Email marketing might sound as overly common as blogging for an inbound marketing campaign, yet the possibilities are still endless. Just because inbound content continues to use standard tools, it doesn't mean it has to look boring using rigid rules.
The types of marketing emails every building materials company should be sending always vary, but they're all open to endless creativity to hone in on branding. Your building materials company might have avoided doing inbound marketing since you thought contractors and builders automatically buy from you.
With the industry being extremely competitive, you can't afford to not do what your competitors do. Your competitors are likely doing things you've ignored for too long like social media, email campaigns, and content offers or videos. Don't fall into complacency thinking all companies like yours are uniform.
Email marketing is an essential element to inbound marketing with different approaches to what's sent. You have everything from welcome emails to transactional, all with different structures.
Let's look at each and how they frequently work through automation.
Newsletters
Persuading leads to sign up for a newsletter is one of the best ways to prove your expertise during the buyer journey. While this is just one of many methods for generating marketing content, digital newsletters sent by email have capability to provide multimedia presentations.
Don't hesitate to mix up various media like infographics, videos, or excerpts from ebooks. HubSpot notes the best approach here is 90% educational and 10% promotional.
As for the latter above, you can save it for another type of important email that comes after a welcoming.
Welcome Emails
An important thing to keep in mind for a welcome email is to bring a strong branding sense from the header to the call-to-action. Since first impressions are everything, be sure to have your brand perfected and make it easily differentiated from your competitors.
Doing this sets you up for bringing familiarity to your customers in future emails and marketing content. It also allows you to set up more intangible branding elements like the way you do customer service, or trust in your expertise.
Any welcome should list the future benefits to the customer rather than being overly promotional about building product features.
Announcement Emails
Getting to the point in an announcement email may sound obvious, yet it's indicative of how short attention spans continue to become. When you're promoting new products, events, or have content offers, placing the most important info at the very top guarantees readership.
Imagery is important here as well, especially when showcasing your products. At the same time, you want to reach people as soon as possible if you're holding an event in a local area. That’s why you need to optimize these emails for every mobile device to capture potential customers in the moment.
Confirmation Emails
The more you can inform customers, the better, especially after ordering your building materials products online. Through automated programs, confirmation emails are a major part of customer service.
These basically connect to your announcement emails above when you provide a content offer. If it involves using a credit card purchase, customers appreciate knowing the transaction took place. You should also confirm a download completed if the content is on their hard drive and they haven't yet read it.
Transaction Emails
An email confirming a transaction works much the same as basic confirmation emails above. When an order takes place for your products, you need to provide as much information about the order as possible.
Some examples online show the way to provide detailed order info, including billing and shipping address. Also list exactly what's being charged, plus an easy contact link if the customer has any concerns.
Choosing to send these emails will take your building materials company in new marketing directions. It will provide a better customer experience as well as the opportunity to nurture leads. Incorporating email into your digital marketing strategy is a must!
