Email marketing is an evergreen digital marketing strategy; one that shall always remain important and relevant. Creating a strong and efficient email marketing strategy will help you reach and connect with your target audience in a personal way and increase sales at the same time. All of this at an affordable cost!
Email marketing is the old and new age marketing gimmick that yields customer reach. However, before we get into the part of why email marketing is important for you, it’s important to setup a professional e-mail address, so make sure you go ahead and do that first.
Why is Email Marketing Important?
Here are a few reasons that justify why email marketing is important for you:
- To stay in touch with your audience
Emailers, as they are called in the world of digital marketing, have the potential to keep your customers informed. Customers check their mail at their convenience. So, a simple message satting: “Hi, we are here with an offer especially for you” or one that gives an update on what’s been going on in your business is a personal form of communication for most of them.
The customers who have signed up to receive these emails have committed to you and will surely enjoy these emails, thereby increasing engagement.
- Customers engage with emails
For over 40 years, email has existed as a form of communication. As the years have passed, email remains one of the most used forms of professional communication. We have been taught and groomed to reply to emails in a certain tone and manner. Whether replying, forwarding, or clicking through an attachment, we tend to do something special with emails.
With this knowledge, you can use email to drive customers to your website, to pick up your marketing call, or any other call to action. Over 25% of sales in the previous years have been attributed to email marketing. With the help of multiple applications on mobile, emails can now further help you in your marketing efforts.
- Reach customers in real-time
According to a study, 54% of individuals have emails opened on their mobile device. This is a significant fact that comes into play when a marketing strategy is being planned. More consumers are using their phones not only to access emails, but other types of information and media as well. Moreover, well-designed and well-strategized emails produce higher rates of conversion on mobile than on any other medium.
- It is easy to measure
Most tools of email marketing offer the ability to check what happens once you’ve sent out your email campaign. With this feature, you can track delivery rates, bounce rates, unsubscribe rates, open rates, and click-through rates. This will give you a better understanding of how your email campaign is working, which ones to get rid of, and which ones to tweak.
These metrics shouldn’t be ignored since they are an important part of your overall internet marketing campaign. While various surveys and studies show optimal numbers to aim for, it depends on the industry you belong to and your target audience. If your customers expect regular emails, you better give them that! However, look for an email marketing strategy that doesn’t pester the audience and leads them to unsubscribe.
- Email marketing is affordable
You can reach a large number of customers for less than pennies per email. The cost per conversion is so low with email marketing, it is surprising to see companies not interested in pursuing this as a marketing tactic to engage in more often.
Mailchimp allows you to send up to 12,000 emails for a month free of cost. They also offer higher monthly plans for growing businesses with up to 600,000 subscribers and high volume sender plans for anything beyond that.
Vertical Response, another email marketing company, offers free email marketing for up to 4,000 emails/month and 1,000 email contacts. They also offer subscription services for higher-volume senders.
According to a survey, at a 15,000-email database, your company would spend almost 152 hours per year managing an email campaign which would include drafting, writing, scheduling, and sending the emails, as well as answering any queries regarding offers and other concerns. Additionally, there would be database management inclusive of adding & deleting members and other tasks.
- Increases brand awareness
Apart from social media, emails are one platform that helps scale brand awareness. Having a customer or prospective customer’s email means they are interested to know about your business. Email marketing enables you to increase that level of interest via brand awareness.
Many times, companies sell their products via email marketing but forget all about brand awareness. By making this mistake, they are also prohibiting the slightest possibility of building trust amongst the customers while adding a sense of personality to the brand.
To sum up
These are just a few advantages of email marketing that can be obtained by almost all businesses. Being cost-effective, email marketing is ideal for start-ups and small businesses. It is easy to start, thanks to the various tools available, like Mailchimp. Plus, this marketing is a great way to retain existing customers and get potential leads.
