In the fast-paced digital landscape of today, email marketing remains a timeless and indispensable tool for businesses seeking to connect with their audience, foster customer relationships and drive growth. Email marketing is known as a top 3 distribution channel for B2C and B2B, which is why the forbinfi team wanted to share our comprehensive guide on Email Marketing 101! 

Email Marketing Benefits 

Email marketing is a channel you own where you can control the narrative, audience and overall brand. Because of this, there are many different benefits to email. 

  • Foster Current Relationships: Email is a great way to keep you top of mind for customers while updating them on things happening within the financial institution.

  • Boost Brand Awareness: Adding new emails to your distribution list will continue to boost brand awareness for your branch(es), new products and more. 

  • Update Customers: If you have upcoming closings, a new branch to be opened or volunteer activities to showcase, add them in to your email. 

  • Market Products: Highlight new products, rates, online loan applications and more. 

  • Sell Deeper: Remind customers to sign up for e-Statements or break your lists into segments where you can speak to complimentary products that coincide with what they already have. 

How To Build Your List 

In order to start an email newsletter or blast, you will first need to build a list. Below are some ways to begin collecting emails. 

  • Site Forms: Add a sign up on your site, whether that be a pop up or a field in the footer. You could also add a check box to your contact form allowing users to opt in to email communication. 

  • Webinar Sign Up: If you are going to host a webinar or offer a course at your branch for financial wellness, request emails. Then you can add those to your list as well. 

  • Social Media: Speak to your email newsletter on social media so people can choose to join in on the communication. 

  • Printed Solutions: Whether it's mailers, flyers or a signup sheet in the branch, highlight the fact there will now be email communication. 

  • Manual Collection: While you collect email in all other areas of your business, have staff understand a central location where any new emails should be added to grow your list. 

forbinfi is happy to help you create content, design and send emails to your customer base – whether that’s an email blast, monthly/quarterly newsletter or an onboarding email experience for new customers.  

Discuss Email Marketing with the Experts  

Email Marketing Best Practices 

For beginners starting to send out an email blast or newsletter, here are a few best practices to follow. 

  • Start With Basic Design: Emails may look nice in the email platform or when sent to Gmail, but many emails strip out or can’t apply the design elements of your email. It’s better to start with a more basic design and add a good amount of white space between sections and buttons so a user can properly click buttons when on mobile. 

  • Test For All Devices: To go with the tip above, make sure to test your email. Send it to Gmail and Outlook to look at how things format, then open it up on desktop and your phone to see how things stack. This will give you a good idea of what others will see when it comes to different platforms and devices they will view this on. 

  • Add CTAs: Add call to action buttons on every section so the user has a next step. This can link to a blog if you have longer form content to share, a web page highlighting a product or an outside resource helpful to the end user. 

  • Optimize ‘From Name’ & ‘Subject Line’: The ‘From Name’ should be the FI or the person who is most likely known for communicating to customers. This gives a more trustworthy look to the email. The ‘Subject Line’ is the one thing a customer sees before deciding to open the email or not, so you want to make it clear and intriguing.  

  • Follow Regulations: Be sure to follow CAN-SPAM to stay in compliance with your messaging. You can view all CAN-SPAM requirements here. Beyond that, be sure to add Member FDIC/EHL into your footer as needed depending on the content of the email. 

How To Track Results 

So, how do you know if email is successful? Here are a few results you can track to get a better understanding of your customers. 

  • Deliverability: measures the rate at which emails reach your intended subscribers’ inboxes. This will help you see how clean your email list is. 

  • Open rate: is the percentage of people that open your email once it reaches their inbox. This allows you to see how popular the email was to have people choose to open it. 

  • Clickthrough rate (CTR): is the percentage of people that click on your CTAs. This will show how many people did the action you asked of them. 

  • Unsubscribes: measures the number of people who opt out of your email list once they receive an email from you. This allows you to remain compliant by not sending to these unsubscribes again and getting insight as to why they may not want communication from you. 

As we conclude our journey through Email Marketing 101, remember that mastering this versatile tool can unlock a world of opportunities for your business. From the myriad benefits it offers to the best practices that guide your strategies and the invaluable ability to track results, email marketing is a dynamic force in the ever-evolving digital landscape. forbinfi is happy to help you create content, design and send emails to your customer base – whether that’s an email blast, monthly/quarterly newsletter or an onboarding email experience for new customers.  

Discuss Email Marketing with the Experts