How many people in the world use email? 
More than the number of people living in China and India – the world’s two most populous countries – combined.
That gives businesses 2.5 billion reasons to consider email as a marketing tool. In order to save time and space, we’ll just focus on six reasons:
- Email marketing is more effective than social media when it comes to acquiring new customers.
- Email marketing is easy to do and doesn’t cost you much.
- Email marketing is personal, allowing you to address people in your audience by name. (People are more likely to open messages that include their names.) You can also use it to target only certain segments of your audience, depending on the topic.
- Email marketing lets you see results right away. People will naturally take action when they get an email: they’ll reply, forward, click on something or even make a purchase.
- Email marketing is measurable. With the right software, you can get a picture of how your email marketing campaign is performing.
- Email marketing is with your audience wherever they go. As long as they have a smartphone, they can check their email.
With these reasons in mind, here are five types of emails your manufacturing company can use to connect with your audience.
1. Plain-Text Emails
Plain-text emails don’t seem all that flashy, and that’s exactly why you want them to be part of your marketing campaign. When you send an email that’s just text, you’ll know that it will display properly no matter how your audience reads it.
A message that’s filled with HTML code may not display on some devices, so it’s a good idea to create a plain-text version of any message you send out. Putting aside display issues, plain-text emails are a good idea simply because people find them easy to read.
2. Primary Action Emails
While your audience might appreciate the clean, easy-to-read format of the plain-text email, such messages aren’t likely to lead readers to take action.
That’s where our next email category comes in: the primary action email. This is a message that contains a single purpose: to get readers to take action. That could mean downloading an offer, or signing up for a webinar.
The important thing is that this call-to-action should be the only one in your message. Overloading your emails with different actions for your readers to take means they’re less likely to take any action.
3. Promotional Emails
Whether you’re a sandwich shop offering half-price lunches or a manufacturer holding a 
sale on a highly specialized piece of equipment, you want to get the word out.
Here’s another way email marketing can help. A promotional email is a simple way to spread the word about promotional offers without generating a lot of copy. All you need is to tell customers what the offer is and how they can act on it.
You should also let them know when your offer expires. The more urgency you give them, the less likely they are to leave your message untouched.
4. Newsletter Emails
It might not be a great idea to email your subscribers whenever you produce a new piece of content. It’s time consuming for you, and overwhelming for them. Still, your customers want to know what’s going on, and you want to share it.
That’s where a newsletter email can help. It lets you sum up all of the recent content you’ve produced in an easy-to-digest format. It’s a good idea to put one out at least every month.
5. Survey Emails
The first four types of emails on this list are focused on letting your customers hear from you. But what about hearing from your audience?
Do what other businesses have done for decades: send out a survey. Don’t include the survey in the email, though. Just use the message to explain why you’re doing the survey, let customers know what they’ll receive for answering your questions, and provide a link to the survey.
If you’re ready to make email marketing part of your marketing strategy, IQnection can help. Our team of email marketing specialists will create an email campaign to fit your sales cycle and increase your email reach.
