The 2017 summer movie season kicked off in a major way with the debut of the second “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie, just the latest superhero movie to attract huge audiences worldwide.“Guardians” got us thinking about email marketing’s “superpowers” (hey, we live and breathe this stuff!). Turns out it wasn’t as much of a stretch as we first thought—after all, email marketing is pretty amazing stuff.Below are seven superpowers that make email marketing such an effective marketing tool.**1\. Email can transcend space and time**Email works everywhere, all the time. Within seconds, the same message can materialize on desktops, tablets and phones anywhere on earth. An email can deliver the same results if it’s read immediately, or hours or even days or weeks later.**2\. Email has cross-generational appeal**Although today’s superhero movies are marketed primarily to young people, those films also appeal to Baby Boomers, who grew up with earlier iterations of Superman, Batman and their DC and Marvel colleagues. Likewise, research has shown that email marketing is successful with customers of every age.“When we label, sometimes we divide,” writes [Marketing Sherpa](https://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/chart/channels-preferred-by-age-groups) in a discussion about a cross-generational study of more than 2000 U.S. adults. “Different age groups are more alike than we may have thought when it came to one form of digital communication—all age groups said that email was their preferred means of communications with companies.”**3\. Email’s performance can be measured**Email marketing is inherently measurable and provides marketers with many different metrics that allow them to ascertain how well they are doing and make informed adjustments to campaigns and messages.“For every campaign, you can track how many people opened it, how many clicked, exactly where in the email they clicked, what they did on your website, and how much revenue each campaign generated for you,” writes [Campaign Monitor](https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/reporting/). We took a look at two important email marketing metrics, [open rates](https://movableink.com/blog/8-ways-to-boost-your-email-open-rates/) and [conversion rates](https://movableink.com/blog/email-marketing-101-email-conversion-rate-optimization/), on this blog.**4\. Email is unobtrusive**While most superheroes are fond of making dramatic entrances (for reference, just consider the [flashy, three-point landings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddpi-wYDV9A) that Ironman has made famous), email is just… there.“It is something that your client chooses to open and read through when they have time,” reports [Email on Acid](https://www.emailonacid.com/blog/article/email-marketing/7-reasons-email-marketing-still-works). “They are not being forced to read it, or open it for that matter. They will likely read it, hoping to find something that conveys a new opportunity meeting their needs, a discount or a free item or promotion.”**5\. Email knows you**Savvy email marketers are increasingly using personalization techniques to craft emails that create that create one-on-one experiences with recipients. Personalization may begin with something as simple as including the recipient’s name in the subject line and/or the body of the message.But it can extend to referencing a customer’s previous purchases or other interactions with the brand. Personalization works. As [Campaign Monitor](https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2016/02/how-to-use-personalization-in-email-marketing-campaigns/) reported last year: “Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened and marketers have found a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns.”**6\. Email knows where you are (and what’s happening there)**This is a relatively new email superpower. By using dynamic content, email messages can be contextualized to reflect conditions (such as the weather) at the recipient’s location. The growth of mobile consumption makes contextualization even more critical: according to research reported on by [Email Monday](http://www.emailmonday.com/mobile-email-usage-statistics#growth), more emails are now read on mobile devices than on desktops.As we reported [here](https://movableink.com/blog/email-marketing-personalization-101/) last summer: “There are a lot of unique ways to engage with your subscribers using emails that target their location. If your business has multiple brick and mortar locations, you can send emails that help your subscribers find the nearest location of your store. The sports industry can take advantage of location by targeting subscribers based on their local teams.So if you were running a sale on jerseys, you could send emails featuring your subscribers’ hometown jerseys. Or if there was a big event on the horizon, you could promote merchandise that applies to that event.”**7\. Email has an astonishing ROI**“Email is the category generating the highest ROI for marketers,” reports [Campaign Monitor](https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/why-email/). “For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI and gives marketers the broadest reach of all the channels available to them. Despite the plethora of tools available to marketers, email marketing is simply the best bet for business growth. When you want to grow your business, acquire new customers, launch a new product, offer a promotion, you turn to email.”**Coming soon to a nearby theater!**Here’s a tip for Marvel or another movie studio that might be interested in making “Email Marketing: The Movie”: Go for it—it’s sure to be a blockbuster!
7 Superpowers That Make Email Marketing Successful
