Email marketing is an extremely effective and efficient method for increasing sale if implemented properly. I am not talking about sending out outbound spammy emails, but rather emails that provide value and build trust amongst your targeted audience. In this post we will list our top 5 compelling reasons for email marketing.
Many still hold the perception that email marketing is all about buying a list and sending out spam. That is not what an effective email marketing campaign is all about. An effective email marketing campaign is about creating a positive, inbound email marketing experience for your targeted audience.
The first and most important step is to use contacts that have opted-in to your list. They did so because you provided with a compelling reason to take action and raise their hand. You may have provided them with a killer guide, great checklist or other tool or report. The point is you provided something of value to them and they raised their hand and said yes, please include me in your list.
The second most important reason for them to continue to want to hear from you is that with each and every email you provide them with unique, interesting and value-added content.
You do not work to build up a database of contacts so you can pound them with emails screaming, BUY, BUY, BUY! In fact if every email has a sales-focused, buy-now message, the contacts on your email list will either opt-out, send all your messages directly to the trash folder or worse, report your emails as spam. All that work to have them opt-in is thrown out the window.
In subsequent posts we will cover the how to put together a great email campaign, but in this post we will cover 7 reasons for why every company should be using email marketing.
1. Email can be one of your most effective channels when you use inbound best practices.
Creating a great campaign is all about creating value for the end-user. The goal is to provide value-added content that causes the recipient to look forward to each and every email from you. They anticipate hearing from you because, they know you will share great information.
The recipients of your email are typically not ready to buy. Think about a buying scale from A to Z with buyers at the A point just beginning their buyers journey. Buyers near the beginning of the scale are in the Awareness Stage of the Buyers Journey. As they move down the scale they will transition into the Consideration Stage and when they get near the Z scale they will be in the Decision Stage.
Most of your contacts will be in the Awareness or Consideration stage. The goal of your Email marketing campaign is to provide them with great value added content that moves them through the buying scale, while building a relationship and trust.
If your email marketing campaign was implemented and executed correctly you will be the first one they seek out to purchase your goods or services.
2. More than 3.2 Billion email accounts today.
It is rare that that your targeted audience will not have an email address. With the large number of users having email address it makes it easy to leverage this form of medium for reaching out and connecting with your audience.
Ponder these two statistics: 95% of online consumers use email and 91% of them check email once per day. Not only do most of your targeted audience have email addresses but almost all of them are checking them at least once per day on a daily basis.
With the explosion of smart phones, your targeted audience is more connected than ever to their email. A connected prospect gives you an opportunity to reach out to them instantly.
Consider that 80% of adults between the age of 25 and 34 have a smart phone and that 776 million smart phones are projected to be sold in 2015.
Having a great email marketing campaign allows you to have an immediate impact and connection with your buyers. No longer do they have to go home or go to work and login to read email. It arrives at their smart phone immediately.
3. Email has longer life span than social media and you own your contacts Database.
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google + and all the other Social Media platforms are great for getting your message out to large audience. However, the message is short lived. Consider that on Twitter, your message is buried in a matter of hours and in some cases minutes.
In addition, social media channels has control over your contacts. Your goal should be to move them from Follows, Likes or Circles to your own database. What happens if Facebook, Twitter or any other Social Media platform goes away? Do you have the ability to retrieve those contacts and maintain communication with them? No, that is information controlled by Social Media.
77% of consumers prefer email for marketing communications
Not only do your customers have email and check them at least daily, but for almost 80% for consumers it is their preferred form of communication.
If your customers use email, check email daily and it is their preferred method of communication, why wouldn’t you use email? This is a complete no-brainer and pretty straight-forward for why an effective email marketing campaign is so powerful.
4. Emails let you be highly personal.
An effective email campaign will allow you to further your relationship with the recipient.
Auto responder email systems, such as Aweber, MailChimp, HubSpot or Infusion Soft allow you to insert tokens (names, addresses, or other specified fields) to make your emails tailored for each individual the email is sent to.
Based on opens and click-throughs, you’ll be capable of determining what information interests and appeals to your recipients. By understanding the information that motivates them to action, you can tailor the content and email messaging based on your recipient’s interest rather than sending out a blanket email.
5. Email marketing has an ROI of 4300% (Source: Direct Marketing Association).
Amazingly, this is not a misprint. Your biggest investment is in developing great,
value-added content that will motivate visitors to opt-in and continue to be motivated and anticipate information from you.
With an investment for as little as $10/month with MailChimp you can open an account, start building your database and set-up an automated email campaign. Other systems such as HubSpot and InfusionSoft are much more sophisticated, with expanded capabilities and although they can range from a few hundred dollars per mobth to thousands per month, they provide a phenomenal ROI.
What is more critical than the software platform itself is to stay in front of your contact delivering remarkable, value-added content that they look forward to receiving.
An automated email software platform is just a tool that allows you to automate the process so you can further your relationship and build trust and benefit from increased sales.
