Email marketing is an essential part of any successful digital strategy. 

Emails have evolved from being just a simple tool for exchanging personal messages to widespread usage in business communication. Today there are 4.3 billion email users in the world — more than half the earth’s population.

In commerce, 64% of small businesses use email marketing to reach customers, with 33% of marketers sending weekly emails to communicate with their target audiences.

In this blog post, we’ll discuss what email marketing is as well as the different types of emails you should send your leads and customers – all with the goal of providing helpful information while increasing conversions.

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What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a powerful tool for businesses to reach their customers and potential customers. It’s an effective way to stay in touch with people, build relationships, and increase sales.

Email marketing involves sending out marketing emails that are tailored specifically to the recipient’s interests or needs. These emails can include newsletters, promotional offers, product updates, and more.

Let’s look at the different types of emails you should send to your email subscribers.

9 Different Types of Emails You Should Send to Your Subscribers and Customers

1. Welcome Emails

The first among the different types of emails you should send subscribers is the gold standard: the welcome email.

Greeting new email subscribers leaves a positive first impression and establishes the atmosphere of future interactions with your company. A good welcome email should thank subscribers for signing up while providing them with relevant information such as:

• What they can expect from future communications.
• How often they will receive messages from you.

When thanking subscribers in your email list, make sure the message is genuine and sincere – not just another automated response. This is the perfect opportunity to showcase your company’s personality and create an emotional connection with people in your email list.

In addition to expressing gratitude, you could provide recipients with more information about your business. Some ideas include:

• Introducing key team members.
• Highlighting popular blog posts.
• Offering sneak peeks into upcoming products or services.
• Offering exclusive discounts or promotions only available to those who have signed up for your email list.

Screenshot of the welcome email from Lyft

2. Promotional Emails

The primary benefit of sending promotional emails is to increase sales and revenue by offering customers incentives to purchase your products or services. This could be in the form of coupons or discounts that make it more attractive to buy from you vs. competitors.

Promotional emails can also help boost customer loyalty and engagement through exclusive access to content and offers only available through your business.

Finally, promotional emails can help build brand recognition since they often include images, fonts, and colors associated with your company which will stay in the minds of customers.

There are many types of promotional emails that businesses use depending on their goals. These include limited-time offers (LTOs), flash sales announcements, and holiday specials among others. Each type has its own purpose so it’s important to understand which type of promotional email is best for the occasion.

For example, if you want immediate results, then an LTO might be best. Whereas if you want long-term growth, then a newsletter may be better suited for this goal.

Example of a promotional email from Grammarly

3. Newsletter Emails

Email newsletters are a great way to engage with your audience, build relationships, and keep them informed about what’s happening in your business.

But, creating an effective newsletter isn’t as easy as it sounds. It takes careful planning and thoughtful content to ensure that you get the most out of each issue.

You may want to consider sending out weekly email newsletters on topics related specifically to your industry – like tips & tricks or case studies – so readers have something interesting and informative waiting in their inboxes each week.

Before launching a newsletter, do some research into the industry you’re targeting. See if newsletters are common practice in this space and take note of what other companies are doing with their own newsletters — what type of content they put out and how often they send them. This will give you a better idea of what works (and doesn’t) when it comes to crafting an effective email newsletter for your own company.

When creating your newsletter content, focus on quality over quantity. Stick to one topic per issue so readers don’t feel overwhelmed by too much information at once.

Consider including helpful tips related to the product or service you offer, interesting facts about your industry, a behind-the-scenes look at how things work in your business or organization — anything that adds value for readers. Keep track of which types of content perform best so that you can continue producing engaging material for future issues.

Give readers opportunities to interact with the content by adding polls or surveys where appropriate. Ask questions throughout the body copy. Provide links to additional resources like blog posts or whitepapers.

Lastly, add social media buttons so subscribers can easily share your articles, and include a strong call-to-action to encourage people to act after reading through an issue.

Screenshot of Moz’s semi-monthly newsletter

4. Re-Engagement Emails

Re-engagement emails are an important part of any email marketing strategy. They can help bring back inactive customers and get them interested in your product or service again.

These types of emails typically focus on providing incentives or special offers that will encourage the customer to come back and make a purchase.

The first step in creating effective re-engagement emails is identifying which customers have gone inactive. Look at data on open rates, clickthrough rates, purchases, and website visits so you can determine who hasn’t been engaging with your brand recently.

Once you have identified these customers, you can then create targeted campaigns specifically designed for them. This way, you won’t be wasting time sending messages to people who aren’t likely to respond anyway.

Another key element of successful re-engagement emails is personalization. You want the message to feel like it was written just for the recipient – not just another generic email blast sent out en masse.

Include their name in the subject line or body of the email and use language that speaks directly to them. Mention any past purchases they may have made and offer discounts based on their previous buying habits.

When you send emails for re-engagement, try using words like “limited time only” or “hurry before supplies run out!” This helps create a sense of urgency around your marketing emails to prompt recipients to take action now.

If possible, include a countdown timer showing exactly how much time there is left before the offer expires – this has been proven to increase conversions significantly compared with regular non-urgent messages!

A curated list of new shows that Netflix sends to its subscribers

5. Transactional Emails

Transactional emails provide subscribers in your email list with timely and relevant information about their purchases or account activity.

Transactional emails can also help businesses track user behavior and preferences so they can better target their marketing campaigns in the future.

Common examples of transactional emails include:

• Order confirmations.
• Shipping notifications.
• Payment receipts.
• Password reset requests.
• Subscription renewal reminders.
• And more.

These types of messages are usually triggered by a user action such as making a purchase or changing an account setting.

For example, when a customer makes an online purchase on your website, you would send them an email confirming that their order has been placed successfully along with details like an estimated delivery date.

Similarly, when a subscriber’s password is changed, it is customary to send them an email notifying them of this action to prevent unauthorized access to their account.

Screenshot of a Reddit transactional email

6. Abandoned Cart Emails

Abandoned cart emails can be used as a reminder for customers who have left items behind in their shopping carts, encouraging them to complete the transaction.

Leftover items in the shopping cart can be recalled with these emails, prompting shoppers to follow through with their purchases. These emails should be tailored based on the recipient’s purchase history and include personalized recommendations that may spark an impulse buy or further engagement with your brand.

Messages of this kind can also provide you with useful information about customer behavior, which can help devise a more effective email strategy in the future. For instance, if you find that most people who abandon carts do so because of expensive shipping costs, you could adjust your pricing structure or offer free shipping vouchers for certain orders over a certain amount.

Screenshot of Dollar Shave Club’s abandoned cart email series

7. Progress Update Emails

Progress update emails are an effective way to reach out to inactive subscribers in your email list and keep them in the loop.

Major changes like new product launches and updated branding initiatives should be highlighted, but even small wins such as hitting certain social media follower counts deserve recognition too. You can use these emails to show off how far you’ve come while also keeping your email lists engaged and informed.

When announcing progress updates to your email lists, make sure that each message is tailored to the recipient and contains relevant information that resonates with them.

Start by thanking subscribers for their loyalty and interest in what you do – this helps establish trust from the get-go. Then move on to providing clear details about any accomplishments or developments that have occurred recently, whether it’s launching a new product line, celebrating an anniversary milestone, or just hitting a certain number of followers on Twitter. Let people know why they should care.

Sending out regular progress update emails is essential for keeping your email list engaged and informed about all of the exciting things happening at your company. When done right, these types of messages can be powerful tools for boosting customer loyalty while driving sales growth at the same time. So don’t forget about them when creating your email marketing strategy.

A product update email from Airtable

8. Lead Nurturing Email Sequences

Lead nurturing emails are an important part of any successful email strategy. They are designed to build relationships with potential customers and keep them engaged in the sales process.

The main benefit of lead nurturing emails is that they help you stay top-of-mind with prospects who may not yet be ready to buy but could potentially become loyal customers down the road if nurtured properly through these email campaigns.

These types of messages allow you to track engagement levels so you know exactly where each individual prospect stands in terms of interest level and readiness to buy.

Lead nurturing emails can be an effective way for businesses to build relationships over time. In contrast, relying on one-off promotional offers often has limited success.

Screenshot of a lead nurturing email from Sephora

9. Survey Emails

Thanking customers for their loyalty is a great way to show appreciation and encourage them to continue engaging with your business.

The best way to thank customers is through an email survey that includes questions about their experience with your product or service. This will give you valuable feedback that can be used to improve the customer experience and increase conversions.

When creating a survey email, make sure it’s personalized and contains clear instructions on how long the survey should take and what type of information you are looking for. You can also offer incentives such as discounts or free products in exchange for completing the survey.

Include questions that address specific areas of improvement. This way, you can get direct feedback from your customers on how they feel about certain aspects of your business or product offerings.

You can also ask open-ended questions to allow your customers to provide more detailed responses than simply choosing from multiple-choice options.

Asking follow-up questions based on their initial response helps draw out further details while giving customers the opportunity to share their thoughts in greater depth.

Finally, don’t forget to end each question with an actionable suggestion so respondents know what kind of changes could result from sharing their opinion. This encourages engagement even after they submit the survey.

Screenshot of a feedback email from Fiji Airways

Conclusion

Email marketing is a powerful tool for businesses, no question.

There are different types of emails you should send to your customers at different stages of the buyer journey.

Transactional emails keep customers informed about their purchases, newsletters provide regular updates on products or services, promotional emails drive sales, while lead nurturing emails increase customer loyalty.

Survey emails also play an important role in email marketing campaigns by providing valuable feedback that helps shape future strategies.

By taking advantage of these different types of email messages, you can maximize the effectiveness of your communication efforts with customers.

Looking for Content?

Creating lots of great content — and scaling your content marketing — has never been easier.

With Content at Scale, you can add 1, 20, 50, or even 100 keywords that you want to rank for. Then, within minutes, CAS will write high-quality long-form blog posts for each keyword — from start to finish!

That means everything: title, meta description, introduction, all the way to the conclusion, with minor human intervention. Just like THIS post! That means you can get content published daily to your blog for as low as $0.01/word.

Ready to try it out? Check out how simple it is to scale your content marketing.

Looking for Content?

Creating lots of great content — and scaling your content marketing — has never been easier.

With Content at Scale, you can add 1, 20, 50, or even 100 keywords that you want to rank for. Then, within minutes, CAS will write high-quality long-form blog posts for each keyword — from start to finish!

That means everything: title, meta description, introduction, all the way to the conclusion, with minor human intervention. Just like THIS post! That means you can get content published daily to your blog for as low as $0.01/word.

Ready to try it out? Check out how simple it is to scale your content marketing.