7 compelling reasons for email marketing

If you think that email marketing is ‘old hat’ – think again. Here are 7 compelling reasons for using email as part of your marketing mix:

1. Email has a larger reach

Facebook has over 1 billion active users per month and Twitter claims to have 255 million. While these are impressive numbers the total number of worldwide email accounts was estimated to be 4.3 billion in 2015 – that’s 3x more email accounts than there are Facebook & Twitter accounts combined.

Having an email address is almost a prerequisite for using the web and there’s no medium with a wider reach.

2. Email gets in front of 45 times more people than Facebook

When it comes to getting your marketing message in front of an audience, email marketing is by far the best channel. Around 90% of email gets delivered, whereas only 2% of your Facebook fans see your posts on their News Feed.

So, if you post an update to 10,000 fans on Facebook, potentially only 200 of them will see it. Whereas, if you send an email campaign to 10,000 subscribers it’ll potentially be delivered to 9,000 of them!

3. Email gets higher conversion rates than Twitter  

The purpose of marketing is to turn prospects into customers and there’s no better method than email. The average click-through rate of an email campaign is around 3%, while the average click-through rate from a tweet is only around 0.5% – so you’re 6x more likely to get a click-through to your website from an email than from Twitter!

Monetate ran a survey that showed 4% of web visitors who arrive by email buy something online, compared to 2% of visitors from search engines and 0.6% from social media.

4. Email gives a higher Return on Investment (ROI)

A recent report by VentureBeat suggests email has the highest ROI of any marketing channel available today, with an average return on investment of $38 for every $1 spent.

The reason is that emails can be targeted and personal. You can segment your list and use dynamic content to deliver the right email to the right person at the right time, helping to drive people to complete your call to action.

5. Email is how your audience want you to communicate with them

Social networks are generally used to keep up to date with friends & family. So when people log into their social media accounts they expect to see updates from people they know and care about, not companies’ advertising.

With the perception of being a more professional medium, people are more open to receiving information about products and services via email. Studies show 72% of people prefer to receive promotional content by email, compared to 17% who prefer to recieve promotional content via social media.

6. Email isn’t controlled by any one company

Lots of brands have invested millions of dollars into building a large Facebook following so they can reach their audience. Meanwhile, Facebook’s updated its algorithms to reduce the reach a brand’s posts have on the platform. So now less than 2% of a brand’s followers see the company’s posts in their News Feed. It’s not unique to Facebook, Twitter’s also announced it’s introducing an algorithm controlled feed.

Because platforms like Twitter and Facebook are owned by 3rd parties you’re at the mercy of the changes they make. Email, on the other hand, isn’t owned or controlled by any one company. So if you invest in building a great email list it’s an asset you’ll own and be able to leverage forever, with the knowledge it won’t become less effective over time.

7. Email will be around forever

MySpace was the largest social network in the world between 2005 and 2008, beating even Google as the most visited website in the United States in June 2006.

Today MySpace users have moved on and it’s only the 1,500th most popular website in the U.S. Imagine building an audience on a platform like MySpace, only to find they’re no longer using it a year or two later.

Email on the other hand has a long history of stability. The first promotional email campaign was sent in 1978 to 400 people and the use of email has grown consistently since. In 2013 there were an estimated 3.9 billion email accounts and that’s expected to reach 4.9 billion by 2017. So building an email list is a stable long-term investment that will pay dividends for years to come.

We work with Campaign Monitor’s award winning email marketing system to create, manage and send brilliant email campaigns. If you’re looking for ways to grow your business using email contact info@ie-marketing.co.uk

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