With the ever growing popularity of social media and mobile marketing, it’s easy to assume that email marketing is on the way out. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Apparently, email use worldwide will top 3 billion users by 2020. And if you think that it’s older users keeping email going, think again; 58% of millennials say that email is their preferred way to be contacted by a brand. It would seem then, that email is actually as popular as ever.
But is this enough to convince you to use email in your marketing efforts? Here are 10 benefits of email marketing that should convince you to make it a core part of your marketing campaign.
We often hear about the huge numbers of people using social media, especially platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. However, email marketing figures are actually far more impressive. Statista state that there are around 5.6 billion active email accounts worldwide. And here’s another eye opener for you; 99% of consumers check their email every day.
These numbers start to make sense when you consider that almost anyone who uses the internet has an email address. Every time you shop online or sign up to a website you have to provide one. Even social media platforms require an email address for sign-up and notification sending.
Emails are also incredibly easy to share. Your email subscribers can simply hit the forward button and share your brand’s news and offers with colleagues, friends and family, further growing your brand's reach.
Companies put a lot of effort into growing their social media following. When it comes to getting your message seen by your audience though, email is actually far more effective.
One of the biggest benefits of email marketing is that, unlike with any other form of marketing, your contacts list is yours.
On networks such as Facebook, brands are at the mercy of the platform. It could change its algorithm at any time, or in more extreme examples, lose your followers. There is even a risk of your account being deleted altogether.
When Facebook changed its algorithm a few years ago, organic engagement for business pages suffered a steep drop. Buffer states that less than 6% of Facebook posts were seen organically in 2018. In 2019 this figure is likely to be even lower, and Twitter has now also introduced a similar algorithm. Businesses on social media are therefore increasingly turning to ads to get their messages across (read our blog "Facebook Ads - 12 Reasons Why Your Business Should Be Using Them").
Another benefit of email marketing is that the people on your email list have already expressed an interest in your product or service; they will have opted-in to your emails (new GDPR legislation ensures this). This means that they are already warm leads, unlike with other forms of advertising. An email subscriber is therefore worth much more to a business than a social media follower.
Campaign Monitor sum up the advantage of email marketing over social media marketing nicely; if you invest the time and money into building and cultivating a great email list, your subscriber list will be an asset you own. Thus you’ll be able to leverage your list without the threat of someone limiting its effectiveness.
One of the major benefits of email marketing is its low cost in comparison to other marketing channels such as magazine advertising and social media ads. There are no printing, postage or advertising fees.
As their email lists grow, businesses may choose to invest in email automation software in order to improve their email marketing capability. These costs are nevertheless still going to be significantly lower than other advertising options.
80% of business professionals believe that email marketing increases customer retention.
As mentioned earlier, since the people on your email list have explicitly opted in to your emails, you already know that they are interested in what you have to offer. Email marketing gives you the perfect opportunity to nurture them and show-off your industry know-how with high quality content.
Consistently sending tailored content to each member of your list depending on where they are in their buying journey will increase their awareness of your brand, ensuring that you stay at the forefront of their minds. When the time comes for them to make a purchase, they are more likely to consider you and become a loyal customer.
Remember the days when the only option was to put an ad in a magazine or paper and hope for the best? Well those days are luckily long gone. One of the huge benefits of email marketing, particularly when used with marketing automation, is that it allows you to create laser-targeted campaigns to really bolster your conversion rates.
This form of marketing allows you to segment your contacts list based on a variety of factors such as location, demographics and lead status. Marketing automation platforms also allow opportunities for creating sophisticated email funnels. This allows businesses to target people depending on their individual needs and at different stages of their buying journey.
Email marketing also allows for real-time connection with customers. Automated triggers such as recent purchase, website activity and shopping cart abandonment can allow for customers to be reached at just the right time with the right content.
As well as being suited to individual customers needs or interests, emails can also be personalised, further increasing the possibility for sales. In fact, emails with personalised subject lines generate 50% higher open rates.
Many companies use social media to build brand awareness and market to potential customers. However, social media networks continue to be dominated by more personal content. Most people log into social media to stay up to date with friends and family and would prefer not to be marketed to by brands. The recent Facebook algorithm reflects this, as posts from friends and family tend to show up first on the feed.
When it comes to email on the other hand, people tend to expect communication of a more professional manner; order confirmations, new subscriptions, product info etc. In fact, 86% of consumers would like to receive promotional emails from companies they do business with at least monthly, and 15% would like to get them daily.
One of the most compelling benefits of email marketing is its conversion rate. When it comes to conversions, email cannot be beaten. And if you don’t believe us, just consider these figures. 60% of consumers state that they have made a purchase as the result of a marketing message they received by email, as opposed to only 12.5% through social media. These are pretty convincing conversion rates - hard to ignore if you’re sitting on the fence about email marketing!
Email marketing offers great opportunities for precise measurement of results. Unlike other forms of advertising (magazines spring to mind again!), precise metrics such as delivery rates, open rates, click-through rates and subscriber retention rates can be analysed. From these results, you can gain valuable insights into your customers’ behaviours. This allows you to continually update your campaigns for better success.
If there’s anything that’s going to convince you to incorporate email marketing into your business strategy, it’s this; email continues to generate the highest ROI for marketers.
Why is this? As mentioned earlier, email is highly effective at driving conversions due to the ability marketers have to create targeted, personalised and real-time content. Unlike social media channels where your page updates can be seen by all of your followers regardless of their interests, shopping behaviour, location etc, email targets the right people at the right time. Because of it’s cost effective nature, ROI is therefore much higher. This has got to be one of the most convincing benefits of email marketing!
Email has been around for decades; the first promotional email campaign was sent in 1978 to a total of 400 people. The use of email has been consistently growing ever since.
The world of social media on the other hand is far more unstable. The popularity of the different platforms varies from year to year and some networks that once were popular have all but disappeared (MySpace being a good example). Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are all huge right now and companies are right to put effort into marketing on these platforms. However, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be as popular a few years down the line. It can be risky investing large amounts of time and money building an audience on a network that could potentially be extinct in a few years time (Google+ springs to mind). If history is anything to go by, email is a much safer option.
With so many new platforms and technologies being developed every day, it’s easy to forget just how effective email marketing can really be. If it’s something you haven’t yet considered, now is the time.
Cambray Design have years of experience in email marketing. We can help advise you on an effective, tailored and cost-effective strategy for your business. Why not get in touch with us for a free, no-obligation chat to see how we can help you reap the benefits of email marketing and dramatically improve your sales.