What's A Full-Service Email Marketing Agency?

Melanie Balke
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November 19, 2021

Have you ever wondered how your business can get even more bang for its buck?

Maybe you’re currently working with an existing agency, or — perhaps — you’re using in-house marketing services. Regardless of your situation, there are plenty of ways to amplify your marketing.

However, only one of these many channels has the potential to yield a 4,400% ROI…

A photo of someone sitting at a laptop and working on plans. Overlaid header text says, “What Is a Full Service Email Marketing Agency?”

You heard me right!

Email marketing campaigns have the potential to yield a 4,400% ROI! In other words, you have the opportunity to earn $44 for every dollar you spend. That’s a lot of growth, but it doesn’t happen overnight.

If you want to take full advantage of the benefits of email marketing services, you need to have a strategic partner. You need an email marketing agency, and there are thousands of them out there. So, how do you know which one you should pick?

Why Your Company Needs an Email Marketing Agency

I’ll start with the basics.

Unless you’ve managed to employ an entire team of experts in content creation, customer service, email marketing, graphic design, industry standards, landing page creation, and web design, you probably don’t have the in-house resources you need to run truly successful campaigns.

Your digital marketing team may be amazing, but trying to have them juggle all of the marketing channels at once is just asking for trouble.

A photo of someone writing on a whiteboard. Centered and overlaid header text reads, “Why Your Company Needs an Email Marketing Agency.“

Hiring an email marketing agency helps your business thrive by removing the associated responsibilities from your undoubtedly crowded plate. The right agency will be able to work autonomously with minimal input, freeing your teams to focus on more important matters.

Outsourcing Makes Things Easier

There are so many reasons for your business to invest in a partnership with an email marketing agency. Honestly, I can’t list them all in this blog post!

I can, however, highlight one of the most obvious and important perks of hiring a marketing firm.

Partnering with a marketing agency frees up time and resources within your company.

Your focus can shift, and you’re no longer required to waste precious time developing and implementing marketing campaigns. All of these duties will be outsourced, and your team is free to invest everything they have into the behind-the-scenes magic that will make your company flourish.

What Is a Full-Service Email Marketing Agency?

Of the many options available to you as you begin your agency search, one of the most convenient approaches is the full-service email marketing agency.

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These sizeable marketing services are powerhouses of modern digital marketing, and they specialize in creative email content creation. Like larger full-service digital marketing agencies, these firms provide all of the services you’ll need to successfully plan and execute campaigns, but they specialize in emails.

Think of them as your brand’s all-in-one director of marketing. They handle all of the backstage action, and your company gets to revel in the show!

Who Runs the Show?

Inside a full-service email marketing agency, you’ll find plenty of top email marketing experts.

These folks are amazing brand ambassadors, and they’re fully equipped to handle plenty of businesses. Regardless of your industry, these sales gurus have the skills you need to take your brand’s marketing to the next level.

Generally, a full-service agency will have three different creative departments: copywriting, design, and implementation.

Who Writes the Content?

The copywriting team leads the brand’s content marketing. These wordsmiths forge prosaic messages for clients. Sometimes, their work is sent to be further investigated by a team of editors and sensitivity specialists. However, neither of these additional departments are required, and their absence simply means that the firm’s process is more streamlined.

Who Makes Things Beautiful?

Once the copy is prepared, it has to be presented properly.

This is the design team’s job.

Using a mix of web design knowledge and visual principles, these artists produce eye-catching emails. In order to create this content, these specialists will often mix stock images with photos from your brand.

Who Sends Everything?

Once everything is finalized, it’s time for the implementation team to take the lead!

A shareable graphic featuring a colorized photo of downtown Los Angeles, California, where The Email Marketers are located. Overlaid header text reads, “Who Runs the Show? Implementation.” Several spaces below this is a paragraph of smaller body text: “One of the most important teams at a full-service marketing agency is implementation. These experts are responsible for handling all of the behind-the-scenes coding needed to schedule, segment, and send your email campaigns.”

Backed by years of experience, these tech wizards know their email platforms inside and out and front to back. They handle all of the coding necessary for your email marketing to be sent to the right customers at the right time.

Depending on how large an email marketing agency is, there may be more than one implementation team. In these situations, each team will generally handle its own email marketing program. For example, one team may lead the charge with Klaviyo, and another will be tasked with implementing email marketing solutions through MailChimp.

What Do Full-Service Email Marketing Agencies Do?

Now that we know how these marketing agencies work, it’s time for me to talk about what everyone is here to know!

What do these agencies do?

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The simple answer is that a full-service email marketing agency does everything!

They’ll handle every step of the email marketing journey, and all you have to do is watch.

Market Research

The first step of any email marketer’s creative process is market research.

A shareable infographic. Text overlays a colorized photo of well-stocked library shelves. The header reads, “What They Do: Market Research.” Beneath this are two paragraphs of smaller body text. The first paragraph reads: “The first step of every email marketer's journey is market research.” Several spaces below this is the second paragraph: “This is an extremely complicated process, and it involves many different steps. A truly amazing marketing service will make sure everything has been thoroughly researched before it begins any work.”

At a marketing agency, teams of experts will be tasked with handling your brand’s unique individual needs. This means that they’ll be doing all of the essential research required to make sure every email campaign effectively communicates your message.

The best email marketing teams will take everything into account before they begin working on a strategy. Some of the topics that they’ll be researching include:

  • Business preferences
  • Content from similar brands
  • Creative direction
  • Desired tone
  • Effective subject lines
  • Industry standards
  • Previous business email content
  • Social media presence
  • … and more!

Email Marketing Strategy

Once an email marketing agency has determined your baseline, it’s time to start working!

Together, you and the direct of marketing for your agency or team will discuss the different marketing solutions available. Each of these options will be hand-picked to suit your individual needs, and they’ll be assembled to form a coherent strategy.

This is where things can get a bit complicated.

Before I dive any further into this particular topic, let me mention one last basic service that you’ll find at any full-service email marketing agency…

Graphic Design

Now, not every email marketing agency offers graphic design services.

A shareable infographic featuring The Email Marketers’ logo. Text is overlaid on a  colorized photo of an artist using a throwing wheel. The header reads, “What They Do: Graphic Design.” Beneath this is smaller body text, which reads, “Every full-service marketing agency will come with its own graphic design team. These visionaries are in charge of making sure your email campaigns are eye-catching. Some of their concerns are: acquiring high-quality photos, branding and consistency, choosing appropriate colors, landing page design, and visual design and layout.”

In fact, many smaller agencies don’t! However, when you partner with a full-service email marketing agency, you gain access to all of the services you need to run your campaigns. This includes a skilled graphic design team, who will closely study your existing content to determine your brand’s overall vibe.

Depending on how complex your campaigns will be, the graphic designers may require a bit of hands-on involvement from your brand. For example, an animated email marketing campaign will require more assets and oversight than a simple email template.

What Goes Into an Email Marketing Strategy?

Great!

I’ve covered all of the basic jobs of an email marketing agency. Now, it’s time to take a glimpse at the more complex parts of this industry.

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Alongside its basic offerings, every full-service agency will have the ability to execute and implement a wide range of different strategic functions. These capabilities have unique attributes and uses, but they all focus on one thing: maximizing your revenue and generating more leads.

Marketing Automation

One of the most effective and useful functions of an email marketing agency is its inherent understanding of its chosen email management program.

A shareable infographic featuring a photo of workers planning something. Overlaid header text says, “Working With Agencies: Tips From a Pro.” Beneath this is smaller body text: “There are many different types of marketing automation, and all of them have unique benefits. When you're talking to your marketing team, tell them some of your business goals. This will help them determine which types of automation will be the most useful.”

This knowledge allows the agency and its staff to easily control and implement various automated functions, which are collectively known as email automation.

Email programs have umpteen different approaches to automation, but all of these tools are ultimately designed to boost sales and drive more customers to your business. Some of the most common forms of automation include:

  • Company updates
  • Customer loyalty programs
  • Drip marketing email campaigns
  • Holiday and time-sensitive marketing campaigns
  • New product releases and updates
  • Personalized messages for birthdays, anniversaries, and so on
  • Product reminders for clients using subscription services
  • Unique celebratory marketing email campaigns

Customer Data Management

In order to run an email campaign, you’ll need to have subscribers! Customers will need to sign up to receive news of your sales and promotions, which means that you’ll have to find a way to manage this sensitive data.

Email marketing companies remove the hassle of tracking this information. With an agency’s email marketing platform of choice, it can easily handle and track all of your essential contact information. In fact, years of experience give agencies the ability to easily create and curate highly specific lists for every customer in your address book.

The best thing about this facet of email marketing agencies is that your company retains full control over its contact list. At the same time, you can stop worrying about finding tools to manage all of this information.

In fact, offloading this aspect of email marketing onto an agency is a huge money-saver!

Most email marketing software charges on a per-customer basis. In other words, companies will larger lists will pay more. If you’re starting to find that your in-house marketing is getting a bit too expensive, then a marketing agency may just be your new best friend.

Landing Page Creation

When you’re looking for a marketing partner, you need someone who understands the process.

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Creating an effective marketing funnel means having unique landing pages. While a brand can try and create these on their own, it’s much easier to hand the responsibility off to a marketing agency.

When an agency takes over landing page duties, it creates a truly interconnected campaign. These pages are essential to understanding and tracking the data associated with an email campaign, and proper implementation is essential.

Fortunately, a good email marketing firm understands how its email marketing service interacts with its clients’ ecommerce platforms. The knowledge is ultimately used to create responsive and effective landing pages.

Marketing Segmentation and Sorting

I’ll be upfront with you: one of the most tedious parts of email marketing is segmentation. This is a fancy name for telling email marketing services how to sort customers.

On the broadest possible level, segmentation tends to sort customers into demographic groups. Think men and women, age groups, and geographic location. However, an email marketing company has the know-how to go even deeper than that.

A colorized photo of someone folding and sorting laundry serves as the backdrop for a shareable infographic. The overlaid header text reads, “Marketing Strategy: Segmentation.” Beneath this is a paragraph of smaller body text: “The widespread utility of segmentation makes it one of the most important email marketing tools. The best email marketing companies know how to use advanced segments to sort customers into unique groups, which can then be used to make marketing automation even easier.”

At a full-service email agency, you’ll find email marketing experts with the insight and technical skills to implement segments that can sort customers by any criteria under the digital sun. Some unique examples of marketing segmentation are:

  • Child age groups
  • Family members
  • Fashion preferences
  • Pets owned

Once these algorithms have been set up, a marketing firm can create campaigns that are extremely targeted. Through careful manipulation of the brand’s email platform, marketers can quickly and easily create the illusion of intense personalization.

And, speaking of personalization…

Personalizing the Best Email Marketing

Any firm worth its weight will be able to personalize a campaign.

The top email marketing firms will know how to personalize every email campaign.

The simple act of adding a customer’s name to their emails can dramatically improve your conversion rates, and that will ultimately translate into a bigger payday for your company.

A shareable infographic with a colorized photos of markers next to blank name tags. Overlaid header text says, “Marketing Strategy: Personalization.” Beneath this is smaller body text: “It may seem like a minor thing, but personalization is an extremely powerful tool. The simple act of adding a customer's name to a message can increase a campaign's effectiveness!”

However, personalization doesn’t end there.

With a good director of marketing, an email agency can easily create campaigns rooted in rich personal data. Individual emails can contain statistics on a customer’s use of a brand’s services and encourage clients to invest in even more features. Content marketing can be built to fit a user’s individual preferences, which further bolsters the chance that an email campaign will turn a massive profit.

Testing and Refining

As important as the creative side of marketing may be, data remains the reigning champion of the industry.

The most unique and innovative marketing email is worthless if it fails to increase a company’s revenue! Sales are always the end goal, and achieving that end requires a bit of testing.

In the marketing world, this is known as A/B testing. It’s a rather involved process, and I definitely don’t have time to explain all of it here.

Summarily, it’s one of many ways that marketers study and gauge the success of individual email campaigns. With a bit of crafty management, a marketing agency can take its A/B testing and use the data to focus on proven sales-boosting elements.

Visual Design and Implementation

I know that I’ve already mentioned it before, but it needs to be said again!

A shareable infographic featuring a colorized photo of someone painting. Overlaid header text reads, “Working With Agencies: Tips From a Pro.” Several lines below this is smaller body text, reading, “If you want to amplify your investment, then be sure to work closely with your email marketing agency! Visually stunning campaigns require plenty of photos, and you should have some prepared for your marketers. Have high-quality product and sample photos ready for your campaigns. Your marketing team will appreciate it!”

Graphic design and visual wizardry are so important when you’re creating email marketing campaigns. Viewers tend to focus on bright and colorful graphics. The best service providers know how to use creative visual content to take full advantage of this natural temptation.

The best digital marketing teams will be able to seamlessly integrate their own creative spin on visuals into any company’s existing branding. Hard-coded animations, GIFs, image carousels, and interactive emails are just some of web design tricks that can elevate your email marketing.

How to Find the Best Email Marketing Agencies

With all of these benefits at your fingertips, I’m sure you’re excited to start investigating your options.

Wait!

A photo of downtown Los Angeles with overlaid header text: “How to Find the Best Email Marketing Agencies.”

Before you start digging through email marketing services, you’ll want to take a look at some tips on finding the best full-service email marketing agency for your brand. You’ll want to know what you’re looking for before you begin, and that means know what you’ll focus on with your campaigns.

Find Someone Who Works With Your Industry

Regardless of what you need, your first goal will be to find an agency that has worked with your industry before. There are dozens of different companies out there, and each one will have its own unique branding and marketing needs.

A photo of someone taking notes in a notebook while reading from a laptop.

Take a look at the agency’s list of clients, and see if those customers match your company’s industry segment. This will tell you whether or not the agency has experience with your individual situation.

Now, I need to note that a lack of similar clients isn’t a sign of a bad agency. In fact, an email service with zero experience in your industry may just be the best partner you’ll ever have.

It’s up to you to weigh the benefits of experience against the perks of creative thinking and proven results.

Look for Results

Speaking of results, you absolutely must be able to see those before you initiate a business relationship with an agency.

A shareable infographic. Text is overlaid on a colorized photo of assorted monetary bills. The header reads, “Finding an Agency: Look for Results.” Beneath this are two paragraphs of smaller body text. The first paragraph reads, “When you're on the hunt for email marketing services, one of the best signs of a good company is a solid track record of results.” Several spaces below this is the second paragraph: “You'll find this information in a few different places. However, one of the best places to look will be the company's ‘Testimonials’ or ‘Case Studies’ pages.”

You want to see plenty of companies under its belt, and those clients should have experienced a healthy boost in sales while working with the agency.

Normally, you’ll find this information under an agency’s “Testimonials” or “Case Studies” sections. In other instances, you may find success stories highlighted on the agency blog.

Taking a peek at the marketing agency’s social media presence can also give you a hint about its past success. When a brand is success, it will frequently acknowledge the mastermind behind the strategy, and social media is a great way to see reviews and feedback.

Make Sure You Like Your Manager

Finally, you’ll want to have an amicable relationship with your assigned manager.

Aside from the personal benefits, this facet of marketing will guarantee that your brand gets the best service. You’ll be more communicative with friendly management, and this will directly impact the effectiveness of your marketing strategy.

Amplify Your Marketing With The Email Marketers

If you’re ready to look for an agency with the power and expertise you need, then I have a suggestion.

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The Email Marketers is a hand-picked group of marketing experts. Every employee is a content marketing wizard, and they’re all ready to serve your business.

If you’re ready to truly amplify your content marketing and boost your sales, then now is the time to start! Feel free to reach out to me, and we can discuss how our services can take your email marketing to the next level.

In the meantime, don’t forget to brush up on your email marketing knowledge. My blog is packed with information about email marketing, — from web design tips to information on the best email platform — and it’s all free!