08 Jun
So email is dead. No one uses it any more, right? Well, maybe I can convince you to re- evaluate that. Yes, there’s social media, SEO and video and they all work well and are great marketing tools. However, when it comes to great engagement, a true 1 to 1 connection with
your customers and dynamic content how YOU want it, email is top!
In this article I’m putting the case forward as to why you should be using email marketing and how truly effective it really is.
1. You own it!
What do I mean by that? You control the channel. Unlike with a lot of other marketing efforts, with email you can pick your audience, the time, the format, the exact copy and images, it’s all under your control. And you don’t have to worry about the channel or platform going under or randomly kicking you out, email will always be around (unlike MySpace).
2. Helps build Reputation and Relationships
With email you’re not limited to character count, you can talk as much as you’d like. And this opens up a great channel for sharing useful and helpful information. In turn this will strengthen your relationships with your customers and keep them engaged with your brand.
3. Accessible
Email can be reached anytime on any device, including the all important mobile devices. So you can reach people on their work commute, queuing at the supermarket, even on the loo. Emailmonday reports “59% of email opens occurred on mobile, 15% on desktop and 28% in
a webmail client. – Adestra “Top 10 email clients” (July 2018)” .
ClickZ also stated that a study from Adestra found 73% of ‘millennials’ prefer brand interaction via emails.
Source: ClickZ
Not only that but the study also found that “About three-quarters of respondents aged 14 to 24 have an email address because ‘it’s a part of everyday life.’” Nearly half say that checking email is the first thing they do in the morning, before even getting out of bed”.
4. Personalisation
You can do this with social media, right? Well yes, but with email it’s so much more targeted and the personalisation capabilities are so much more effective. With proper use of segmentation in your email data you can address your contacts on a one to one basis.
By name, interests, location and content there are so many ways to engage your customers. Only email can provide a service that is totally catered to the individual receiving the message.
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5. Easy to Find
Posts on social media may be tricky to find again but emails in your inbox are there until the inbox owner decides to delete or take action. So they can easily refer back to your fantastic offers if they are not able to do so at the time of the first open.
6. Gets the Message Across
According the Campaign Monitor “90% of email gets delivered to the intended recipient’s inbox, whereas only 2% of your Facebook fans see your posts in their News Feed”. This is due to Facebook limitations on News Feed appearances in order to drive companies to their paid advertising options.
7. Quick Results
With email you get immediate results and are able to track how your campaigns are performing. You’ll be able to see what works for your customers and what doesn’t quite quickly.
8. Cost Effective and Easy
You don’t need a lot of money to produce emails. A lot of online platforms and services make producing emails easy and there are many free options out there. You can reach a lot of people for not a lot of money.
9. Conversions
When it comes to conversions email is a great option. MailChimp states “the average open rate (for all industries) is 20.81%”, whereas the average click-through rate from a tweet, according to Hubspot is 1.64%.
10. More People Have Email
According to Lifewire “There were more than 3.8 billion email users during 2018, according to a recent Radicati Group study. That means over half of the entire planet uses email right now.” This is more than the top performing social media platform which according to Zephoria has “2.38 billion monthly active users (MAU) as of March 31, 2019.”
Not everyone is on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat. These platforms have different audiences; in age, location and interest, so it can be tricky to reach everyone you need to as efficiently. Chances are though that all of these people will have email and with personalisation and segmentation applied you can easily send an email that will reach a lot more people.
By Tania Lawrence
