Most leads are not lost to a competitor. They are lost to the silence that follows the first contact.
Someone visits your website, downloads a guide or fills in a form – and never hears from you again. Not because the interest was missing, but because nobody offered the next step. That is exactly the gap email marketing closes, if it is built properly.
Built properly means: not as a newsletter that sends company news once a month, but as a sequence that accompanies a prospect along their customer journey. This article shows how to plan it, how to measure it and what Swiss law requires.
What email marketing does – and what it does not
Email marketing is targeted communication with subscribers, prospects and customers by email: newsletters, automated sequences, follow-ups, offers.
Its advantage is the direct route. On social media and in search, an algorithm decides whether your content is seen. An email lands in the inbox of the person who asked for it.
Direct does not mean effective. An email works when it matches a current interest and solves a concrete problem. A newsletter that carries nothing but advertising every week soon stops being opened – and then gets unsubscribed.
Goal first, template second
An email marketing strategy does not start with the question of which newsletter template looks good. It starts with three others:
- Who do you want to reach? A B2B service firm writes differently from an online shop, and a new customer needs different information from a regular one.
- Which problem do you solve for that person? A buyer persona helps make the answer concrete rather than general.
- What role does email play in the whole process? Developing leads, retaining customers or preparing a sale: those are three different programmes with three different metrics.
Email rarely comes first. Before it, someone has to arrive on your website and have a reason to leave an address. The levers that work there are covered in the article on the twelve levers of website lead generation.
Newsletter marketing: value before announcements
The newsletter is the best-known part of email marketing – and the one most often done wrong. Company news mainly interests the company.
What gets read is content that gives the recipient something: a practical guide, a take on an industry development, a worked calculation, a new article. In B2B especially, where a decision rarely happens at the first contact, good content keeps the relationship warm until the need becomes concrete.
Not every email has to sell. The balance between information and offers decides whether your emails are still opened three months from now.
From lead to customer: the sequence beats the single email
A new lead is not yet a customer. Most prospects have recognised a problem, are looking for solutions and are comparing providers. An offer at this stage comes too early.
A sequence accompanies them step by step instead: first something helpful, then a deeper dive or a practical example, only later the offer of a conversation. Someone who is not ready today may be in a few weeks – and then you are the company that stayed present.
This principle is called lead nurturing. How it fits into the wider sales funnel is covered in the article on the marketing funnel for SMEs.
Segmentation and personalisation: not everyone needs the same email
A large list is not automatically valuable. What matters is whether the right people receive the right content.
Personalisation does not mean putting a first name in the subject line. It means taking actual interest into account: which guide did someone download? Which service page did they visit? Which email did they click?
That gives you segments, for example:
- new leads who have just requested something,
- active prospects who have clicked several times,
- existing customers,
- former customers,
- particularly engaged subscribers.
Each group gets what fits its situation. It feels personal without you writing every email by hand.
Automation: trigger emails and drip campaigns
By hand, email marketing works as long as the list stays small. Once several hundred contacts follow different paths, marketing automation takes over: an email is triggered by an event rather than by a calendar entry.
The trigger email
A trigger email follows an action: a newsletter sign-up, a download, an order, a click on a particular offer. It arrives exactly when interest is highest.
The drip campaign
A drip campaign is a sequence sent on a schedule or depending on behaviour. The classic example is the welcome series: a greeting, then something useful, a few days later a follow-on topic, and finally the offer of a conversation.
The flow is built once and then runs by itself. It must not be rigid, though: someone who has already booked a meeting should not keep receiving the sequence meant to get them to book one. Good automation reacts to behaviour, not just to the date.
Which flows pay off first for an SME, and which do not, is covered in the article on marketing automation for SMEs.
Subject line, content and CTA: one promise, one action
The subject line decides whether an email is opened. It has to say why the content matters to the recipient – without promising more than the email delivers. «Our new newsletter is out» says nothing. A subject line that names a concrete problem says why opening is worth it.
The content then has to keep that promise, and it needs one main action: read an article, visit a page, book a meeting. An email that points at a blog post, a webinar, a product and a consultation all at once spreads attention until nothing happens. A clear call to action matters more than a beautiful layout.
Whoever clicks must land where the email promised: on a matching landing page, not on the home page.
The metrics that matter
Judging a campaign by feel is convenient and usually wrong. These metrics hold up:
- Click rate: how many recipients clicked a link. The CTR shows whether the content moves people to act.
- Conversion rate: how many then did what the email was for – an enquiry, a meeting, a download.
- Unsubscribe rate: if it rises, you are sending too often or offering too little.
- Delivery rate: how many emails arrive at all.
The open rate has not been a reliable number since 2021. That year Apple introduced Mail Privacy Protection, a feature that stops senders from knowing when an email is opened (Apple, 2021). For those recipients the open rate says nothing any more. Treat it as a trend at most, never as a measure of success.
And never read a number on its own. A campaign with fewer clicks can be the better one if it brings more qualified enquiries. How to measure metrics in context is covered in the article on Google Analytics 4 for SMEs.
Deliverability: the email has to arrive
The best email is worthless in the spam folder. Since 1 February 2024, Google has required senders who send more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts to do three things: authenticate with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, offer one-click unsubscribe on marketing emails, and keep their reported spam rate below 0.3 per cent (Google, email sender guidelines).
Most SMEs are far below 5,000 emails a day. One part applies to everyone, though: Google requires SPF or DKIM from every sender. If you send through an email tool, check that it signs on behalf of your own domain. Otherwise your emails are more likely to end up as spam.
CRM and email belong together
A CRM knows what your email tool does not: who has already spoken to sales, who has received a quote, who is a customer. With the two connected, a contact who had a meeting yesterday does not get the first-time-prospect email today.
The connection also works the other way: if a lead shows strong interest across several emails, they land on the sales list for a personal call. How to score that interest without overrating it is covered in the article on lead scoring for SMEs.
What applies in Switzerland: consent, sender, opt-out
Advertising emails sent to many recipients count as mass advertising in Switzerland under Art. 3 para. 1 lit. o of the Federal Act against Unfair Competition. They are permitted only if three conditions are met together:
- Consent was obtained before the first send.
- The sender is correctly identified.
- Every email points to a straightforward, free way to opt out.
There is an exception for existing customers: if you received their contact details in the course of a sale and pointed out the option to refuse, you may send them advertising for your own similar products or services without explicit consent. The exception is narrower than it sounds – «similar» means a recognisable link to what was bought, not your whole range. The three conditions in detail are covered in the article on marketing automation for SMEs.
The law does not prescribe double opt-in. It is, however, the simplest way to prove consent later: after signing up, the person receives an email with a confirmation link, and only clicking it adds them to the list. Whoever claims consent has to be able to show it in a dispute. Our own newsletter works the same way: sign up, confirmation email, only then the list.
Data protection law applies on top: whoever collects addresses must say at the point of collection what they will be used for. Why Swiss law ties mass advertising to automation rather than to the number of recipients is covered in the article on marketing automation for SMEs.
Email alongside the other channels
Email works best as part of a chain. SEO brings visitors in the long run, Google Ads brings them quickly, content marketing gives them a reason to leave an address. From there, email carries the relationship.
Each touchpoint prepares the next: the blog post leads to the download, the download triggers the sequence, the sequence leads to the conversation. How to map that chain for your own business is shown in the article on customer journey mapping.
Connecting website, search, advertising and conversion in exactly this way is the work of ALPENIQ Growth.
Frequently asked questions
What is email marketing for SMEs?
Targeted communication with prospects, leads and customers by email: newsletters, automated sequences, follow-ups and offers. For an SME it is the most direct channel for not losing a contact after the first visit.
How often should an SME send a newsletter?
There is no universally right frequency. What counts is how often you have something to say that is useful to the recipient. A rising unsubscribe rate is the clearest sign that it is too often.
Is double opt-in mandatory in Switzerland?
No. The UCA requires prior consent, not a particular procedure. Double opt-in is, however, the simplest way to prove that consent later.
What is the difference between a newsletter and marketing automation?
A newsletter goes to a whole group at one point in time. Marketing automation triggers emails individually when a person does something: signs up, downloads content, clicks on an offer.
Does an SME need a CRM for email marketing?
Not necessarily. A CRM does extend the possibilities considerably, because it knows who has already spoken to sales or is a customer, and steers the emails accordingly.
How important is the open rate now?
Less than it used to be. Since Apple introduced Mail Privacy Protection in 2021, it says nothing for part of your recipients. Click rate and conversions are the more robust numbers.
Is email marketing worthwhile in B2B?
Especially there. B2B decisions often need several touchpoints, and a sequence keeps the contact going until the need becomes concrete.
Conclusion: the journey first, the newsletter second
Anyone setting up email marketing should start not with the newsletter but with four questions: Where does the prospect come from? What do they need next? Which action signals genuine buying interest? And which step should follow from it?
Once those are answered, the rest follows: segments instead of one list, triggered sequences instead of one-off sends, clicks and enquiries instead of opens as the yardstick – and clean consent before the first email goes out.
That is how a first contact becomes a customer, step by step. Not because you are louder than the competition, but because you are the only one still getting in touch.