Expert Tips For What is an Email Marketing Specialist and What Do They Do?

The statistics don’t lie.

According to HubSpot, “email generates $42 for every $1 spent, which is an astounding 4,200% ROI, making it one of the most effective options available.”

But don’t think it’s as simple as typing up some copy and hitting send. Email marketing specialists know all the ins and outs of every element for achieving such strong results, from automations and design to audience segmentation and even accessibility!

Email marketing has consistently shown a strong return for the last ten years in a row. It’s become critical for a company’s success and is a highly in-demand field for expertise! Let’s dig a little deeper into what it is exactly, who runs it, and how to get into the game of becoming an email marketing specialist!

What is email marketing?

Put simply, email marketing is the use of electronic messaging to engage with audiences and build relationships. Inform your audience, drive sales, build relationships between your brand and your customers. Think newsletters, announcements, deals/specials, surveys—it’s all part of the larger picture. Email is highly personalized and can be used for both one-off or automated messages; it allows you to communicate directly with customers and prospects as well as gather important data on their habits and preferences.

It’s common for people to confuse marketing with advertising.  Marketing is about building relationships with customers and creating an experience for them that goes beyond simple transactions. It’s understanding human behavior, knowing what they want and need, and working to provide it. Marketing should be genuine and transparent; you’re not trying to inflate a product or service, but rather bring value to your customer base. Advertising falls under marketing, but generally means paid content (i.e., TV commercials, billboards) as opposed to organic messaging (blog posts and, you guessed it, email).

Think of it this way: marketing is about helping people find you while advertising is trying to get them to notice you, and email marketing brings that help directly to your audience’s inbox…with permission, of course!

What is an email marketing specialist? What do they do?

An email marketing specialist or “email marketer” is someone who knows how to create messages that engage an audience and provide value. They manage every aspect of a company’s emails: how they look, sound, and (most importantly) perform. Typically they work within a company, but many email marketers freelance as well. These professionals work closely with everyone from marketing managers to IT specialists to sales teams; depending on how advanced the campaigns are, an email marketer might handle everything!

Typical responsibilities include:

• Craft both long-term and campaign strategies
• Test and optimize emails for readability and accessibility on multiple devices
• Design layouts
• Monitor email campaign performance
• Maintain multiple databases
• Apply audience segmentation and targeting
• Perform A/B tests
• Track and analyze campaign results

And especially

• Always be willing to keep learning and move with the technology

Agency Partner’s own email marketing lead expert stresses the utmost importance of utilizing automation – “Automations allow email marketers to work smarter not harder.” Who doesn’t love that?

How to Become an Email Marketing Expert

Digital marketing is still a new area for much of formal education, so the parameters for entering the field are pretty flexible! Since few institutions offer a specific digital marketing degree, common bachelor’s degrees preferred by employers are:

• General marketing
• Business admin
• Graphic design
• Communications

Those should tell you a lot about what to expect in the job! With educational platforms like SkillShare and Coursera, you can easily earn a certification in email marketing itself to help you start building your credibility from home and even for free! No matter what route you take, the job will definitely require you to develop a few skills for sure, such as:

• Writing attention-grabbing subject lines
• A sharp eye for design and formatting
• Understanding analytics and how to interpret them
• Audience insight
• Campaign strategy

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To summarize, as Agency Partner’s email expert puts it, “Email marketers constantly need to balance aesthetics with function. It’s important to have a keen eye for design as well as the knowledge of how to apply that design for functionality…Email marketing is all about emailing the right person, at the right time, with the right message. Personalization, tagging, and audience segmentation are crucial.”

It’s a lot to manage for sure! Need some help with your company’s email marketing? Agency Partner’s team of specialists are one Contact Us page away to get started with crafting your strategy and developing campaigns to build your audience and drive your sales, one inbox at a time!