Is Email Marketing Actually Effective?
The truth is, Email marketing drives high ROI and is a vital aspect of both digital marketing and the customer journey.
In fact, as numerous digital marketing platforms have advanced, so have email service providers, integrations, segmentation, and personalization. Email has been at the forefront of one-on-one communication with brands and customers. It allows a brand to tell a story, sell, and build relationships, all while delivering each campaign to the right person, at the right time.
Whether you’re on the cusp of the debate, an email-believer (or not), a brand owner, or a digital marketer, check out our top 5 reasons for strongly advocating email marketing.
- Targeted Segments = SALES
- Tell Your Story, Tell it Right
- Test, Test, Test – then Optimize!
- Merge Social Media Marketing & Email Marketing
- Get More out of Doing Less
Targeted Segments = SALES
An often-used email marketing phrase is “to the right people, at the right time”. Before any campaign is scheduled or any flow is turned live, an email marketer should consider that phrase. If the email isn’t being sent to the right people, at the right time, it should be reconsidered. Each email needs to serve a purpose, and needs to be sent to customers and prospects that actually care. Fortunately, segments are the solution!
Email service providers’ have advanced tremendously through the years, specifically in their ability to target custom segments. This means that email blasts are ~or should be~ a thing of the past! Why risk low open rates, unsubscribes, and deliverability issues just to blast an email campaign to your entire list? You’ll see higher returns and better standing with targeted segments.
With the majority of ESP’s, you’re able to build custom, targeted segments that are completely aligned with your brand and goals. Examples include Engaged, VIP, past-purchasers, and unique interests (such as collections or products).
Hit inboxes that matter, when they matter! Use segments to drive sales with targeted content that you know a specific group of people will care about – and watch the results speak for themselves.
Tell Your Story, Tell it Right
No character caps. No device restrictions. No customization limitations. Tell YOUR story with email marketing. Tell it in flows and campaigns on any device at any time (as long as it’s to the right people, at the right time) 😉
Email marketing is one of a small number of channels that allow for true customization, in every aspect of the term. Colors, fonts, imagery, content, plus recipients, and scheduling are just a few examples of email marketing’s customization capabilities. Truthfully, there’s no better way to tell your story than by customizing the content users receive.
Building strong relationships with prospects and customers begin with them understanding your brand, what you stand for, and why they should support you. Whether you stand for a cause and donate proceeds, have hand-made goods, or the highest quality clothes on the planet, email is an opportunity to tell that story.
Push prospects into their first purchase, and retain customers who care with the relationship-building, storytelling capabilities of email marketing.
Test, Test, Test – then Optimize!
Learn about your audience with email marketing. Test subject lines, CTA’s, and colors to gather insight into what your subscribers respond to. The best part? You can take these learnings to other platforms! If a subject line and hero image work really well in an email campaign, try them on Facebook.
Pro tip – many email service providers allow A/B testing with certain percentages of a list or segment. From there, the ESP will determine a winner (based on opens or clicks) and send to the rest of the audience! This ensures that the majority of the list will receive a winning email that will convert.
You will be able to test both campaigns and flows, but flows should consistently be optimized based on learnings. Flows, such as welcome, abandoned cart, and browse abandonment should remain evergreen, but refreshing subject lines, hero images, and CTA buttons based on discoveries lead to the best results.
Testing and optimizing is a vital part of any digital marketing platform, including email marketing. Continue to test, learn about your audience, and make optimizations that lead to the highest ROI.
Merge Social Media Marketing & Email Marketing
Whether you’re starting from scratch or picking up an already-established email list, take advantage of email and social integrations (both manual and automatic). Here are a few ways we like to merge the platforms:
- Build email segments to re-engage and convert on Facebook
- Quickly build an email list by launching a pop-up on the Facebook LP
- Use Facebook ads to test subject lines, and vise versa
- Coordinate users emails and FB news feeds
These powerful platforms work hand-in-hand as part of the full-funnel digital marketing experience. Although using one or the other can be powerful, the above would become missed opportunities. Merging these platforms, plus more – like Google, Snap, Messenger, and Influencer marketing allows for a truly effective omni-channel experience.
Extend the lifetime value of customers and stay top of mind with prospects by merging social and email by merging your initiatives.
Get More out of Doing Less
For such an effective digital marketing tool, email marketing truly results in more, for less; specifically less money and less risk. Powerful ESP’s are just a small investment for such incredible returns, and when used in correlation with other platforms, become more valuable than just their ROI. Their technology, their knowledge, and their capabilities will become the center of your digital marketing initiatives.
The powerful data that comes from email marketing, plus higher-than-normal ROI makes it a truly spectacular tool in the digital marketing space.
Segments, sales, storytelling, testing, integrations, data, and investment are our top reasons for advocating email marketing. We have seen success with countless email clients in a wide variety of industries. In each event, we have been able to tell stories that convert, provide clients with valuable data, and create segments that care about what we’re sending them.
Communicate with both prospects and customers in a way that only email allows – personally. And always, always make sure to send emails to the right people, at the right time.
Questions about email marketing? Need a bit more convincing?
We’re here to help.
