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3 Reasons Why I Switched from Mac Mail to Spark by Readdle

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Spark by Readdle Mac OS

How many email accounts do you have?

I have at least 10 email addresses I use regularly. Two for my personal, one for work, three from clients, and a couple for other ventures.

I don’t know about you, but that many email addresses are difficult to manage. I’d like to say I’m on top of my email game, but receiving ~50 emails a day is still no joke. And that’s after all the filters/rules and unsubscriptions I already did.

I’m also in the Apple ecosystem. I don’t know why, but I’ve always used/preferred native apps like Mail and Calendar. But as I’ve learned, there are quite a few apps out there that work better.

Enter Spark Mail.

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It’s been a year and a half since I’ve started using Spark mail as my email client. I’ve deleted the default Mac Mail and Calendar from my laptop and iOS devices.

And with iOS 14 coming this fall, which allows iOS users to set 3rd party email apps as their default mail client, I’m definitely going to enjoy using Spark more.

Let me tell you why…

3 Reasons Why I Switched from Mail to Spark Mail

I mentioned earlier that I stay on top of my emails. I practice two principles that any productivity guru tells you: inbox zero and touch-it-once. I also apply Getting Things Done (GTD) principles.

Inbox zero means you either delete/archive your emails so that your inbox has nothing in it. The touch-it-once method means when you open an email (touch), you have to take action on it. That means working on it if it’s a task for you, delegate it to other people and create a follow-up action, delete/archive it, or defer it in the future.

While I love Apple, it’s native apps don’t have the necessary functionalities that power users need.

That’s why I switched to Spark Mail.

Reason 1: Synchronization

As I mentioned, I have at least 10 email accounts. I work pretty much anywhere as long as there’s an internet connection. Whether I’m at home, a cafe, or traveling, I need to be able to access all my stuff. And that includes email.

One thing I noticed is that when I set up my iPad, after entering my Apple ID, I still have to manually configure all my mail accounts. If my memory serves me right, a couple of years ago, when you set up a new Apple device and enter your Apple ID, everything syncs, including email accounts. But that doesn’t seem to work anymore.

When I setup Spark, I originally created an account on my Mac. I then got a screen saying that I can use my email address to sync all my accounts across my devices.

Spark Email

So, when I installed the app on my iPhone and iPad, all I have to do is login my the first email account, then everything just works.

For example, I added in my second and third email on my iPad. After a few seconds, it showed up on my Mac.

One thing I didn’t like during the account setup process on the iPhone was whenever I switch apps, the login options reset to the beginning. It’s a bummer since I use multi-factor authentication (MFA) in all my accounts. So, once I entered my password, I get asked for a passcode. Once I switch apps, memorize the code, and go back to Spark, I have to go through the login process from the start. That’s why I had to add all my other accounts on my laptop since I need to access the Authenticator app on my phone.

That aside, when I opened my iPad later that night, after a couple of seconds, all my other accounts are there. Like magic.

Reason 2: Customizations

There are a ton of cool stuff in Spark Mail but I won’t go over each one of them. I’ll only talk about the stuff that I really love.

1. Swipe gestures

I stay on top of my emails by making decisions quickly. Depending on what they are, who sent it, the time of the day/week, and many more, I decide on what to do next.

Those options are usually to open/read it, delete/archive, tackle it later (defer), or create a task for me to work on it.

And that’s where the swipe gestures come in.

Spark by Readdle - Personalization Using Swipes

Depending on how you handle your email, these are customizable. In my case, it’s almost always one of these options:

  1. Move (to a folder, or tags inside Gmail)
  2. Snooze — this is the defer option. I snooze the email until, let’s say tomorrow 9 am, so the email is ‘removed’ from my inbox and won’t appear again until tomorrow at 9 am.
  3. To Omnifocus — this is my task management app. You can add other 3rd party integrations here (which I’ll talk about below).
  4. Delete

Other apps allow you to swipe left/right and do only one thing. Spark gives you four options by varying the length of your swipe. Take a look at these two images.

Spark - Short Swipe on iPad
Spark - Long Swipe on iPad

I have changed how I use these swipe options over time, but I still use them regularly. Once I see the subject line, I immediately know what to do. That saves me a lot of time. Instead of going in, tapping several buttons just to get to the archive or share to other apps, I can do it in my inbox.

2. Reminders

If you’re a fan of David Allen’s GTD, there’s a part there where you create a task to follow-up with someone you assigned/delegated the task to. And if you’re a manager, this is something you should be doing as well (and not leave it up to chance that your direct report will update you).

Another use case for this is you want to make sure you follow-up with your boss or your client if after an X amount of time he/she hasn’t replied.

That’s where reminders come in.

How to use reminders in Spark email

Let’s say it’s Tuesday. You send an email today to a client asking for a meeting on Friday. You can add a reminder to your email so that you are reminded about this email if you haven’t received a reply by tomorrow 9 am (Wednesday).

If you received a confirmation (or any reply) from your client anytime before your stated reminder, you won’t receive a notification.

This is great as it eliminates one more step in your workflow. It frees up your mind so you can focus on more important things. You send an email and you’re reminded about it automatically on your stated schedule. You also don’t have to remember about the meeting. It helps you save some mental energy that you can spend on other tasks.

The great part about this is you can also customize the options that display here. Whether you want tomorrow to be 8 am, or later today to always be +6 hours from now, etc.

You can do that in settings > Scheduling. Then choose which one you’d like to edit. This applies to Snoozes, Reminders, and my favorite feature, Send Later.

3. Snooze

The Snooze option allows you to remove an email from your inbox (thus achieving inbox zero) even if you haven’t decided on what to do with that particular email yet.

You can keep snoozing an email to hide it today and show up next week. Then the week comes and you snooze it again for another week. Just be mindful when you use this option. You’re not getting anything done by continuously snoozing them.

Remember the touch-it-once method I mentioned earlier? If you combine that with the concept of inbox zero, you’ll be more productive.

Why?

Because if you really stick to it, you’ll be very mindful of when to check your email. You won’t live in your inbox anymore. You’ll actually have time to get things done.

For example, you see two emails. A newsletter from a blog you follow and an email from a colleague. It’s 4:45 pm.

Applying the two principles, you snooze the newsletter to tomorrow morning because you won’t be able to read it in time because you want to get home on time. You open, read, and take action on the email from your colleague.

Or in my case, I received a coupon for some free food (yay!). The only way to avail it is to show the email upon ordering. Right now I’m travelling in another country. So, I snoozed it until a few days after I get back. To when I can actually use it.

It’s out of my inbox. I don’t have to worry about it again. When it shows up on my inbox again, I can decide what to do with it then. Should I go to that restaurant and claim it? Or snooze it again for the weekend?

4. Send Later

This is one of my most favorite features in Spark.

I have clients in different time zones. That makes it hard to communicate at times. But it doesn’t mean there’s no chance to find a workaround.

Spark email schedule later

The send later feature is great because if I have a very important email, let’s say a report, or I need a decision to be made, I schedule it to be sent on the morning of my client’s time zone. Why?

Because even if we read emails all the time, it’s one way to show respect to my client. If they are like me, they are also receiving tons of emails every day from customers, other vendors, their team. If I know it’s nighttime for them, I stay away from sending emails I don’t want to take away from their time to rest or from their family.

Another reason is most people take action during the day. So, even if they read the email, they can sleep on it and not do anything.

Just ask yourself, did you ever read an email then tell yourself you’re going to reply tomorrow? Most probably yes.

Then what happens the next day?

There’s an emergency meeting. Or a problem with the shipping. Or another fire that needs to be put out.

Dozens of emails came in and buried that email you intended to reply to.

So, the best course of action? Schedule the send time to arrive in their inbox in the morning.

And as I mentioned earlier, you can customize the schedule here according to your preference.

Reason 3: Integrations

I consider myself a power user. That’s why I use apps and advanced features to help me be more productive. That’s where Spark has an advantage over other email apps. It has integrations with 3rd party software you’re probably already using.

Spark integrations with 3rd party services

In my case, the apps I use daily are OmniFocus, Asana, and Pocket.

If you noticed earlier, one of my swipe options goes to OmniFocus. It’s my task management software of choice. When it’s a task for me that doesn’t have to be done now, I add it there.

But if it’s client-related, I add it to Asana instead since that’s what the client is also using.

Let’s say this is an email from a client and there are stuff for me to do. After reading the email, I can add it to Asana, choose a workspace, project, and assignee. This shows up on my Asana account. If I assigned it to myself, it’ll be in my inbox there, waiting for me to take action on it.

Add task to Asana from Spark Mail by Readdle
How to add tasks to Asana using Spark

Or if it’s something I want to read later, I simply choose to add it to Pocket.

Special Note on the Spark Email Privacy Concern

If you’re like most people, you’re probably doing some research on using Spark mail. One of the most controversial issues that I came across while researching about Spark is its privacy policy.

I read this post while I was doing my research.

But, just like with anything, you don’t have to believe everything you find on the internet.

So, I did more research and found another thread that explained and elaborated on Spark’s privacy policy.

Tl;dr: not worth your time.

There may or may not be an issue with privacy or the information collected. But that’s on Spark and it’s no different from any other email clients (like Outlook) or apps you grant your accounts access to. So, as I said, you don’t have to worry about Spark’s privacy policy because there’s nothing shady about it.

Privacy Policies of Spark and Outlook Compared

[Update 2020 June] Since this is still a very popular topic, I decided to dig in myself.

The main issue most people have with Spark Mail is they store your passwords on their servers. Just look at the comments section in this post.

Yes, they do that. Here is a snippet from Spark’s privacy policy. To highlight, they use these credentials to access your email and for synchronization across multiple devices.

Spark Mail's Privacy Policy

Clear? Great. Now, let’s look at Microsoft’s Privacy Policy.

Microsoft Privacy Policy Statement

Pretty much the same thing.

The only difference is the Spark puts theirs way up on the page and in plain, easy-to-read English.

Conclusion

So, should you keep using the standard Mac Mail or switch to Spark Mail by Readdle?

Spark may or may not be for you. It depends on how you use email and your own workflow. If you are using apps like Dropbox and Google Drive, or Asana and OmniFocus, regularly and you end up having to download and upload the files to these services, then it’s worth considering Spark. But if you’re really just sending and receiving emails, then the stock Mail app might be enough for your needs.

There are a lot of cool features I didn’t discuss here since most of them are ‘expected’ already like a fast app and a simple user interface. And there are stuff I haven’t used yet like delegating an email to your team and templates (!!).

Feel free to download the app and explore it yourself. It’s free. And this is not a paid post 😉

And as their tag line says, love your email again.

Spark - Love Your Email Again

3 Simple Email Marketing Tactics You Can Implement Today

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3 Simple Email Marketing Tactics You Can Implement Today

Email marketing is here to stay. We’ve already established that in the latest email marketing statistics. Here, you’ll learn 3 simple email marketing tactics that you can apply today to get better results.

3 Simple Email Marketing Tactics to Improve ROI

1. Segment You Email List

Segmenting your list is one of the things that might sound complicated but really so simple to do.

Segmentation is grouping people together based on similarities and/or differences.

For example, you can group people by their problems, products purchased, or their status in relation to your organization (lead vs customer vs repeat customer).

Of course, segmentation goes deeper than that. But that’s for another time.

The easiest way to segment your email list is to add fields or data points on your forms so you can start collecting this information.

Example 1: ariel-lim.com

Landing Page Example: Full Suite Case Study

This is a landing page on my site. If you look at the form, apart from the first name and email that we all ask, I have a dropdown field that asks the person which among these statements describe them best.

The options I used are as follows:

  1. Works in marketing
  2. Plans to work in marketing
  3. Does some marketing work
  4. Owns the business
  5. Others

The rationale for this is I want to know who I’m talking to.

My business is consulting. The way I communicate will be different if I’m talking to someone who owns the business vs someone who plans to shift to the field of marketing. It’s like asking for job titles but presented differently.

Example 2: Lazada

Account Creation in Lazada

It can also be as simple as asking for gender like Lazada does in their account creation page. This allows them to tailor-fit their messages to you.

If you select male, I highly doubt you will receive any pink, cute stuff — except maybe when they send out a campaign for gift ideas Valentine’s Day. (Sorry, I’m generalizing to make a point)

Start thinking about the segments that matter to your organization and how you can gather this information through your forms.

2. Send from Your Email Address

This is probably the easiest change you can do today if you want more opens and clicks. And who wouldn’t want that, right? One email marketing statistic that you should also be familiar with is that the simple use of a person in the email address increases open rates by 68%.

It’s as simple as replacing “Company Name” with “Your Name” and replacing “[email protected]” with “[email protected]”

This tactic had one downside: you’ll get people replying to your emails. This isn’t really a bad thing though — even if you get dozens or even hundreds.

But, as with the other tactics, the benefits outweigh the risks.

You get to hear from your email list. That’s invaluable feedback. You develop a relationship with them. They get to know you. They can put a face to your company.

Try different variations. For example, if I work at Apple. I can try out the variations:

  • Ariel from Apple
  • Ariel Lim, Apple
  • Ariel Lim from Apple

Once you find which one resonates most with your audience, use that. Stick with that convention. If you’re using ConvertKit, you can do this in two ways:

  1. From the email you’re sending (e.g. broadcast email)
  2. From the account settings itself

Option 1: From a Broadcast Email

Let’s say you’re about to send a broadcast email. Click on the who will this broadcast be from? and add a new sending address.

Add or change from name from ConvertKit Broadcast

You’ll see a popup that will ask you to enter a name and email address. Experiment with different versions. Don’t hide behind a company. Use a real person instead.

Add new From Name in ConvertKit

Option 2: From Account Settings

You can do the same thing in your account settings. Click on the dropdown where your account name is, then click on email. On the screen, click on +add from address. Then, you’ll see a popup just like above.

Add New from Name in Settings of ConvertKit

Don’t have a ConvertKit account? You can create a free account here. No credit card required. ConvertKit has everything you need in an email marketing software—from landing pages, form builders, automation tools, and segmentation. In a matter of minutes, you can launch a lead generation campaign without having to go through any coding.

3. Work with Other Departments

Working with other departments is simple but not easy to do.

Depending on how your organization is set up, this may involve multiple departments or just one. Or it may not actually be a “department” — which holds true for smaller organizations. But the point here is to collaborate with different people so they can offer different perspectives.

For example, marketers often don’t work with their sales team. Or even their customer service department. Start with those groups.

A simple activity you can do is set a weekly 30-minute alignment meeting with your sales and customer service team to discuss and share what messages and/or problems prospects and customers have for that week.

I know what you’re thinking: 30-minutes is too long. You’re busy. Adding more work and meetings won’t help. But trust me, this has a huge ROI. Here’s what you do:

Overview of Weekly 30-minute Alignment Meeting

  1. Create a shared Google Spreadsheet
  2. Customize the columns to fit your organization. For example, you can have the following columns
    • Date added
    • Question/inquiry
    • Answer
    • Topic
    • URL
  3. Share the spreadsheet with everyone who has direct communication with leads and customers (usually marketing team, sales team, and customer service team).
  4. Explain the purpose — better serve customers by aligning departments and having a unified message across all channels
    • Short-term objective: consensus on how to answer FAQs/customer concerns
    • Mid-term objective: create short articles answering these FAQs. These can be used by marketing, sales, and customer service when they encounter the FAQs again
    • Long-term objective: create long-form content (like marketing offers) based on a collection of these FAQs.

Let’s use my favorite example of a pet store with an e-commerce website. Based on your first alignment meeting, you realized that your sales team (in this case the staff inside the store) keeps getting asked about payment options, delivery times, and delivery fees.

In this same meeting, your customer service reps wrote in the spreadsheet that they usually get asked about how much food do they need to feed their dogs.

Here’s what you do with that information:

  • Short-term
    • Make the payment and delivery information more prominent
      • Add to homepage;
      • Create a poster highlighting that information for in-store displays;
      • Send a one-time dedicated send email highlighting payment options and delivery times and fees;
      • Add an email to your lead nurturing series highlighting payment and delivery information
    • Create content about proper diet
      • 3 Reasons You Should Weight Your Dog’s Daily Serving of Food
      • How to Determine the Amount of Food You Should Feed Your Dog
  • Mid-term
    • Write content about the different payment options you have and delivery information
      • Cash on Delivery (COD) Available at Awesome Pet Store
      • I live in ____ city, how long will I receive my order?
    • Create a feeding guide per dog food
      • Online — feeding guide calculator where people enter the age, weight, activity level. Then they get the recommended amount of dog food in volume and weight.
        • Do this for every brand as a separate page on your website; or,
        • Add a field to select the brand/type of dog food
      • Offline — create a tri-fold banner that acts as a worksheet so owners can enter their pet’s name, age, weight, etc. Then, they can easily compute for the recommended amount of dog food.

When you finished creating these content, share it with the rest of the team, and update the spreadsheet. That way, when your customer service rep received another question about feeding their dogs, they can simply provide a quick answer then link them to the interactive calculator you just made.

And this is only for the first week and on two topics alone. Imagine doing this for the next 6 months. You’ll have a lot of feedback from your customers. You don’t need to “research” anymore and simply focus on creating content.

So, What Are You Going to Do Now

These are simple examples of what you can do with your alignment meetings. Like I mentioned above, the purpose of this is to better serve your customers. This is done by making it easy for them to find information about what they need (FAQs) and their concerns.

Once you have that information, you can use them to your advantage to provide more value to your prospects and customers. In addition, because you’re getting feedback, you can quickly adjust what content is resonating well with your customers.

In the midst of all these, you will also get some negative feedback. And that’s a good thing. You can quickly act on it, change and improve.

These quick, small changes are what will keep you ahead of the market and stay ahead of the competition.

12 Different Types of Marketing Email to Make Your Email Marketing Effective

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Most organizations think that email marketing is all about sending the newsletter. Did you know that there are 12 different types of marketing email you can send?

In this article, I’ll go through all these 12 email marketing examples and present a way to categorize them:

  1. Product/service update email
  2. Newsletter
  3. New content announcement email
  4. Event invitation
  5. Dedicated email send
  6. Co-marketing email
  7. Social media send
  8. Internal updates
  9. Confirmation email
  10. Thank you email
  11. Welcome email
  12. Lead nurturing emails

But before we get started, I want to go through some preparatory points.

What you call a newsletter is actually one of the most ineffective marketing tactics marketers use today.

In this post, I’ll be sharing 12 different types of marketing email you should be sending from your email marketing software.

Preparatory Points: Email Categorization

There are two broad categories of emails that you can send: one-to-many and one-to-one. This doesn’t include personal/manual emails —like the ones you send to your customer or your boss.

One-to-many emails, sometimes called informational emails or campaign-specific emails, are types of email you send out to a lot of people. It’s what you’re probably most familiar with. Newsletters fall under this category of emails.

One-to-one emails are also called transactional emails. They are only sent after a certain action and/or behavior. A password reset request or an order confirmation from an e-commerce store are examples of transactional emails.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get started.

12 Different Types of Marketing Email

One-to-many Emails

1. Product/Service Update Email

A product/service update email is a type of email that 99% of organizations send out.

They (wrongly) call this a newsletter.

It’s an email about their products/services. Most of the time, its main message is a sale or a promo. Sometimes, it’s an update on features.

Here’s a great example from OptimizePress, a WordPress page builder.

product service update

Promos such as Black Friday sale, Christmas and holiday sale, year-end-sales also fall under this category since it talks about your products and services.

Like I said in other posts, there’s nothing wrong with it— unless it’s the only type of email you are sending.

2. Newsletters

The newsletter is a roundup of your blog posts and/or curated content.

It is NOT an email for promotions.

Promotion of your blog posts, maybe. But not sales related.

It is educational in nature.

Newsletters are used to deliver content to your reader’s inbox. For example, I am subscribed to the newsletters of WordStream, HubSpot, Jon Loomer, MailChimp, Copy Blogger, Close.io, and a whole lot more.

I subscribed to them because I want their content, WANT to read it. I look forward to it.

I learn from it.

Below’s a great example from Influence & Co, a content marketing agency. Take note that everything you find inside adds value to the reader. Click on the image to view a larger version.

Influence and Co newsletter adding value to the reader through content

If your readers are not excited about reading your newsletters, then most probably they are not educational content.

So. Please. Stop. Calling. Them. Newsletters.

I talked more about this issue here.

3. New Content Announcement Email

The content announcement email is an email that I have not seen a lot of companies do.

It’s an email you send that invites them to download and/or access the new content you just created.

For example, here’s one from WP Engine, one of the most well-known WordPress hosting.

Content announcement email from WP Engine to download a white paper

The link above is an affiliate link. At no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase after clicking through the link.

Content, in this case, is a “big piece” of content. It’s not a regular blog post or article. It is something more significant.

They are examples of marketing offers or lead magnets. Something most companies aren’t using.

4. Event Invitation

As the name suggests, this type of email is an invitation to an event. It’s usually a one-time send; but for those who engaged, i.e. pre-registered to the event, they get sent more information about the event.

For example, you might announce a webinar to your mailing list. From there, those who register get reminder emails on the day of the webinar, 1-hour before, and 15-minutes before the actual webinar.

Here’s how that may look like. This series came from a webinar I recently attended by CopyBlogger.

Example: Webinar invite email

copyblogger webinar 1

Example: Webinar on-the-day reminder email

copyblogger webinar 2

Example: Webinar 1-hour reminder email

copyblogger webinar 3

Example: Webinar 15-minute reminder email

copyblogger webinar 4

These emails doesn’t have to stop here. You can branch out and do more to continue to engage your audience. When you do a webinar, you basically have 3 audiences:

  1. People who registered and attended
  2. People who registered, but didn’t attend
  3. People who didn’t register

So, depending on those segments, you can create your “here’s your replay” email and make it more personalized. For example, to the first group, your messaging can go something like “thanks, here’s the replay to the webinar,” while the second group, you can say something like “sorry you missed the webinar, here’s the replay!”

This will help keep them engaged so they try out your product/service or whatever your offer will be.

5. Dedicated Send

This email is sent to a specific segment in your list about something.

The webinar reminder email I listed above is an example of a series of dedicated send emails.

You can use this for webinars, events, conference attendees, etc.

Here’s a great email from Aweber, an email marketing software.

Aweber's dedicated email send inviting me to a webinar

6. Co-marketing Email

This type of email is when two or more organizations send an email promoting the other one to their respective email lists.

Most of the time, the organizers are related and complementary to each other. For example, a marketing agency and a social media scheduler partnering together to promote a webinar they will be hosting together.

Here’s an example where MobileMonkey is promoting an SEMRush event to his mailing list.

MobileMonkey and SEMRush comarketing email

MobileMonkey is a chatbot software while SEMRush is an all-in-one marketing software.

The link above is an affiliate link. At no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase after clicking through the link.

7. Social Media Send

And speaking of MobileMonkey, this type of “email” isn’t exactly an email but it’s done inside any social media that allows messaging.

LinkedIn is where this is most likely to occur. You can also put group messaging apps/channels/chatbots here. For example, Facebook Messenger, Viper, Whatsapp, Telegram, and Slack allows you to send broadcast messages.

In a way, it’s a one-to-many messaging but uses another platform instead of email.

Sample chatbot messaging from MobileMonkey

8. Internal Updates

Email marketing is not limited just your prospects and customers.

Internal update emails are usually used by big organizations for announcements like corporate events, policy changes, etc.

Usually, HR and IT are the groups that send these types of email.

  • For HR, these are usually new employee hires and promotions
  • For IT, it’s mostly maintenance scheduling and/or cyber security best practices

But don’t stop there. It’s best to keep everyone updated on what’s happening around the organization—quarterly sales, new products lined up, what the executives are working on, etc.

For example, here’s a rather-public email from Tim Cook a few years back regarding their $1 trillion milestone.

Email of Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, regarding their trillion milestone

One-to-one Emails

9. Confirmation Email

A confirmation email is a type of one-to-one email that summarizes a conversation and/or activity that the user just made.

If you bought from any e-commerce stores or signed up for a webinar or tradeshow online, you would have received a confirmation email immediately. That’s a great use of this transactional email.

Another instance this is used is during customer service chats or tickets. Upon finishing the ticket (assuming you provided your email), it will send you the transcript of the conversation.

Here’s an example from NordVPN, one of the most-trusted VPNs out there:

Sample confirmation email from NordVPN

The link above is an affiliate link. At no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase after clicking through the link.

10. Thank You Email

A thank you email is a type of email that gets sent right after a user action. Most of the time, this is when a person filled out a form on your landing page to access a marketing offer.

Others call this a form submit kickback email or incentive email.

Here’s an example from close.com, a CRM software, on a guide I downloaded.

Sample Thank You email from Steli of close.io

There are two ways you can use thank you emails:

  1. To deliver the promise or your marketing offer; or,
  2. To give additional information about the marketing offer

For example, if you download the white paper I made, you will receive a thank you email that has a link to the thank you page. That page is where you can access the white paper.

If you’re hosting a webinar or event, of course, you can’t deliver on your promise right away. So, your thank you email should contain information about the webinar or event — date, time, topic, etc.

The confirmation emails are, in a sense, also a form of a thank you email.

11. Welcome Email

A welcome email is exactly what it is— an email (or series of email) that welcomes the new subscriber into the email list or community.

Here’s a great example from Skillshare when I signed up for their service before.

Sample welcome email from SkillShare

The purpose of the welcome email is to be helpful or give added value. It’s not a place to sell.

The Skillshare example fulfills these criteria by being helpful —giving me a free offer — and adding value —they also included a list of their most popular classes.

Take note that this welcome email is for a specific action only. In the example above, it’s for signup to skillshare.com.

In your case, you could set up a separate welcome email for new subscribers to your list, new trial sign-ups, etc. (hint: personalization and segmentation)

12. Lead Nurturing Email

Lead nurturing emails are undoubtedly my favorite among these types of marketing email. Why? Because it’s so easy to do yet so few do it.

Lead nurture emails are designed to supplement your sales process by providing helpful information at the right time. Here’s how you create one from scratch.

If you use some marketing automation tools, you already have access to this. All you need to do is create them.

Think about it this way: your sales process is driven by stages (usually called sales stages or pipeline stages). If you defined what each stage means properly, you’d have identified which information you need at each stage.

For example, if you only have a name and email, they would most likely be only at stage 1 only. But if you know what they want to buy, their budget, and their timeline, they might already be at stage 6 of your sales process.

Lead nurturing emails supplement this sales process by sending these people educational content that will help them decide better (thus, faster) by giving them the information they need even before asking.

I wrote about 3 great examples of lead nurturing campaigns here.

So, What Are You Going to Do Now

Using these 12 examples of email marketing will differentiate you from everyone else.

It’s so easy to follow what everyone else is doing. And, because the bar is so low, a simple change will immediately catapult you to the front.

Start applying these different types and you’ll immediately see results from them.

One Behavior You Do That Makes You a Boss and Not a Manager

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Sitting in front of the computer the whole day and typing crazily as if you are the busiest person in the world may seem normal for most managers. However, let me be the first to tell you that that behavior is not effective.

This post is not about arguing about a manager and a leader (personally I don’t think there’s a difference though). This is about making you realize that what you think of effective managerial behaviors are, sadly, mistaken.

Managers are paid for results. 

You are paid for results. 

You are not paid to show up, nor send email, nor attend meetings. As managers, you are seen as effective if your team is effective. That can only be achieved through high performance.

Manager Tools keeps on saying that avoiding poor performance is not the same thing as achieving high performance. What that means is you constantly talk about performance — on a daily basis, not when the company needs you to (aka annual performance reviews).

If you sit around in front of your computer the whole day while you blindly close your eyes to the small failings of your team (like being tardy, missing their weekly quota), you are not an effective manager. 

You would prefer them to self-correct. Yes, we all want that. But that rarely happens. 

If you do not address the small shortcomings then you suddenly make it a big issue in your annual evaluation of them, what does that make you look like? How do you think that would make them feel?

You will be construed as a boss who takes grudges. You will make a fool of yourself. You will appear to be thinking solely of yourself and not caring about your team. They will start thinking “where is all these coming from?”

Your approach of not talking about performance because of your fear of creating conflict is only hindering you and your team’s growth. Your avoidance of conflict — by not talking about performance and only talk about it when a big issue is at hand — keeps you from achieving high performance.

Stop sitting in front of your computer and talk to your team. Talk about their performance – both good and bad. Manager Tools has a tool specifically for that called Feedback. What do you think? Do you exhibit that behavior? Do you avoid conflict by not talking to your direct reports about their performance? Or simply know someone who is doing exactly that? Share this article to them to make them realize they are not being effective.

7 Essential Tools for Effective Digital Marketing

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7 Essential Tools for Effective Digital Marketing

Businesses need to have an online presence if they expect to be successful in today’s fast-paced world. You hear this over and over again. But what is it what you exactly need to be effective?

You will get different answers from different people. Most of them are correct. In this post, I listed 7 essential tools that cover the basics of digital marketing. If you don’t have them, get them now!

1. Website

The website is the most basic digital asset you should have. If you do not have this, get one quickly!

Buy a domain name now to reserve your online presence. Just as an example, I bought my domain using GoDaddy. I am hosting my site (and all the files you can see here) through InMotion Hosting.

I used WordPress.org for the “design” of this site.

There are others you can use like Shopify, Blogger, SquareSpace, and Wix. It’s really up to your preference.

2. Blog

This cannot be stressed enough. Remember the cardinal rule in digital marketing? If you are not found online, you do not exist.

How do you get found online? Search engines.

The biggest, most popular and most-used search engine here in the Philippines is Google. If people cannot find you on Google’s Search Results Page, you don’t exist.

Why is a blog important?

The way search engines work is it “indexes” your website to see if there are new content, then rank it to other web pages depending on keywords and a lot of other technicalities. The takeaway, if you do not produce new content, your website would not be indexed regularly; therefore, it will not improve its ranking.

Still too technical? Imagine this situation.

You’re an administrative clerk who processes a lot of paperwork. You receive hundreds of documents you have to rank order of priority for your boss.

Jack and Jill give you some documents on a daily basis. You see him, smiles at you, hands you his files. On the other hand, Jill comes in only once a month to bring in 1-2 documents. Who do you think gets priority?

That’s how Google works. Google loves fresh, new content.

3. Social Media Accounts

This is also mandatory for businesses. But do not jump into all available ones out there.

A strategy has to be set in place if you want to put this to your advantage. For starters, create accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

Lastly, avoid literally transferring your offline marketing activities to digital. It won’t work. People behave differently online.

4. Analytics Software

What you cannot measure, you cannot manage.

If you do not have any means of measuring your efforts, then there is no reason for you to undertake digital marketing. You are simply wasting company resources.

The most popular and free software is Google Analytics. All you need is a Google account and you install the code to your website and blog, then you are good to go.

5. Email Marketing Software

Email is still the best way to communicate if you want to engage your customers — if done right. It has a longer shelf life unlike a tweet or a status update on your social media accounts.

Email is also more personal. It does not need to be read or actioned upon now.

One rule in email marketing is if you can’t segment your list, you are not doing it right.

Start building your list now. Again, there are dozens of email marketing software out there. I’m a fan of ConvertKit so that’s something I strongly recommend you get as well.

6. Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Presentation Tool

These tools might already have this on your computer, but your efforts as a marketer are not the end of its own.

You have to report on results and activities to your manager. You have to let other people (your teammates) know what is happening. Yes, you are busy. Everyone is busy.

Just think of it this way, if your boss does not know what she is spending for, do you think you will get that support for an additional budget increase? If she does not see the results of your efforts (note the highlight on results, not on the efforts), she will think you are crazy for asking additional funding because you have presented any results.

7. Calendar / Scheduler

Finally, a calendar is the seventh tool you need to have. Deadlines are called deadlines for a reason. Keep track of your commitments to show your professionalism. It makes you look good and lets other people know you are on top of what you are doing.

Content creation, brainstorming, iterating, presenting, designing, analyzing, proofreading, strategizing — all these should reflect in your calendar.

These are the 7 tools that are essential for effective digital marketing. Master them and incorporate them into your workflow. Eventually, you’ll want to get into more advanced tools that will help you automate the work you do.

Did I miss any of the basics? Let me know in the comments.

This site contains affiliate links to products. I may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. However, this does not impact my reviews and comparisons. I only recommend products I’ve reviewed, and in many instances also use, in order to help you make the best choices.

Copyright © 2024 Ariel Lim