Glossary

Email Marketing Software


Sending promotional emails to potential business leads is at the heart of email marketing.

But email marketing goes further than simply broadcasting a product sale to your online audience using bulk email software. Good email marketing is also about building trust with your customers and growing your online brand. 

In this article, we’ll explain what email marketing means for companies. We’ll answer the question: what is email marketing software, and why is it so powerful? 

We’ll finish with some email marketing tips to help you get the most out of this promotional method. 

Email Marketing in a Nutshell

Consider the impressive return on investment (ROI) for email marketing ($42 for every dollar spent according to Litmus). It’s evident why businesses of all sizes have relied on this promotional method to grow their businesses.

Small businesses have adopted email marketing with enthusiasm, with an estimated 64 percent relying on email marketing as part of their business strategy to reach their target customers.  

Email marketing is about gathering the email address of your target audience (or customer lead). You write sales messages to that audience and send emails to that list of addresses with promotions, discounts, or product news. 

What Is Email Marketing Software?

As with most areas of online business, email marketing is best when it’s automated. And there are many choices available to customers when it comes to email marketing software.

These are also known as autoresponders. This term comes from the fact that you can set these tools in advance to send out automated email messages when someone new signs up to your email list. 

When you invest in email service software, you’ll usually get a widget within the tool that you can use on your website. At ActiveTrail, we go one step further and provide you with tools to build your landing page, pop up or signup form.

This widget or landing page will allow you to capture email addresses, and this will automatically go into the autoresponder.

Once there, those addresses become part of your email list. They are your new leads, ready and waiting to hear from you.

There are two options at this point. You can send a broadcast email to your list, which means sending the same email to everyone.

Or you can create a delayed autoresponder, which the system will send to your subscriber when the automation meets certain conditions.

Usually, one of those conditions is when a new person has subscribed to get a welcome email. If you’ve ever signed up to an email list, you’ll be familiar with the style and format of a welcome email.

Types of Marketing Used With Email Software

There’s plenty of ways you can use email marketing software solutions that go beyond the traditional broadcast vs. autoresponder email marketing features. Here are a few email marketing benefits:

A Welcome Series

As the name suggests, this style of email marketing is all about welcoming new subscribers. A carefully crafted sequence of automated emails arrives daily for the first few days after the new subscriber signs up.

Typically, the email automation welcome series lasts for around five days. The primary purpose of the welcome series is to introduce your brand and build a relationship with your new subscriber.  

A Time-Limited promotion

One of the benefits of email marketing is the ability to spike your sales in a matter of hours using a carefully crafted promotional email in your email campaign system.

Promotional emails tend to be short sequences, often with countdown timers. 

A Brand-Building Series

A regular email campaign to your core email list can remind people of your presence. With email marketing software, it’s easy to set this up in advance and let it run as and when you want to send it to a new subscriber.

That’s a great way to keep your brand fresh in people’s minds when they are next looking to make a purchase.

A News Announcement

A more traditional email marketing software application is to release information on new product releases and other important information to your customers.

That is also helpful email marketing advice for generating a buzz about an upcoming new product launch.

Tips for Using Email Marketing Software

There are plenty of practical techniques to get the most out of the time and money you spend on your email marketing software. Here are some of the best recommendations:

Use Analytics

Most email software platforms offer some form of analytics. These help you keep track of what percentage of your subscribers are opening your emails and clicking on the links.

You can use this data to fine-tune your email marketing system and improve your sales performance. For intelligent analytics, try A/B testing (a feature we provide in our Active Trail email software). 

A/B testing helps you create two marketing tests side by side and measure the performance to see which is better for your audience. The most common test is comparing two email subject lines to see which gets the best open rate.  

Remove Cold Subscribers

You may be surprised to hear that an extensive email list isn’t always an asset. When your subscribers don’t open your messages, or your email bounces, this can hurt your email deliverability.

Fortunately, there’s an easy solution. Our email marketing software tracks cold subscribers.

Schedule regular checks of your email list and clean out any cold or bounced subscriber. That will keep your open rate and deliverability rate high. 

Use Surveys to Find Out What Your Audience Needs

A standard email marketing guide will mention analytics. But though analytics will give you the big picture, it’s sometimes a challenge to figure out how your audience feels when you email the customer a promotion.

Surveys are a tried-and-tested way to understand what your customer wants and how you can improve your email marketing to serve their needs best.

Create a quick survey, send it to your list, and offer an incentive such as a cash prize draw. The information you get back will be valuable and, done right, can improve your ROI.

Email Marketing Is the Past, Present, and Future for Online Business Success

What is email marketing software? It’s a well-tested effective strategy, and it’s certainly not going away any time soon.

While social media switches rapidly based on whatever trend is swaying people, everyone has email, and it’s the best place to connect with your customers.

Take your first step now by signing up for a free trial of our award-winning email marketing software. See for yourself how this can transform your business promotions in 2021 and beyond.