates, etc. By setting the expectations from the get-go, their new subscribers won’t get any unpleasant surprises in their inbox.
• You may also consider sending a discount or special offer in your welcome email. Poppin’ includes a $10 OFF discount code.
• Your welcome email should include onboarding information with a call to action to get started using your app.
• Fulfilment and introduction.
• Invite them to your social media.

The average open rate of a welcome email is 50%, which makes it 86% more effective than regular newsletter emails. As per my experience, 76% of people would love to receive a welcome email as they subscribe to your email list.

Users who receive a welcome email shows 33% more engagement with the brand. Congrats, you gained a new subscriber. Imagine you made a new friend or perhaps a new colleague, it’s only polite to introduce yourself.

It’s not a typical email campaign, but it’s one of the most effective ones. By sending a series of emails, you have the chance to build familiarity with a new subscriber. You can educate them on your brand promise when they’re most open to hearing from you.

By sending a series — three, four or five — you have the chance to build some familiarity with a new subscriber. You can also educate them on your brand promise when they’re most open to hearing from you.

Taking too long to contact a new email subscriber can lead to higher spam scores simply because your subscribers forgot they actually signed up for your list. On top of that, welcome emails receive higher than average open rates, click-throughs, and generate more revenue.

If you put no other kind of email marketing campaign into action — use this one.

I. Grammarly

Freewriting assistant has been toping their online communication. They know how precisely to use online channels to make you fall in love with their personality as they did to me. And I use Grammarly 90% of the day with witty, playful language, Grammarly gets right to the point.

The welcome Email from them begins like this -what I received as I subscribed — better writing opens you to better conversations, remarkable accomplishments, and healthier relationships. It’s incredible, isn’t it, and it continues. That is a broad perspective, but when you think about it — there’s a lot of truth to it. That’s an excellent analogy.

Recommended: What To Do When You Don’t Have A Proofreader For Your Blog?

3. Automated series email

Setting up sign up boxes is a very good first step, but it’s no good if you don’t actually send your brand-new subscribers some emails. The very best thing to do is to send them an automated series.

The first thing is to decide how many automated series emails you want to send out. I suggest 3 to 5 is a good number. But when you are just starting, the most important thing is to get into a habit of regularly sending your list something regularly.

And there are lots of options here. You could send them a quick message every time you send out a post, a weekly newsletter, a monthly newsletter.

Whatever you choose, you must pick a schedule and stick with it. Email works best when it’s regular and predictable. So, if you choose to do a monthly email then maybe every 1st of the month, or every second Friday.

If you choose to go weekly (which is usually better), maybe 4 pm every Friday or 8 am every Monday, whatever you think will work best for your list. And remember this will be quite different depending on whether your readers are saying business owners, or mothers of small children, or students, or retired people.

In the early days it might be worth trying a few things out, but once you’ve found a formula that works, stick to it.

Another alternative is to go with an automated email. This is particularly easy if you go with ConvertKit as you can set up an automated RSS campaign that will automatically send your latest post out to your list every time you post on your blog. Or you can set this up to go out weekly or monthly too.

4. Free Opt-in emails

Did you know that the average office worker received 121 per emails per day? Furthermore, open rates for marketing emails hover right around 18 per cent. So, if you want your email to be one of the few that are actually opened, you need to give free value now and again.

A free opt-in email is simply some content, maybe a PDF, an infographic, a worksheet, a cheat sheet, a mini-course or a mini ebook, which you offer on your website as a free ‘thank you’ gift for signing up to your email list.

An exclusive, free resources email sprinkled into your email marketing campaign will work like magic to keep your subscribers engaged and, well, subscribed.

Typically, ‘an opt-in offer’ is a site-wide offer, whereas a ‘content upgrade’ is something specific to a particular piece of content and a ‘lead magnet’ is something that is designed to attract potential customers for your product.

So what kind of free resources should you send? An easy way to start is with something downloadable. For example, Slides sends out a huge pack of free design resources to download.

Here’s another example of a free Font Fabric, who offers a limited-time opportunity to download some of their fonts for free. This adds an element of scarcity, which further trains their subscribers to promptly open their emails.

5. The offer email

An offer email is essentially any campaign you send intending to drive direct response. This email includes a discount, coupon, or some other special deal that you send out to subscribers as a “thank you” for being on your VIP list. Offer emails typically have high open rates.

Whether or not your business model includes offering sales and discounts, it’s a good idea to send out some sort of special offer just for your subscribers now and then. This shows your appreciation and drives sales.

These emails are very important because they are the exact reason that their subscribers have signed up to be on their list: to hear about the sales before everyone else.

Offer a free trial session on their software. It makes your subscribers happy because it gives them access to something they probably wouldn’t have known about it. They hadn’t been on the list, but it also moves their subscribers further along your funnel.

The offer email is effective if your goal with email is to directly drive sales. It presents a product or discount offer and includes a direct call to action for people to click through to your website and make a purchase.

Recommended: Which Is Better: Social Media Marketing Or Email Marketing?

6. Special Offer Emails

Offer emails (also called promotional emails) include discounts, coupons, or other exclusive deals that VIP subscribers get as a “Thank-you.”

This is the most used email marketing campaign, and probably the one more familiar to you is offer emails. You might have a promotional email from a brand in your inbox right now or a few dozen like me. In my experience as a consumer, these emails are less strategic and systematic than we expect to see.

They are kind of like machine gun firing, coming to inboxes over and over again with a sort of repetition. That’s not what we encourage from these campaigns. Rather than sending ten different types of emails promoting your products, you can put a thought into a campaign that is very progressive or unique in some way.

You can add spice to your email promotion:

• Provoke emotion, Add some humour, always Leave them curious, offer a free product, Use slogans from popular music, Use colour, images, and font that grabs attention.
• TODAY ONLY: 55% OFF Annual Plans — subject line

Grammarly’s promotion uses to make money. TODAY ONLY in a subject line creates a sense of urgency and encourages recipients to take action and open the Email now.

I. Adobe

If you have ever used Adobe’s tools, you know they are beastly. Authoritative and useful, yes but overwhelming. With this subject line: Five Creative Cloud features we think you will love.

Most of the Adobe users pay a monthly fee to use their creative suite, and it’s important to remind users that they are getting something great for their money. So, this promotional Email is a perfect way to engage users and make them feel good about their investment.

7. Newsletter Email

Do you maintain a business blog for your company? Are you a magazine or media outlet? No matter which of these categories you fall into. Many companies make it a goal to keep in touch with a list of existing customers, with stories or articles published weekly or monthly.

Then a newsletter is the perfect type of campaign to send. It will keep your business and your products top of mind and drive people back to your website.

While the newsletter email gets a lot of focus in email marketing circles, don’t fall into the trap of sending boring or uneventful newsletters just for the sake of sending a newsletter. This is a surefire way to make your followers hit the “unsubscribe” button.

Always make sure your newsletters contain important, intriguing, or helpful information. If you don’t have anything important to say this week, skip it.

Example: eROI’s monthly newsletter is a stellar example on so many levels. The first few paragraphs include an entertaining introduction to the topic of the newsletter. Then, they include four “insider tips”, which include “read more” buttons to the blog post on their site.

But the best part of this newsletter is the interactive element at the bottom: they used working radio buttons to allow subscribers to vote for next month’s theme!

You can easily create an email newsletter by using ConvertKit.

How cool is that?

I. Newsletter Email

Newsletter emails get a lot of focus in email marketing circles, though don’t fall into the trap of sending annoying newsletters just for the sake of posting a newsletter. By this, you will make your followers hit the “unsubscribe” button quickly.

Always make sure that your newsletters contain essential and helpful information. You have nothing valuable to say this week, better to skip.

ROI’s newsletter is the best example on so many levels. The first few paragraphs start with an entertaining introduction on the topic of the newsletter.

Next, they include four “insider tips,” which have “read more” buttons to the blog posts. The best part of their newsletter is the element at the bottom: they have used working radio buttons that allow subscribers to vote for next month’s theme!

How cool is that?

Moz’s work last year declared as having the best company newsletters, the SEO marketing software giant has earned itself a position on top of the list. The exciting thing about Moz’s approach is that they don’t necessarily push their content, but the external feature articles make them think that their audience will find the newsletters, engaging, informative, and valuable.

Recommended: 13 Content Marketing Tools You Need To Start Your Blog With

II. New Content Announcement Email

This Email might be the One you probably already know and like, one where you announce your next sale, ebook, webinar, free trial, and so on. This Email is used to explain and promote the marketing offer with a call-to-action and that links to a targeted landing page with a particular offer.

The main component to think is the offer When it comes to designing an email for a specific offer. You want it to be brief but descriptive enough to convey the offer’s value. Also, make sure your Email’s call-to-action link is large, bright, and use actionable language. You can also include a CTA image/button underneath to make the action you want to email readers should be crystal clear.

The example provided by SumAll

“Extra, extra — read all about it!”

In the19th century, newspaper vendors would shout out when there was newer “news.” Even though the channels have changed, newsworthy content about your company is still valuable content for your readers.

26% of B2B subscribers sign up because they want to be kept informed on company news, according to research by Chadwick Martin Bailey:

8. Lead Nurturing Email

Depending on the specific action, a persona takes, you may want to enrol them in a lead nurturing campaign. Lead nurturing emails consist of a tightly connected series of emails containing useful, targeted content.

As their name suggests, these emails are used to nurture leads through the marketing funnel into a position of sales readiness. For example, let’s say you sent your list a marketing offer email. You might then set up a lead nurturing workflow that triggers another email about a complementary offer or piece of content to everyone who converted on that initial offer.

The logic is simple: By identifying a particular group of contacts that you already know are interested in a specific topic, and can follow up with more relevant and targeted content that makes them more likely to continue their relationship with you.

Recommended: 15 Blogging Tips That Nobody Will Tell You

In your lead nurturing emails, it’s important to call out why recipients are receiving the email. For example, you could say something like, “We noticed you’re into [topic x] since you downloaded our [Topic X] ebook, and we thought you might want to learn more about [topic x] …”.

Once you’ve addressed why recipients are getting an email from you, you can format your lead nurturing emails similar to the way you’d set up your general marketing offer emails.

Other very important considerations to make when crafting your lead nurturing campaigns are the planning, setup, segmentation, and timing of your nurturing emails.

9. We’re hiring an email.

Subscribers want to feel like they’re special. When you have a job opening, send out an email asking them to nominate people who they believe would be a good fit (or apply themselves.).

This shows that you really value their input, plus, your subscribers are your biggest fans… why not give them the first shot at working for your company?

10. The new product email

When you launch a product or new inventory comes in, your subscribers should be the first to know. You already know these are your most engaged customers, so it’s a fantastic way to jumpstart your sales.

Here’s a beautiful example of a new product email from Rifle Paper Co. It doesn’t need a whole lot of words… the pictures say it all.

Noun Project builds anticipation for its new tool by giving subscribers the option to subscribe to a special segment and be the first to know about it.

11. Survey & Feedback Email

Subscribers are generally used to get a popular opinion from a crowd of people. Companies can create polls to help formulate required brand identifiers, potential sales, new branding, etc. Consider sending an email requesting your customer feedback on products, services. Use this data for reports and plans. Companies can create an email marketing campaign asking their consumers for online ratings and reviews to boost sales.

A perfect email marketing campaign isn’t one side communication; it’s from both the end. You can’t shower your subscribers with emails without asking for their input.

That’s where the survey email comes into action. It’s a simple email sent within the first couple of weeks and asks them to respond to questions on topics relevant to your product. You can use this info to make your marketing efforts to their needs.

Here is an example of a survey email from Dropbox: a simple request to take a 10-minute survey and give some feedback. You’d be surprised how many people like these.

Your survey, however, needs not to be a lengthy 10-minute questionnaire. You could ask your subscribers to rate their willingness to recommend you to a friend, like Medium.

12. Automated Purchase Confirmation or Thank You Emails

Many email marketing platforms offer basic automation composed of triggers and accompanying emails based on your customer actions. Businesses use these platforms to automatically send detailed thank you or confirmation emails after a product is purchased, service is completed, a user filled out a necessary form, or when the new user subscribed to their blog.

Automation can also be further personalized by triggering customer-specific emails for birthdays or specific purchase anniversaries.

The example by Unbounce:

If you download some content or complete an action on a website, a thank you email is the best way to connect to your audience. Unbounce — they send you a thank you email when you download some content in as, a white paper. What works for Unbounce is the Email sent in plain text, instead of an HTML designed Email.

It is authentic and feels genuine, which makes the reader feel valuable. You can send this kind of Email out through an auto-responder when a visitor downloads content, Start by thanking the reader, and if possible, include a direct link to the content to access it immediately.

With thank you, you can also provide links to your resource page and a link to your product page. Every time someone completes an action on your website you can send this Email.

13. Re-Engagement Campaign

The re-engagement campaign is nothing but a series of emails sent to inactive and not responding subscribers.

The email list churn rate is about 25–30% per year. Frequently, people might change emails; companies change their names; it’s part of the industry. The re-engagement campaign attempts to fight this very fast.

Let’s say a set of your list hasn’t opened an email for six months. Your re-engagement campaign brings these subscribers back into the fold or determines if they can even be r-engaged or if not, update your email list.

Why remove them from your email list?

Because they don’t provide you with any engagement with your emails, they can affect your reputation in the eyes of the ISPs, and therefore your deliverability rate.

14. Events

Companies build campaigns centred around events that they are hosting or sponsoring to develop their brand and engage with their customers. Highlighting philanthropy — is an easy way to capture the hearts of consumers and improve their business further. Many email marketing platforms have themes and templates for invites, follow-ups, reminders, and thank-you emails.

Not only do companies maintain an organized guest list and manage ongoing communication without hassle, but they also highlight how they are affecting their communities, creating brand loyalty among the subscribers.

The example provided by ConversionXL

Peep Laja launched his ConversionXL conference this year, and it wasn’t too long he made his subscribers wait to know about it.

Do you know why? It’s just because his subscribers are potential event attendees.

During a recent ask me anything on Inbound.org, Peep mentioned that 80% of his conference ticket sales come from his email list!

There is no better way to promote an event is to invite people who know what your company is and what you do.

Studies by Brightcove and Content Marketing Institute finds potential meeting customers are the most effective tactic for marketers. So, next time, when you host an event, invite your email list!

How to implement:

While hosting an event can be expensive and time-consuming, there is no better way than face-time with prospects and create a relationship than event marketing. Promote the development through email marketing, and include the details of when, where, and why attendees should join.

And for your event, get your best salespeople ready to meet and greet future customers!

What to keep in mind?

There’s one thing we need to point out before you start these 9 types of email marketing campaigns: There will be those types of email marketing campaigns that need to be adjusted based on a recipient’s action, otherwise your risk being extremely annoying.

Here’s an example: Let’s say we are marketing a conference. We have a plan to send five emails leading up to the conference to drive registration. Once a recipient registers for the conference, we need to remove them from the list! We don’t want to keep sending them the “register today!” emails once they have registered, right?

They need to go to a different list, a list of registered attendees.

This caveat doesn’t apply very often, but I’ve seen folks get riled up when the messages don’t stop coming even after they followed through on the call to action, so just be aware.

Remember, a campaign is rarely — if ever — a one-time email. It’s a way to reach out to a prospect, subscriber or customer multiple times in a strategic, systematic approach. So pick a campaign idea or brainstorm a few ideas of your own and get emailing!

Conclusion

Deciding where to expend your energy and spend your time is a major challenge for email marketers. Do you spend time generating new subscribers or is it better to focus on writing different types of emails to convert your subscribers into paying customers?

Well, the truth is that you need both subscribers and effective emails in order to make email marketing work for your business.

At the end of the day, your emails should not only be visually appealing but should also be valuable. Focus on sharing the key information in the most appropriate format depending on the type of email marketing campaigns you’re sending — and the audience you’re sending it to.

After all, what’s the use of a crazy beautiful email if it doesn’t provide any true value to the reader? And my only recommendation to go with ConvertKit as an email service provider. If you click these links you’ll be able to get some discounts. So, that’s an awesome reason to convert yourself.

Know any other type of email marketing campaign that we should include in this article? Share them in the comments section below.

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(This post may contain(s) affiliate links. That means I do get compensated every time someone buys from these links at no cost to you.)