What is the first thing that you do after you turn on your laptop at work? What is the last thing that you do before turning it off? There might be, of course, many different answers to these two questions. However, the majority would agree that there is one specific thing that they all do frequently – checking their emails. Once, twice, or even multiple times a day you open your mailbox in case something important showed up there and required your attention. That’s because email is still considered by many to be the main method of official communication. Thus, if you want to reach potential customers with your offer, it only seems reasonable to do it via email. In this article we will discuss the topic of email marketing and its effectiveness today.
The purpose of email marketing
Email marketing’s main purpose is to establish and maintain a relationship with potential customers. It’s a tactic that aims at personalized messages that are meant to bring value to the prospect. Email marketing plays part in the following:
Generating leads
Email marketing has its part in the process of generating leads. Leads are the contact information of a potential customer, a person who might be interested in your product or service.
The process of collecting leads usually starts at your website, where you offer something of value in exchange for the contact information. This contact information usually means a name and an email address. That’s because it is the first step to begin your email marketing process. Once you have a name and an email address, you can send your first message, sharing the item that has been promised on your website.
Establishing and maintaining relationship with prospects
Even if you gather a list of leads, there will be no use of it, if you don’t put an effort in building a relationship with your prospects. And that’s exactly what email marketing does. It is focused on a regular contact with the potential customers that raises their awareness of your brand and your offer, while at the same time offering them useful resources or insights that might be interesting to them. This way you’re building a relationship that can be beneficial to both parties.
Gaining prospects’ trust
It’s important to remember that potential customers that find your website are on different stages of their buyer journey. Some of them might be ready to buy as soon as they get familiar with a demo of your product that you’ve offered them for free in exchange for their email address.
However, for many this will be way too soon to decide. In order to convert them into buyers, you first need to gain their trust. One way to achieve this is by sending them smartly constructed, useful messages, where you offer further free resources or share your expert knowledge. The goal is to make them familiar with your brand, since people only trust the things that are familiar to them. The other goal is to show yourself as a professional that is experienced in the field and has a lot to offer.
Making prospects feel cared for
Customers like to feel that you care about them. They’re more likely to buy from a company that shows them that their attention and their opinion matter, than from the one that makes them feel ignored. Personalized emails are a part of this customer care tactic. Using a prospect’s first name in an email and referring to their possible needs or challenges can break their indifference and spark curiosity. It will make them feel seen and cared for.
Converting prospects into customers
The key is to write engaging, informative, interesting messages. You don’t want your emails to come across as spam. For some they will anyway. And that’s okay. Because there is a part of receivers that will actually read what you wrote and appreciate its value. These are the people who might become your customers in the future. They’re willing to see what else you have to offer and are open to consider your propositions. If you play it well, some of them will eventually decide to buy your product or service.
Gathering feedback
Email marketing is also a great way to gather feedback from your customers or potential customers. Asking for their opinion will not only make them feel important, but also provide you with useful insight on what is appreciated and what is not. You can either ask questions directly in your email body copy or create a survey, and ask email receivers to take part in it.
The benefits of email marketing
It’s only natural that no company will invest in a solution without analyzing its benefits first. To help you with that, we’ve prepared a list of positive results that email marketing can bring you:
Engaged audience
In email marketing, unlike in other forms of advertising, you have the advantage of communicating with an already selected audience. This audience has voluntarily subscribed to your email list. It means that they are interested in your products or services, and don’t mind getting to know you better. It is much easier to get to such people than to try complete strangers to get interested in your email messages.
Increased website traffic
Sending useful emails full of insights and resources can significantly increase your website traffic. If you use personalized recommendations well, people will click on your links to access articles that they find interesting or to check out the newest product that you’re advertising. This will drive your traffic
Measurable results
As we all know, data is a marketer’s best friend. It guides us, always showing which way to go, and which path should be abandoned. In case of email marketing, tracking your messages’ effectiveness is very simple and can straightforwardly indicate how many recipients opened your email, and how many of them actually engaged with it in some way (i.e. by clicking a link attached). Thus, you can quickly apply changes and adjustments to your strategy, based on the data, and easily stay on the right track.
Low cost
Email marketing can be performed with relatively low cost. You don’t have to pay for social media ads or for Google Ads in order for your message to show up in front of the prospect. You send it directly to their mailbox. Of course, it’s up to them whether they click it or not. But the email itself shows up right in front of them and it will be highlighted as unread until they click it, delete it or mark it as read. And it’s all for free.
Naturally, there is a wide range of email marketing tools that can be used to make the whole process easier, especially for bigger companies that send thousands of emails everyday. Unless you’re writing the emails yourself, you also need to hire a copywriter to do it for you. However, these costs are still quite low when compared to some other marketing tactics.
Personalized approach
Email marketing is a tool that allows you to maximize your personalization towards the recipients. On platforms such as social media you’re usually addressing your content to a larger group of people and some of them might find it irrelevant to their situation or their needs.
On the other hand, in email marketing you send messages to specific individuals, and you can check how they found your website and what made them subscribe to your email list. It gives you a great advantage. Thanks to this information you can now send emails addressed specifically to these individuals and related to their current situation. It eliminates the risk of being irrelevant.
If someone requested a demo of your product, you can ask for their feedback. But if another person never used the demo, and instead subscribed to receive your newsletter, you can send them the newest offers and interesting information about your products. You won’t ask them about the demo, though. It would be irrelevant.
Personalized approach increases the effectiveness of your marketing. People hate receiving random emails. If you want to avoid ending up in the spam folder, smartly plan your content and send it to the right person.
Increased sales
All of the above points lead to the desired outcome – increased sales. High efficiency and effectiveness of the communication with customers and prospects result in strong relationships with them and higher willingness to make purchases.
Is email marketing still effective in 2022?
Now, going back to our main question from this article. Is email marketing still something worth engaging in? It might seem like email is a slightly outdated means of communication. After all, we’ve got plenty of other options.
However, notice that email address is still one of the most basic contact information, required whenever you’re registering somewhere, requesting something, or generally somehow engaging in anything that asks for your personal data. In terms of official communication, email is still very much relevant and used by almost everyone.
If that’s still not convincing enough, let’s back it up with some numbers:
- 4 billion people use email every single day (Statista, 2021), sending and receiving over 306 billion emails daily (Statista, 2021);
- Email marketing revenue will reach over $10 billion next year, and is expected to keep on growing (Statista, 2021);
- Average email marketing ROI is $36 gained for every $1 spent (Litmus);
- 1 in 2 media planners is using email marketing (HubSpot Blog Research, 2021);
- 37% of companies have decided to increase their email marketing budget (Litmus, 2021).
In conclusion: yes, email marketing is still effective and very much worth investing in. The next time you open your mailbox, notice how many emails you receive, and which ones of them you find actually useful. These are your guides on how to invoke the power of email marketing.
Stay tuned for more articles with useful tips and tricks on this topic.
