The topic of email relevancy seems to pop up every so often when people question whether or not email marketing is too outdated to be useful. A solid email strategy can help you build valuable relationships with your customers that keep them around for years. If email hasn’t been in mind for you in a while, we’d highly recommend revisiting it.
The Importance of Email Marketing
It takes nothing more than a glance at the data to know that email marketing has one of the highest returns on investment (ROI) when it comes to marketing. Many of us are very familiar with email marketing communications in our personal inbox. Consider how often you click into an email from your favorite brand because they’re announcing a new product or a sale and then think about how sometimes it’s just the push that was needed to get you to make a purchase. Oftentimes, these emails catch us off guard and get us to make unplanned purchases. Why wait until I’m out of my favorite cleanser to purchase it at full price when I could buy it at half-off now and stock up?
Emails have the power to keep in touch with your customer base like no other. We’re not saying that you’ll see a conversion on every email you send out, but you are taking steps towards interacting with your target audience which can lead to the results you’re looking for. There’s a reason why we call it “nurturing”!
So, what other benefits can you expect as a business owner when you tap into email marketing? We’ll start with the top five.
Why Email Marketing
- Ability to personalize
Email is one of the marketing channels that comes with the benefit of personalization. This is valuable when it comes to building relationships and nurturing your customers. It can be as simple as starting off an email greeting with their name or tailoring the content they receive based on what they’ve previously shopped for. You can also segment your customers into a variety of lists depending on their preferences, going as granular or as broad as you like.
- Increased traffic
Emails are another tried and true method of getting your customers onto your website and browsing through your pages. It’s easy to design content that includes relevant links to various pages on your site. You can entice them to check out a newly launched product, a weekly blog post, or a sale. It’s an additional channel for self-promotion. Rather than waiting for people to find you, you’re putting your content out there and encouraging them to visit.
- Automated campaigns
One of the cool features that come with living in a tech world is automation and automated email campaigns can be a major time saver for you. Rather than hitting send each time someone signs up, your system handles it all for you. This means you’ll only need to set a campaign up once and assign the proper triggers. In the future, whenever someone meets the criteria, it’ll signal your campaign and let it know it can go ahead and send to them without the need for you to click anything. This is great for welcome emails, order confirmations, newsletters subscriptions, and many other cases.
- Measurable results
Emails bring with them an immense amount of data that can be used to inform you of your customer base, your content, and your next steps. Generated reports are pretty comprehensive and give you insight on all the details in order for you to paint a complete picture. You’ll see everything from what was opened, what was clicked on, and where it led people to. This can give you a good idea of what’s working well and what can be improved. For instance, you may move a link higher up, so it appears above the fold if you notice that it’s not receiving any clicks.
- Own Your Contact List
Building a healthy following across the various platforms you’re on is useful for diversifying your efforts. However, at the end of the day, you only truly own the media and lists in email. This is an audience that you’ve worked hard to build but can interact with at any time — they’ll still be there even if social media were to disappear. And while that may not be something that happens anytime soon, it also means you’re not having to decipher algorithms in order to reach your audience.
Email Marketing Strategy
Have you had enough convincing? Those that say that email marketing is dead are truly missing out. A majority of internet users have an email address, whether they’re students in college or your neighbor down the street. By taking advantage of emails, you’re able to reach a range of people.
If you’re just beginning the journey to develop your strategy, there’s a couple of key things to keep in mind. Email is an inexpensive marketing tool which means it’s accessible for companies of any size. If you wield it right, you have the potential to reach a huge audience. This means taking the time each quarter to plan out what’s next. Brainstorm the kinds of campaigns that can be useful to your business, like abandoned cart campaigns or campaigns to reengage your email list. Take the time to A/B test a variety of factors to really pin down what works best. Once you set these up, you can be more hands-off, so it never hurts to do a bit of researching and testing to ensure you’re putting your best foot out there.
At the same time, you can always revisit these campaigns and work to optimize the foundation that’s been built. To do so, reference your data and use the metrics to help you determine where changes need to be made. From there, adjust your campaigns to better fit your needs.
The Takeaway
The power of emails still stretches far and wide, and is considered one of the top ways to get in touch with your audience. This method of communication opens up lots of opportunity with your customer base from sharing information to nurturing a personal bond. You can stow away your doubts when it comes to email and trust that a conscious approach will lead to successful strategies.
Need help developing an email strategy that works for your business? Contact our email experts today at expert@emfluence.com!