Get Started with Email Marketing

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Explain the difference between email marketing and marketing automation.
Describe Account Engagement's permission-based policy.

Introduction

As a marketer, you hear a lot about delivering marketing content and personalized experiences across every step of the customer journey. But despite the current emphasis on multichannel content delivery, email is still a primary method of delivering excellent experiences to your customers. It’s a necessary part of your marketing strategy.

Think of the kinds of emails you receive from companies and brands: welcome emails, new product or feature announcements, event invitations, resources, newsletters. The list can go on and on. And email gives you a window into customer behavior—you can see which emails they open, what device they use, and which content and offers they explore.

So emails are both central to your business strategy and the primary way to reach your audience. That said, you might be wondering about how email marketing fits in with your marketing automation platform, Marketing Cloud Account Engagment.

So What’s the Difference?

If you’re confused about the difference between “email marketing” and “marketing automation,” you’re not alone. Even seasoned marketers sometimes struggle to sift through the marketing speak to find the tool that provides real value. This jargon can make it seem like the lines between marketing automation and email marketing are blurred, when in reality, the distinction is fairly simple.

Let’s start with the definitions.

Email marketing is a tool that helps send mass email, track replies, and report on them.
Marketing automation is a solution that allows you to more effectively market on multiple channels online (such as email, social media, websites) and automate repetitive tasks.

To put it simply, email marketing is a tool, while marketing automation is a comprehensive strategy.

With email marketing, you control only email sending. With marketing automation, you can automate the process of interacting with prospects and customers through all channels, including email. In this module, we focus solely on creating and sending emails through Account Engagement.

Permission-Based Marketing

Trust is our number one value here at Salesforce, and we take that responsibility to you and to your customers seriously. In order to keep that trust, Account Engagement supports only permission-based email marketing. We have a hard stance against sending spam or unsolicited emails through our platform. Spam is unsolicited commercial email, junk mail, or bulk mail that hasn’t been requested by the recipient. Simply put, spam is the opposite of permission-based emails—those that are requested, anticipated, personal, and relevant.

The permission-based marketing policy lays out what this means for you as an Account Engagement customer. Most importantly, don’t send spam emails and don’t use purchased or rented lists to send emails to recipients without their express permission. Instead, you create and manage “opt-in” subscriber lists. You can build these lists slowly over time using lead-generation tools. To help you manage your opt-in process, an unsubscribe or opt-out option is always added to every email you send via Account Engagement.

Follow CAN-SPAM Guidelines for Each Email Send

In addition to our own permission-based marketing policy, you must also follow CAN-SPAM guidelines for emails you send. The Follow Legal Compliance Guidelines unit of the Email Marketing Strategies module shows you how to comply with CAN-SPAM guidelines.

Let’s discuss some of the requirements.

Don’t use false or misleading header information. Accurately identify the sender in the header information.
Don’t use deceptive subject lines. Don’t trick your recipient into opening an email by inaccurately representing the email’s content. For example, if the subject line refers to a free Trailblazer hoodie giveaway, the body of the email must include information on how the recipient can enter to win.
Identify the message as an ad. Be clear about the content of your email—is it an advertisement or solicitation?
Tell recipients where you’re located. Always include your physical mailing address somewhere in your email. It can be anywhere in the email you like—at the top, bottom, or in the middle. Just make sure it’s there. It demonstrates your company is real.
Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Have a clear way for subscribers to unsubscribe in one click. We recommend you make it a link at the bottom of the email, but wherever you place it, make it easy for subscribers to find.

These CAN-SPAM guidelines are important because well, they’re the law, but also because following them establishes you as a trusted, conscientious company that respects your email recipients’ time and attention.

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