You’ve probably heard that email marketing isn’t going anywhere.
In fact,
you’re probably sick of hearing about it.
It’s true, though.
If you’re in any way interested in digital growth, email marketing’s status as the most effective form of mass communication available today makes it an essential tool in your business arsenal.
Despite the growth of social media sites, instant messenger services, and web forums, email continues to be the dominant force in digital communication with over 269 billion emails sent each day.
This number is on the rise too, with 28% more emails sent in 2016 versus 2015.
Despite the apparent growth in popularity, many business owners are struggling to make email marketing work for them, with only 60% of marketers reporting a positive ROI from their email campaigns.
With so many brands vying for a reader’s attention, it is not uncommon for marketers to feel like their message is falling on deaf ears (or blind eyes!).
These concerns are especially valid for business owners who have been slow to evolve to tackle today’s more savvy email users; those who are quick to dismiss your marketing emails without a second thought.
Thankfully, the tried, tested, and actionable steps readily available on the internet will show you how to grow your email list more quickly, and cut through the noise in your readers’ inboxes to deliver your message more effectively.
So, regardless if you’re just starting to build your email list, looking to grow it further, or trying to improve an underperforming email campaign, here are five reasons why you should bite the bullet and invest in email marketing to grow your business:
** Email Marketing is Targeted **
By growing an email list around quality subscribers who are genuinely interested in a particular niche, you will be able to increase the effectiveness of your marketing and increase your conversion by only targeting people you know will enjoy or benefit from your content.
These recipients should have provided you permission to contact them, for example by completing an opt-in form on your website.
The ability to contact a highly concentrated group of individuals (based on their interests), who want to receive your marketing, means email marketing can be very targeted.
Non-targeted forms of marketing differ significantly, for example, billboard adverts or television adverts, where a large proportion of the people who see an advert won’t be interested in the niche, won’t have asked to receive the marketing, and likely won’t recognize the company.
As a result, non-targeted forms of marketing have much lower conversion rates than email marketing.
Did you know?
You can achieve a higher degree of targeting in email marketing via segmentation.
Segmentation is where you split your overall email list into different categories or groups
depending on specific criteria, for example:
- How you captured the subscriber’s email address, for example through a sale or onsite opt-in form.
- A subscriber’s age, gender, or the country in which they live.
Segmentation makes it possible to deliver customized and highly relevant emails that are personalized for specific groups.
This relevancy leads to email open rates that are 14.41% higher than with non-segmented campaigns, increased loyalty, and ultimately increased conversion rates.
** Email Marketing Provides More Bang for Your Buck **
Cost
Email marketing is much cheaper than other popular forms of marketing, including postal campaigns, telesales, and advertising in a magazine, on a billboard or television.
While Email Service Providers (companies which provide the infrastructure through which you can send large quantities of emails simultaneously) charge fees for sending emails, these will be much lower than the print, postage and advertising costs associated with other forms of marketing.
Effectiveness
Email marketing is much more effective than social media sites such as Facebook when it comes to getting your message seen.
There are a couple of reasons for this:
- People are twice as likely to join your email list than they are to connect with your brand on Facebook.
- On average people open 24% of emails, whereas only 2% of Facebook followers see each post given that Facebook tries to push brands towards paid advertising.
A report by McKinsey & Co summarized the increased effectiveness of email marketing versus social media and found that email marketing provided almost 4000% more customers than Facebook and Twitter combined.
Email marketing also allows for instant communication, which is particularly beneficial for time-sensitive offers, for example, exclusive discounts.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Email marketing provides considerable long-term benefits for your brand. As you grow your email list, you are building a digital asset from which you can generate significant revenue in the long-term.
As a result, email marketing enjoys a very high ROI with a return of $44 realized for every $1 spent in 2016.
** Marketing via Email Is the Preferred Means of Contact **
A study of people who had granted permission to companies to send them ongoing information found that 77% of those surveyed selected email marketing as their preferred method of receiving promotional messages.
Research has also shown that 61% of consumers like to receive promotional emails at least once a week, while 15% enjoy promotional emails every day.
** Email Marketing is Simple to Setup **
Given the number of dedicated email marketing services available today, including email service providers (ESP), opt-in form plugins and landing page builders, combined with the amount of user guidance available online, email marketing isn’t difficult even for those with limited technical ability.
** Email Marketing is Easy to Track & Improve **
The majority of ESPs allow tracking of important email campaign metrics such as open, click-through, bounce and unsubscribe rates.
Unlike with many conventional forms of marketing, these figures can be accurate (as opposed to estimated) and are available in real-time which allows rapid adjustments to be made to email campaigns to improve performance almost immediately.
These metrics also allow for quick, easy, and inexpensive testing of new campaign ideas.
