As a mar­keter, you might’ve heard cowork­ers talk­ing around the water­cool­er about how email mar­ket­ing is dead. It’s been a com­mon con­cern for many mar­ket­ing depart­ments. Well, I’m here to let you know that you don’t have to wor­ry because email mar­ket­ing is still going strong.

In fact, 40 per­cent of B2B mar­keters say email newslet­ters are most crit­i­cal to their con­tent mar­ket­ing suc­cess, and 73% of mil­len­ni­als pre­fer com­mu­ni­ca­tions from busi­ness­es to come via email. Fur­ther­more, 99% of con­sumers check their email every day and it is by far the pre­ferred way to receive updates from brands. As mar­keters, we can’t ignore these sta­tis­tics. That’s why it’s impor­tant to devel­op a strong email mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy. Below, let’s review the top ben­e­fits of email mar­ket­ing, which show why it’s one of the most effec­tive mar­ket­ing tactics.

1. Creating personalized content.

With email mar­ket­ing, you can cus­tomize your cam­paigns and cre­ate tar­get­ed content.

Per­son­al­iza­tion can be as small as includ­ing a con­tac­t’s name in the email. In fact, emails that include the first name of the recip­i­ent in their sub­ject line have a high­er click­through rate than those that don’t.

On the oth­er hand, you can also cre­ate indi­vid­u­al­ized con­tent based on seg­ment­ing your audi­ence so you send the right emails to the right cus­tomers. For instance, per­haps you want to send an email mar­ket­ing cam­paign to return­ing cus­tomers and a dif­fer­ent one to one-time customers.

One of the main ben­e­fits of email mar­ket­ing is that your con­tent can be high­ly per­son­al­ized to your audi­ence’s needs. Your emails might have vari­a­tions includ­ing dif­fer­ent images or sub­ject lines to increase your engage­ment. You can even cre­ate seg­ment­ed lists based on geog­ra­phy or engage­ment levels.

To have a suc­cess­ful email mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, you need to send the right email to the right peo­ple at the right time. That’s where seg­men­ta­tion and per­son­al­iza­tion can help.

2. Collecting feedback and surveys.

Keep­ing a pulse on the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence is very valu­able if you want cus­tomers to con­tin­ue to inter­act, engage, and pur­chase from your brand.

Email mar­ket­ing can help you do this. For instance, you can send cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion sur­veys to obtain cus­tomer feed­back through email campaigns.

In fact, this is one of the best ways to cal­cu­late your Net Pro­mot­er Score (NPS). This score helps you find out the per­cent­age of cus­tomers who are brand ambas­sadors and the ones who are detrac­tors. With this infor­ma­tion, you can come up with strate­gies to improve your cus­tomer experience.

2. Collecting feedback and surveys.

3. Improving sales.

While email mar­ket­ing is clear­ly an excel­lent mar­ket­ing tool, it can actu­al­ly improve your sales as well.

In fact, 59% of mar­keters say email is their biggest source of ROI, and mar­keters who used seg­ment­ed cam­paigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue.

Email mar­ket­ing cam­paigns can fea­ture prod­ucts or ser­vices, encour­age cus­tomers to pur­chase after aban­don­ing their cart or deliv­er spe­cial offers to your customers.

Fur­ther­more, 59% of respon­dents in this sur­vey say mar­ket­ing emails influ­ence their pur­chase decisions.

Your email mar­ket­ing cam­paigns can eas­i­ly incor­po­rate mes­sages to encour­age a pur­chase to an audi­ence that’s more like­ly to buy from you because they’ve opt­ed-in to your mes­sages and updates.

Addi­tion­al­ly, you can use email mar­ket­ing to auto­mate part of your sales process, which can help increase sales as well.

4. Communicating with your audience.

As a mar­keter, it’s always impor­tant to improve com­mu­ni­ca­tion with your audi­ence. When your audi­ence feels like they can talk to you, they’re more like­ly to become loy­al to your brand.

Just think — peo­ple appre­ci­ate good emails. Think back to the last time you received a mar­ket­ing email from a brand you love — was it dis­rup­tive or did you enjoy look­ing at the lat­est news? If it’s a brand you like, you prob­a­bly enjoyed the expe­ri­ence and it kept you in touch with one of your favorite brands.

With email mar­ket­ing, you can reach more of your audi­ence and eas­i­ly com­mu­ni­cate with brand ambas­sadors. Plus, these emails keep your audi­ence engaged dur­ing every time of the year, whether it’s a slow or busy season.

5. Generating traffic to your site.

When you pro­duce great con­tent, how do you dis­sem­i­nate it to your audi­ence? Most like­ly, you send them an email.

With email mar­ket­ing cam­paigns, you’ll send traf­fic to your site and improve your SEO. Plus, you’ll keep your audi­ence engaged with your brand and your site.

When you’re cre­at­ing an email that links to your con­tent, keep in mind that each email should con­tain a call to action (CTA) so read­ers can click through to your site.

6. Sending timely campaigns.

Although tra­di­tion­al mar­ket­ing cam­paigns have a time and place, they can take months to plan and orga­nize. Even then, you prob­a­bly aren’t sure if peo­ple are going to see your cam­paign assets at the right time.

How­ev­er, with email mar­ket­ing, you can cre­ate an entire cam­paign on short­er notice because they don’t take as long to plan. Addi­tion­al­ly, you can ensure your audi­ence sees the email at the right time.

For exam­ple, you can make sure you send con­tent at the right time by seg­ment­ing your audience.

7. Increasing leads.

In the same vein as improv­ing sales, you can also increase your leads with email mar­ket­ing. In fact, with the inbound method, email mar­ket­ing is used to nur­ture leads and improve conversions.

For exam­ple, let’s say you down­loaded a lead mag­net from a site. Then, you start receiv­ing drip emails, and in the end, you decide to book a demo and learn more. You just went from an MQL to an SQL, which improves the mar­ket­ing teams num­ber of qual­i­fied leads to the sales team.

Email mar­ket­ing cam­paigns can fur­ther qual­i­fy leads so your sales team isn’t wast­ing time on bad leads. Plus, if your com­pa­ny does lead scor­ing you can keep track of whether those leads open your emails or engage by click­ing the links in your email.

8. Reaching the right people at the right time.

To have a suc­cess­ful mar­ket­ing cam­paign, you have to reach the right cus­tomers at the right time. Yes, I’m reit­er­at­ing this point because it’s that important.

With email mar­ket­ing, it’s that much eas­i­er to reach peo­ple because they always check their email. They can check it at any time, on mul­ti­ple devices, which can improve the suc­cess of any mar­ket­ing campaign.

This means you’re get­ting in front of your audi­ence on a reg­u­lar basis, so you’re always top-of-mind.

8. Reaching the right people at the right time.

9. Producing cost-effective campaigns.

While tra­di­tion­al cam­paigns like direct or print can be cost­ly, email mar­ket­ing cam­paigns tend to be more cost-effective.

For exam­ple, you won’t have to pay for any pho­to­shoots, loca­tion fees, print­ers, mail­ing, or place­ment. All you need is a copy­writer and graph­ic artist (if you aren’t using stock images). This can even be one per­son on your team.

Addi­tion­al­ly, email cam­paigns don’t take long to pro­duce. If need­ed, you can pro­duce an email in one day, which is much more cost-effec­tive than the time it takes to pro­duce a direct or print campaign.

Since time and bud­get con­straints always impact mar­keters, email mar­ket­ing cam­paigns can be more effi­cient, while also gen­er­at­ing rev­enue and leads.

10. Providing more value to your audience.

One of the main goals of any busi­ness is to pro­vide val­ue for your audi­ence so they keep com­ing back.

Email mar­ket­ing is a great place to cul­ti­vate loy­al cus­tomers because you can add val­ue even when cus­tomers aren’t mak­ing a purchase.

Addi­tion­al­ly, since cus­tomers or prospects opt­ed-in, you can use email mar­ket­ing to pro­vide more resources to con­tacts who are inter­est­ed in what you have to say.

If you con­tin­u­ous­ly pro­vide val­ue for your audi­ence, more peo­ple will pay atten­tion and you’ll pro­duce a high­er ROI.

11. Having a forum for self-promotion.

Some­times it can be awk­ward to self-pro­mote in places where prospects haven’t nec­es­sar­i­ly opt­ed-in to receive updates about your busi­ness. How­ev­er, self-pro­mo­tion is one of the best ways to attain cus­tomers. If you can’t pro­mote your­self and sell your com­pa­ny, no one will buy from you.

With email mar­ket­ing cam­paigns, you’ll always have an avenue to pro­mote your­self, espe­cial­ly since cus­tomers opt­ed-in. You can send emails about new prod­ucts, fea­tures, and ben­e­fits, or new con­tent. Since cus­tomers want to hear from you, this self-pro­mo­tion isn’t unwant­ed or disruptive.

12. Owning your media and contact lists.

With plat­forms like social media, you don’t own your con­tact list or even the infor­ma­tion you post. Typ­i­cal­ly, the con­tent and your fol­low­er list is owned by the social media platform.

Just think — if social media went away tomor­row, how many fol­low­ers and cus­tomers would you lose?

That’s why build­ing an email list is impor­tant for mar­keters. This is a con­tact list you own and you can inter­act with them regard­less of the email provider. Plus, you’ll also own the con­tent that you pro­duce and send as well.

Email mar­ket­ing is one of the top ways to reach your audi­ence. Plus, it can also improve sales and leads. Since this is still the place where peo­ple want to receive infor­ma­tion, let’s just say that email mar­ket­ing isn’t dead.

SOURCE: Hub­Spot