Is email marketing a thing of the past? Has it become a sales relic like getting your degree from the Ministry of Hard Knocks? Or is it still something that can be a new, fun and exciting way of delivering value? In this blog, we look at the reasons why email is as fresh as ever as a digital marketing tactic.
At CAL, we have boiled it down to 5 main reasons why email marketing has always been important, but now is essential to any digital marketing strategy. Through email marketing, we can strengthen customer relationships, receive immediate feedback from your customers, automate conversations, take advantage of free promotion and utilize a tool that has stood the test of time.
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It may not always seem like it, but your customers are always looking for ways to buy into your brand. Maybe your company is very involved in sustainability or actively inspects your supply chain for ethical sourcing. Could be that you supply the highest quality or that you’re first to market with the “next best thing”.
No matter the reason, if you have turned a stranger into a customer, it’s because they believe that your brand has something that other brands don’t - and they are willing to pay for it.
By communicating and opening conversation with your customers, you are reinforcing the statement of value that they’ve already discovered, but you are also able to reveal additional benefits. This can lead to creating brand champions; people who not only support your brand by buying inventory, but tell friends and family about you - providing amazing organic growth.
There are many ways to create this conversation with your community, but we have found that email marketing is the most effective way to invite customers to be involved with your brand.
We aren’t alone either:
The 2021 State of Email Marketing has reported that 77% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months. Not only has engagement increased, but Litmus has stated that personalization is one of the “5 Monumental shifts about email for today and beyond”.
This means that while communication is key, having personalized connections is of paramount importance while building those customer relationships.
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Metrics aren’t always easy to gather and understand when it comes to consumer engagement. Many ESPs (email service providers) try to make it easier for business owners by providing dashboards and general statistics, however the rules of digital marketing are changing all of the time. Take, for example, the new Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) update that changed how we use deliverability to understand community engagement.
One thing that remains constant through these times of change though is the ability to implement testing into our email marketing strategy. Allowing your audience to indirectly tell you what works and what doesn’t is an extremely powerful tool at your disposal.
Unfortunately, according to Litmus’ 2021 State of Email Marketing, 55% of marketers are missing out by rarely or never A/B testing.
With 60% of companies already using it and another 34% planning to use it, A/B testing is the number one method used by marketers to optimize conversion rates, according to recent reports.
Check out CampaignMonitor’s guide to A/B testing if you’re curious about what you should be asking your customers!
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One huge advantage that email has over all other digital marketing platforms is the ability to automate communication between you and your customers. Yes, chatbots have come a long way in effectively taking the load off of product support and general inquiry handling, but it pales in comparison to the breadth and depth of email automation (also known as “flows”).
For example, a Welcome flow is an automated email that is sent out after someone subscribes to your email list. More than 8 out of 10 people will open a welcome email, generating 4x as many opens and 10x as many clicks as other email types. (GetResponse, 2020).
When you think about it, isn’t that a little crazy in terms of ROI if you automate emails? For a welcome flow: you’ve designed one email, added one trigger rule (”whenever someone subscribes, send them this email”) and you’ve just implemented the highest open-rate generating sequence available.
Diving into automation, you begin to understand just how simple or complex you can make your customer journey (with some tools going as far as using AI to predict when customers are about to make their next purchase). This is why 87% of B2C marketers leverage automation as part of their email marketing strategy. (HubSpot Blog Research, 2021).
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Other than design and ESP subscription fees, we can all agree that email marketing is the most cost effective promotion tactic available to all businesses.
Advertising on your social media page gets buried with time. Paid ads cost more money the longer you run them. Conventional advertising varies in funding depending on location and length. However email marketing, especially if you’re taking advantage of templates and automation, are extremely lean and allows for huge leaps in ROI.
Not only is it cost effective, but email promotion has proven to be extremely potent in the digital marketing space. To prove our point, Salescycle reported this year that 50% of people buy from marketing emails at least once per month. (Salecycle, 2022) - more than any other digital marketing practice in 2022.
Taking advantage of this practical sales tactic is becoming more and more crucial in your attempt to communicate value to your existing and potential customers. With 59% of respondents in this survey say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions, the impact that email marketing has on consumer decision making is very clear.
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We’ll admit, receiving an email doesn’t have the same charm it used to. It used to be a rare commodity that spoke to a new age of digital communication, but now it seems as though we get more excited when receiving physical mail rather than digital.
However, the numbers on email marketing don’t lie - email marketing continues to have the highest ROI of any digital platform. According to Campaign Monitor, every $1 spent on email marketing generates $38 in return. This incredible rate of return undoubtedly has to do with the inherent leanness of email promotion mentioned in the previous point.
Not only this, but with digital marketing on the rise and conventional paper marketing on the decline, email marketing seems to be replacing the way we promote sales and deals. According to Satista, email is the leading way consumers in the U.S. discover coupons from brands. (Statista, 2021). This means that not only are customers looking to emails to reveal upcoming industry trends, but they are also hunting through their inboxes for the best prices.
So no, email marketing isn’t going anywhere. In fact, we at CAL believe that most companies have only scratched the surface of the vast potential that email marketing can offer. With powerful tools becoming readily available (like email automation and the implementation of purchasing prediction through AI), we can only see email becoming more and more dominant in the digital marketing space.
The trouble is, we aren’t the only ones seeing this trend and seizing this opportunity. While some may believe that email marketing is on it’s way out (they’re wrong by the way), most are ramping up their email marketing tactics and budgets - 37% of brands to be exact.
This means that you are constantly competing for you customers attention, while also trying not to push your consumer to hit that “unsubscribe” link. if you need proof, Hubspot has concluded that 38% of salespeople say getting a response from prospects is getting harder. Your content has never had to be more curated: it needs to be informative, exciting, appealing and, most importantly, value driven - not an easy balancing act.
Adding list segmentation and personalization tactics to your email generation tool belt can be extremely useful in standing out. However, being open, honest, transparent and value driven in your communication with your customers will have them excited to see you in their inbox.
Remember, you are trying to create brand champions and repeat buyers - people who are willing to buy your products and tell everyone how great you are. For them, no amount of tricks or tactics will get them to buy into your brand - it may even turn them away if they think they’re another dollar in your pocket.
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