Why Email Marketing Is Important

Email isn’t a new technology. In fact, it was one of the very first means of digital communication to arrive back in 1971. But at 50 years old, email marketing is used today more than ever before.

First, email marketing campaigns can be personalized to a greater extent than those on social media. Next, costs are considerably lower than for other channels, especially considering the reach and conversion rate associated with email marketing. This is part of what makes email marketing so ideal for small businesses.

Finally, what makes email marketing so powerful and lucrative is that it gives you direct, individual access to your audience’s inboxes.

What is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a direct marketing channel that lets businesses share new products, sales, and updates with customers on their contact lists. Its high return on investment (ROI) makes it crucial to most businesses’ overall inbound strategy.

Modern email marketing has moved away from one-size-fits-all mass mailings and instead focuses on consent, segmentation, and personalization. This may sound time-consuming, but marketing automation handles most of the heavy lifting for you. In the long run, a well-designed email marketing strategy not only drives sales but helps build a community around your brand.

Why Email Marketing Is Important

Today’s marketers need to do more with less. They need to connect with their audience in a highly personalized way while staying on budget. Marketers that can do this—connect with their prospects and customers in a highly targeted way—will be successful in delivering ROI and revenue back to the business.

As the VentureBeat report illustrates, no marketing category has the longevity of email marketing. While some marketing trends come and go, email remains the most powerful channel available to the modern marketer.

1. Everyone uses email

over half of the entire planet uses email right now. The mass adoption of email makes it the perfect channel for your marketing. In today’s hyper-digital environment, it’s a safe bet that everyone you come across, and everyone who’s in your target audience, use email.

Unlike other marketing channels like print or broadcasting, email gives you a direct line of two-way communication with your target audience.

2. Stay in contact with your audience

Emails have the ability to keep your customers informed. Consumers are capable of checking their email when it is convenient for them. It can give them a feeling that you are thinking of them. This email can be as simple as saying: “Hi, you’re on our mind, here is a special offer!” or “Here is an update on what has been going on here in recent weeks.” Those that have signed up to your email list have already made a commitment to receive these notes. So they will likely enjoy these emails (as long as you give them something worth reading) and it will boost engagement with your customers.

3. Email marketing has a larger reach.

With Facebook boasting over 1 billion active users and Twitter boasting 255 million, it’s tempting to believe that social media is the most effective way to reach the masses. These are impressive numbers, but what isn’t so frequently shared are the statistics on email usage.

While this might seem surprising at first, think about your own online behavior: When you sign up for a website, you have to enter your email address to create the account. You even need an email address to create a Facebook or Twitter account. What’s more, Facebook and Twitter email to notify users of activity, like when someone is tagged in a photo.

Email is the currency of the web and anybody who is online has an active email address. And while Facebook and Twitter might seem pretty ubiquitous, the ongoing struggle over data breaches and privacy means plenty of people are exiting some social media channels.

4. Drive traffic to your website

Your website is your primary source for selling products online. However, most of the visitors will never return.

The reasons may vary. While some people don’t stay long enough to find the required information, others simply get it and leave.

In order to bring them back to your website and have any chance of selling products to your website visitors, you need to have a way to communicate with them. Adding an email subscription form to your website can help!

5. Grow your business

The larger the customer base, the bigger a business is. This is why 49% of marketers stated that customer acquisition is their first priority in digital marketing. However, customer acquisition isn’t an easy chore. It takes a lot of effort to bring people into your business and even more to turn them into customers.

Blogging, content marketing, advertisements, product trials, and referral marketing are prominent ways to bring people into your business. Once you’ve done so, email marketing can help you nurture and educate people about your business.

6. Increase brand awareness