Email marketing is a highly effective digital marketing strategy of sending compelling emails to prospects and customers, which aims at educating and converting prospects into leads, and potential leads into customers, and turns one-time buyers into loyal, delightful, and engaging fans. At a time when digital marketing is expanding to include dozens of different mediums, email marketing still remains one of the highest returning assets a small and medium size (SME) business has at its disposal, because Email marketing is a vibrant and powerful way to connect with people.
Email marketing is also a very personal way of reaching your target customers. Messages from your friends and family sit next to email updates from your company. That’s why email marketing works at its best when it is personalized. Email can be tailored to customer actions so that every communication is relevant to their interest. You can cover topics like changes in your company, victories, request feedback from your customer – this list is virtually endless. With 2.5 billion users, email isn’t going anywhere. Email marketing is a cost-effective solution that gives businesses the power to reach customers in a place most people visit every day — their inbox.
Here are the top reasons you should make Email Marketing one of your top priorities:
1. Email is the #1 communication channel:
Did you know that at least 91% of consumers check their email on a daily basis? That can’t be said of any other communication channel. “More than 54% of the people worldwide use email. That’s about 3.7 billion people. It’s predicted to increase to 4.1 billion email users in the next 2 years.
2. You own your Email list:
On any Social-Media platform, your account (with all your fans) could be suspended or deleted at any time, for any reason, without notice. However, you own your email list. No one can take those leads away from you. Social Media is a great channel for interacting with your audience and strengthening your personal relationships with them. And because of that, it is an important first step towards reaching your ultimate goal – the conversion.
3. Email converts better:
People who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than those who do not receive email offers. In fact, Email Marketing has an ROI of 3800%. That’s huge! And if you are wondering whether Social media converts even better, think again: the average order value of an email is at least three times higher than that of social media. A study by Custora from 2013 found that customer acquisition via email marketing has quadrupled in the four years preceding 2013. Email marketing then already accounted for nearly 7% of all customer acquisitions that occurred online.
4. Email is cost-effective:
Email marketing allows business owners to reach a large number of consumers at a rate of nearly nothing per message. For small-business owners on a budget, this makes it a better choice than traditional marketing channels like TV, radio, or direct mail. You don’t have to take my word for it. A joint study from Shop.org and Forrester Research found that 85% of US retailers consider email marketing one of the most inexpensive and cost effective customer acquisition tactics.
5. Email is Action-oriented and Measurable:
Email is transactional by nature and you can use it to direct traffic to your website and ultimately drive sales. As you develop your small business or startup marketing strategy as a whole, using email will allow you to see results straight away. When you use any Email Marketing Software, you can track who opened your email, which links were clicked, and how many people unsubscribed. You can easily get a picture of how your email campaigns are performing, make adjustments and improve your effectiveness. Email marketing metrics are important to remember as you monitor and measure your internet marketing strategy as a whole.
6. Social Media and Email Marketing Aren’t Mutually Exclusive:
A study last year from Exacttarget found that 91% of people use their smartphones to access their email. This compared to 75% of the people who use their smartphones for social networking. Not using email as part of your internet marketing strategy means you are missing out on a channel that a majority of the world uses!
Combining email marketing with a strong social media strategy can really pay off. E-mail remains a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media—nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined! That’s because 91 percent of all US consumers still use Email daily, and the rate at which emails prompt purchases is not only estimated to be at least three times that of social media, but the average order value is also 17% higher.
Email marketing continues to deliver a strong performance for brands and marketers. It is used by over 90% of businesses and provides a cost-efficient and powerful way for both broadcasting news and one-to-one communications. Email marketers are building a strong business case with a high ROI and less internal constraints, while 9 out of 10 clients perceive email marketing as important for achieving business goals and driving revenue through sales.
7. Get Personal, Relevant and Focus on the Journey, not the click!
It’s no wonder that relevancy should be a top priority for every marketer. The best e-mails feel personal—and there are plenty of email marketing tools to help you do just that. While there are several choices available, Mailchimp is one of the easiest tools to use, esp for creating newsletters and autoresponders. Their campaign builder makes building campaigns a breeze, even for the total beginner. Importing and exporting your list is also made really easy. Mailchimp is the only email service to offer a 100% free account. Mailchimp has a huge variety of integrations. There aren’t many services that Mailchimp can’t connect to – whether you need to connect to LeadPages, Instapage, WordPress, Hubspot, Unbounce, Facebook, or virtually any other popular marketing tool – Mailchimp will integrate with them. This makes Mailchimp’s Email Marketing platform a must-have for small businesses.
Email is merely the first click in a Buyers’ journey. While it’s normal for a Marketer to obsess over every aspect of every e-mail sent, from the subject line to visuals to copy, Email is part of a series of interactions with a brand, and marketers should be just as obsessed with where an e-mail sends the user. For instance, customized landing pages—which send the user directly to an offer featured in the e-mail—can increase conversion rates by more than 25 percent. And don’t forget mobile. Nearly 45 percent of all marketing e-mails today are opened on a mobile device.
Yet many marketers fail to optimize landing pages for the platform. If you think that’s no big deal, consider this: According to Google, 61 percent of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing. And, even worse, 40 percent visit a competitor’s site instead!!
If you’re running a real business, email is still the most effective way to universally reach people who have expressed interest in your product or service. For that, it really can’t be beaten.
By Radhika Ramachandran, Hubspot Certified Digital & Inbound Marketing Specialist
So call us now on (027) 489 5009 or email chris@pattersondigitalmarketing.com to find out how we will implement this for you and what results you can expect.