The following blog post was written by Erika Brookes of Springbot.
Say what you want about email being old and outdated, but the statistics don’t lie. Time and time again, email marketing has proven to be one of the most effective forms of marketing for both small and large online retailers.
Why has email marketing managed to remain so powerful all these years?
Although advancements in marketing technology have certainly played a significant role in email marketing’s staying power, this isn’t the sole reason that it continues to be so effective. Here are another eight reasons why email marketing reigns supreme in the digital marketing world:
1. Greater Return on Investment
For many small business owners who are working with limited budgets, email marketing is particularly appealing. That’s because email marketing yields an average ROI of 122%, according to a study from the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).
Of course, how big your own ROI is will depend on various factors, including how sophisticated your automated email software is, in addition to the quality and quantity of your email list. But, rest assured, that whether you sell 100 products or 100,000, email marketing can be extremely effective for growing your online store.
2. Email Targets All Audiences
A significant benefit of email marketing is that it can reach audiences of all demographics. Not only do all demographics use email, but they also use it for more than one purpose. Email can be used for both business and pleasure, which opens the doors for greater marketing opportunities.
Email also has the benefit of being the preferred form of communication with companies across all ages, according to a survey by MarketingSherpa. As many online merchants know, knowing how your customers prefer to be reached is immensely helpful for getting your message to resonate.
3. Your Subscribers Are Primed for Offers
While social media is great for engaging with your audience, email is more effective at driving sales. This is because consumers on social media are using these sites to primarily engage with their friends and family—not to receive marketing messages.
On the other hand, email users have come to expect offers from businesses. It’s often one of the main reasons why they sign up for newsletters in the first place. When your customers are already primed for offers, it is much easier to market to them and drive sales to your eCommerce store.
This doesn’t mean that you can’t annoy them. Subscriber fatigue can set in if you overdo it with your emails, which is why it is important for marketers to identify the right sending frequency for their business.
4. Email Is Highly Personalized
By now, it’s common knowledge among marketers that personalizing the customer experience can have great results. The one-on-one intimacy of email makes it the ideal medium for personalizing the customer experience.
In fact, consumers say that they are willing to provide their data in exchange for a personalized experience. Other statistics back this up, with personalized email subject lines increasing open rates by 41.8%.
By segmenting your email list, you can easily provide consumers with the personalized experience they crave and increase your conversions in the process.
5. It’s Easy to Track and Measure Success
To get the biggest ROI, tracking and measuring the performance of your marketing campaigns is essential. Some marketing channels can be difficult to measure, but this isn’t the case for email marketing campaigns.
Thanks to automated technology, it’s easier than ever to track key metrics, the performance of your segmented lists, and even what devices your subscribers are using to read your content. With this knowledge, you can adjust your campaigns to maximize your ROI.
6. Mobile Users Love Email
If you needed any more convincing that being mobile-friendly is important, consider this—two-thirds of emails are now opened or read on smartphones and tablets.
It’s clear that people love to check their email on the go, which makes it essential that email marketers factor mobile into their campaigns or risk losing valuable subscribers. By adopting a mobile-responsive design and creating content with mobile users in mind, email marketers can increase the impact of their marketing campaigns.
7. Building Relationships with Customers Is Easy
Email marketing is one of the best forms of marketing for building lasting relationships with your customers. Some are quick to believe that social media is superior when it comes to relationship building, but that is simply not the case.
The explanation for this is simple. With so much competition over consumer inboxes these days, a new subscriber is far more valuable to a business than a Like on Facebook. It’s a classic case of quality versus quantity. Even though your eCommerce store has tons of Likes and Shares, this isn’t doing much to build your relationship with your audience.
Email marketing is far more intimate and effective. By enhancing their experience with segmentation and personalization, it can become even stronger.
8. Email Marketing Stands the Test of Time
Arguably, no other digital marketing channel has stood the test of time compared to email. After all, email predates the internet itself.
While this fact may cause some digital marketers to favor newer digital marketing channels, it would be a mistake to underestimate the power of email marketing. If Myspace taught us anything, it’s that social media can come and go quickly. Email has managed to evolve over time, and there is no denying that it is here to stay.