Trying email marketing for the first time? Or, have you tried running a campaign for a while, but it seems like nothing sticks?
Email marketing is one of the highest ROI marketing strategies that any business can do. If you’re struggling to find footing, maybe all it takes is a bit of inspiration.
In this article, we’ll look at examples of great email marketing campaigns, how to steal those ideas, and how to make them your own. But first, we must learn the basics:
- What is an email marketing campaign
- Types of email marketing campaigns
- Email marketing campaign examples
- Best practices for email marketing
What is an Email Marketing Campaign?
Email is the most effective form of business communication. It can be personalized, automated, and done at scale. Every stage of our sales funnel uses email marketing.
We use cold email marketing for top-of-the-funnel leads. Newsletters and drip campaigns for middle-of-the-funnel leads. And hyper-curated, super personalized emails for the bottom funnel.
This type of marketing works best with the right tools—a lead finder, sales operations tools/CRM, and email marketing software that can automate campaigns.
Integrating CRM into email marketing software allows users to send trigger-based emails based on customer behavior, buying intent, and other qualifications.
We can use several strategies for each stage. To identify the most effective method, we need to know the different types of email marketing campaigns.
Email Marketing Campaigns Examples
There is no one-size-fits-all email campaign. Each campaign type has its purpose and is most effective for specific lead segments. Here are the email marketing campaign types to look into:
Welcome Emails
Many marketers need to utilize the power of welcome emails. These have some of the highest open rates among all email types. Most marketers use it to say thanks or for essential onboarding.
Instead, leverage these high open rates to build customer engagement and brand loyalty or boost their average order value (AOV) through upselling or cross-selling.
For example, when a lead subscribes to your newsletter, you could include links to high-converting blogs in your welcome email. Just ensure the content is valuable and relevant.
Let’s take a look at an email from CASETiFY:
After signing up to their email list, they send a welcome email with a 10% discount on your first purchase. More importantly, the “Shop Now” CTA is right underneath, making it convenient for subscribers to start shopping the moment they get the welcome email.
Inbound Email Marketing
Inbound marketing leverages prospects who are already interested in your products or services. You get leads for inbound email marketing from opt-in forms in lead capture pages, social media campaigns, or gated content in exchange for business information.
How effective your inbound email marketing is depends on the quality of your leads. Just because they filled out your opt-in forms doesn’t mean they’re ready to buy.
Some of these leads won’t have the authority to make a purchase, others won’t have the budget, and the rest could have several objections that need addressing.
Remember to qualify and segment leads before adding them to your nurturing, automated drip, or newsletter email campaigns.
Newsletters
A newsletter is a direct way to stay top-of-mind. Even if prospects follow you on social media, it’s not guaranteed they’ll see your posts organically. You’d be at the mercy of the algorithm.
When you send segmented, personalized newsletters and offer value—that’s a direct line to your prospects. But it’s easy to get tunnel vision when you start automating.
Pro tip: Not all prospects in your newsletter email list can provide value. Learn to let go of prospects who don’t engage with your content. Continuing to do so hurts deliverability rates.
Segment your email list and run re-engagement campaigns for non-active prospects. Here’s an example of an email newsletter from Cloudflare.
Cloudflare's newsletter showcased new features that could benefit its users. Newsletters can also promote products, cross-sell, or boost engagement.
To reduce newsletter subscriber churn rates, we can qualify with double opt-in forms, optimize our lead capture pages, or run quality inbound marketing campaigns.
Cold Email Marketing
Cold email marketing is one of the fastest, most cost-effective, and most profitable ways of growing your business. But, to make it work, you will need the proper setup.
You need to get alternate domains and connect them to your Google Workspace or Microsft 365 accounts. Then, authenticate domains to allow sending and receiving emails.
Each domain can have 2-3 sending accounts, each able to send 30-50 emails daily.
After authentication, it’s time for warmups. It’s best practice to warm up your emails for at least two weeks before running cold email campaigns. Instantly does this for you automatically.
With emails all warmed up, you’d need to get leads from a quality lead source, verify those leads, and add them to your campaign. Here’s where your email marketing software comes in.
It streamlines email marketing, automates campaigns, and provides analytics so marketers can make data-driven decisions about how to proceed.
All that’s left to do now is to optimize your cold email. The best way to do so is personalization and segmentation. Here are five great examples of cold email you can learn from.
Sales Email Campaigns
Sales emails convert high-buying-intent prospects into paying customers. They are sent to middle-of-the-funnel or bottom-of-the-funnel prospects nudges away from a purchase. Use a sales operation tool to keep track of prospects in your pipelines.
Sales representatives must optimize the language used in sales email copy for conversions. SDRs typically implement sales closing techniques in these emails.
However, there will be times when prospects don’t reply to your final sales emails. When this happens, you can’t afford to speculate on why they haven’t responded.
Instead, send a follow-up. An email marketing tool will help you create an automated follow-up sequence if prospects fail to respond. Here’s an example of a persuasive sales email:
Hey {{first name}},
It’s {{your name}}, from {{your company}}. We’ve got a ton of ideas for {{prospect’s company}} next {{marketing}} campaign. We did the same for over 100 accounts focusing on {{niche}}.
Our strategies helped companies like {{competitor}} gain {{result}}. We’re confident that we can do the same for you. Can we send a quick video to highlight what we can do?
Thanks in advance,
{{your name}}
Nurturing Campaigns
Nurturing isn’t limited to newsletters. It can be used to onboard new clients, provide value to prospects doing a free trial, and any form of interest-based email campaign.
In short, nurturing campaigns can be used in every stage of the customer journey, especially after they’ve converted from prospect to paying customer.
Here’s where many marketers fail. Most use nurturing to sell their products/services. It should provide value at every stage of the customer journey.
Doing so transforms aggressive sales tactics, like cold emails, into something akin to an advisory role—helping our prospects make informed decisions (while staying top-of-mind).
The best part is that nurturing can be completely automated. Just ensure you’re segmenting prospects first so the right emails go to the people who’ll find it most valuable.
Let’s take an example from Hubspot’s monthly newsletter.
In this newsletter, Hubspot highlights its most trending blogs, podcasts, and latest reports—all complete with an actionable CTA.
Sponsorship Email Campaigns
You’d want to run a sponsorship email campaign if you have a podcast and want sponsorships, if you're an influencer trying to partner with brands, or if you're a business wishing to collaborate.
Influencers can become brand ambassadors, businesses can reach a wider audience with affiliate marketing, and charities/fundraisers can secure more donations with suitable sponsorship email campaigns.
When sending these types of emails, find ways to earn your prospect's trust, especially if you’re a relatively small brand. You’d need to have a solid introduction email.
Present social proof and statistics (reach, engagement, conversions, etc.). Be clear with your intention and end your email with an actionable CTA. Here is an example template you can try:
Hey, {{first name}},
I’m {{your name}}, from {{your company}}. Our products {{unique value proposition}}. We’ve been a huge fan of your work, especially your recent content on {{relevant topic}}.
Your passion for {{relevant topic}} is something we admire. Our team holds your opinions in high regard. That’s why we wanted to reach out.
Are you open to a sponsorship? We’d love a chance for you to review our products and for us to improve them and provide better value to our customers.
If this interests you, feel free to schedule a meeting with us at your convenience.
Thanks in advance,
{{your name}}
Influencer Email Campaigns
Studies suggest consumers trust influencers more than traditional marketing. Businesses that partner with the right influencer can see a significant revenue boost.
The most effective way to reach out is through an automated influencer outreach campaign. Micro-influencers (below 100k followers) have better conversions than macro-influencers.
But if you want to build brand awareness, going for influencers with more than 100k followers might be a better choice. Here’s an email example you can use:
Hey, {{first name}},
We love what you do on {{platform}}. The content you produce is some of the best we’ve seen.
My name is {{your name}}, {{position}} at {{company}}. Our brand focuses on {{unique selling point}}. I know how passionate you are about {{topic that aligns with your brand and influencer}}. We are, too. That’s why I think we’d be a perfect match.
Are you open to a collaboration? We attached an overview of our proposal for you to check out. If it interests you, we can schedule a meeting to discuss it in depth.
Hoping to hear from you soon,
{{your name}}
Trigger-Base Emails
Email marketing software like Instantly can integrate with CRMs to give marketers powerful trigger-based emails. Now, you don’t need to rely only on schedule-based emails.
Prospects can get emails based on activity, ensuring each is timely and relevant to their needs. Trigger-based emails are necessary if you’re running an eCommerce site or SaaS.
Each transaction should be followed up by an automatic trigger-based email. Think about how customers would feel if they didn’t get a receipt when they bought a product.
Here’s an example from CapCut. You receive an onboarding email when you sign up for a new account.
However, trigger-based emails like this can end up in Gmail’s “promotions tab.” To avoid such issues, warm up your sending accounts to improve deliverability.
Abandoned Cart Campaigns
Revenue is left lying around when shopping cart items aren’t checked out. A simple reminder might just be what customers need to hit that checkout button.
That’s where abandoned cart email campaigns come in. They’re trigger-based email campaigns that every online store should run to improve their customers' average order value (AOV).
You can be as creative as you want with it. For example, if a customer has some items left in the cart, your abandoned cart email copy could say:
“{{product}} is getting lonely. Give ‘em a new home!”
Sales Video Letters
Sales videos add a much-needed human element to your sales emails. Instead of long emails, you can keep them short and simple, then add a sales video letter that expounds your USPs.
These videos can be a qualification tool if you implement the dog-whistle method. Perspective reframing is another powerful marketing technique you can use in a sales video email.
It’s a method where you point out an objection to your offer and then reframe your product as the solution. For example, if you’re selling local SEO, you can say:
“We used to think local SEO was a waste of time. Most of our marketing budget just went to PPC and social media. But, we were just missing a few key steps.”
Key Takeaways
There’s an email marketing campaign for each stage of a customer’s purchasing journey. To make the most of your campaigns, consider the following best practices:
- Warmup emails to improve the deliverability of all campaigns
- Trigger-based emails like welcome or transactional emails should be automated
- Segment prospects to ensure the correct email reaches the right people
- Always provide value to prospects regardless of the email campaign
You need the right tool to streamline, automate, and scale email marketing campaigns. Instantly offers unlimited warmups and sending accounts, making scaling a breeze! Try it out today!