Email is one of the longest existing digital marketing channels—and it’s also one of the most powerful. It provides a direct line of communication to your target audiences, all without an algorithm or paid media. With all that said, it’s important to remember and consider that email marketing does require investments in your financial budget, team resources, and time before you dive head first.

Every private equity firm wants to stretch their marketing dollars as far as possible, and with 4 billion daily email users—and those email visitors being the most likely to convert on forms—there’s a reason your inbox always seems filled to the brim. Email marketing can be very impactful, but businesses can (and should) get smarter about ensuring that every message counts. 

In this first installment of our email marketing series, we’ll cover the basics of what email marketing is, the different types of email campaigns private equity firms should be leveraging, and the advantages of email, including how it can impact the overall marketing success and growth of your firm. 

Follow along as we go into more detail on the plethora of topics under the email marketing umbrella:

Which Email Marketing Platform is Right for Your Firm?

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a form of direct and digital marketing that leverages promotional messages sent via email to generate brand awareness, sales, or leads. It can also be used as a softer sell to educate your audiences by providing thought leadership that helps position your firm as an industry expert.

The most effective email marketing strategies adapt, grow, and innovate alongside the latest email evolutions, and are also part of a larger marketing plan. When used this way, email marketing can be both a relationship-building and profit-building tool—attributes that are especially crucial in how private equity firms should center their marketing efforts.

How to Leverage Email Marketing for Private Equity

With email marketing, you’re able to stay top-of-mind by providing communication straight to your audience’s inbox. Keep in mind that while every email campaign will have a different purpose, goal, and outcome, your email should always be relevant to its intended reader. 

We’ve rounded up a list of the top four types of email campaigns your firm should consider when planning your email marketing strategy.

1. Informational Emails
Informational emails are ideal for sharing recent news, deal announcements, quarterly reports, and more, and ultimately helps build brand awareness. This type of email not only syndicates noteworthy news to a targeted list you control, but it also highlights your work and services in real time, which can result in more end-of-funnel conversions from email nurture.

These informational emails can include:

• Single Deal Announcements: Highlight closed deals and other developments concerning mergers and acquisitions of your portfolio companies
• Investor Updates: Share data room openings and updates to fund data
• Quarterly Reports: Dive deep into recent deals, investments, upcoming funds, and more

2. Campaign-Driven Emails
Email can also be an effective promotional channel for high-value content on your website, especially if you have already begun to invest in a content marketing strategy for your firm. These campaign-driven emails can include blog posts promoting thought leadership and industry insights, or include event promotions for upcoming summits and conferences.

3. Lead Nurturing Emails
Lead nurturing emails are automated and highly personalized, and allow you to build a relationship with your prospects more closely. These emails are triggered when users take a specific action on your website, such as completing a form to download a whitepaper or completing another transaction like submitting a contact form.

Unlike the email campaigns mentioned above, lead nurturing campaigns require your firm to have a marketing automation tool in place—not just a basic email marketing platform. Lead nurturing emails help drive brand awareness and establish trust, which is essential for private equity firms looking to stand out among competitors.

4. Email Digests
In its most basic form, an email digest is a summary email that succinctly recaps your published emails over a specific time period. Good digest emails summarize important information in a way that makes it easy for the reader to grasp its value and drive brand awareness through a regular publishing cadence.

This is a great way to repurpose the informational and campaign-driven emails mentioned above, while also ensuring that your subscribers see the emails they find interesting—but may have missed earlier on. 

The Benefits of Email Marketing

In order to help guide your firm in determining whether or not email marketing may be right for you, and at what scale, it’s important to first understand the advantages email can offer.

1. It helps build relationships with your target audiences.

Private equity is all about relationship building. Email marketing allows you to stay in touch with prospects and foster relationships over the long haul. An ideal prospect may not be in the market for a partner at the moment, but email marketing can help you keep a foot in the door and stay top of mind. Just remember—while email affords you a fairly intimate level of access, you have a responsibility to  treat their inboxes respectfully. Be mindful of your cadence.

2. It allows you to create highly personalized content.
Because email marketing utilizes first-party data, it allows you to personalize and have control of not only who you’re sending communications to, but what you’re sending. Email marketing allows you to segment your prospects into different lists based on their preferences and build highly personalized, automated lead nurturing campaigns that help drive prospects further down the funnel.

3. It supports deal flow.
Deal sourcing strategies are the foundation of any prosperous private equity firm. While many firms still use some traditional methodologies, modern data and technology like email marketing have given way to more structured and proactive approaches. Lead generation email campaigns allow you to draw in prospects through content offerings like whitepapers and guides, and follow through with lead nurturing with an automated process, simplifying and automating your deal flow.

4. It provides measurable results.
Measuring the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns is a crucial element in learning from and optimizing ongoing strategies. With email marketing, you can easily evaluate metrics like open rates, click-through rates, content engagement, and delivery rates for all email communications and determine the strengths and weaknesses of each campaign. Most email marketing platforms even allow you to A/B test. This allows you to send variations of your campaign to a subset of your subscribers and compare performances, all before you hit send to your entire segmented email list.

Jumpstart Your Email Marketing Strategy

Email marketing can be an effective solution for private equity firms looking to reach prospects in the place they visit every day—their inboxes. But, while reach is important, it’s crucial to consider how an email marketing strategy will align with your overall marketing strategies and goals. That’s where we can help.

Whether you need help refreshing the design of your email templates, are looking for advice on your tech stack, or need assistance developing a complete email marketing strategy for your firm, we’re here to help. Drop us a message to connect with us and subscribe to our newsletter to make sure you don’t miss the next post in our email marketing series.