You’ve Got Mail: Why Email Marketing Isn’t Dead

If you’re anything like me, your email inbox is probably overflowing. There are work emails, school emails, emails from your kids’ sports and activities, emails from family members, emails, emails, emails…

When it comes to marketing, who wants to read yet another email?

Turns out – a lot of people. According to HubSpot, over the past 12 months, 77% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement. So regardless of whether you’re clicking open, someone is.

If you haven’t been focusing on building an email list, you probably should move it to the top of your to-do list. Here are my top 8 reasons why small businesses need email marketing.

You Own this List

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again …and again and again. Social media is fantastic. It’s a great place to grow and connect with your audience. But you don’t own that audience.

Just take a look at what happened to Twitter. One egotistical billionaire gets a bug up his ass and the whole platform implodes. You know what else implodes? That audience you’ve spent time cultivating. As people fled the platform, many creators and brands saw their follower count tank.

With an email list, you still have a way of contacting that audience. You can engage with them through email content, direct them to your blog, or introduce new social media platforms. Regardless of how you use that list, you still have a list to use.

Email Meets Your Audience Where They Are

Email marketing is hands down the best way to get in front of your audience. Think of it like sliding into their DMs but… better.

It doesn’t matter if their social media gets hacked or if they decide to do a social media cleanse. Your email will still get your messaging through to them. With just one click, you’re right in front of them again. And if they aren’t ready to read your email the moment it comes in, it’ll still be there in their inbox when they have the time to come back to it.

Email Marketing Revenue is Rising

Want some numbers? I’ve got your numbers!

According to Statista, email marketing generated $7.5 billion dollars worldwide in 2020. By 2022, that number rose to $9.62 billion. Experts expect that this number will continue to rise. That’s a lot of money you could be leaving on the table if you’ve been avoiding email marketing.

You Can Control Who Gets What

Want to send out a promo to just a select group of people? That’s tricky with some other types of marketing, but with email marketing, you can.

When you segment your list, you can send certain emails to select audiences. Not only is this a good way to reward your most frequent customers or try to win back ones that may be fading, but it’s also a great way to increase your open and click-through rates.

According to that same Hubspot survey I mentioned above, segmented emails “drive 30% more opens and 50% more clickthroughs than unsegmented ones.” Those are pretty high numbers to ignore.

You Can Customize Sequences

Along those same lines, email marketing allows you to customize sequences. This goes a long way in nurturing your list. For all email list builders, I always suggest a welcome sequence. Let your new subscribers know that they made it onto your list, you’re happy to have them there, and what they can expect.

For product-based businesses, you can also set up abandoned cart email sequences to help win back some customers who may have dropped off. I also suggest setting up a thank you sequence as a way of following up on purchases, offering reorders, and soliciting reviews.

The best part about customized email sequences? They can be automated! You don’t have to go in and send each one out. Once you set up the sequence and select the right triggers, they will shoot out automatically. You get to nurture your list and show up to your customers without all the stress of actually showing up every day.

It Provides Excellent Insight into Your Audiences’ Likes and Dislikes

With email marketing, you can see who is opening what. If you want to know what your audience is resonating with the most, send an email! If they like the headline, they’ll open it. If they don’t, they won’t. This is the perfect way to see what they want more of and what you can start to trim out of your content marketing strategy.

Want to take it a step further? Do A/B tests. Send one group one headline and the other group a different one. Once the emails have been sent out, you can analyze the data to see which copy is performing better.

It Makes You Hard to Forget

With social media, you’re fighting against an algorithm. With blog content, you have to trust that your audience will remember to check your site or that your SEO strategy will work.

With email marketing, you can shoot yourself right into their inbox at any given moment.

Want to take it to the next level? Combine all three of these content types into a robust content marketing strategy. Have a blog post you’re really proud of? Send an email about it! Want people to vote in a social media poll? Send an email about it! Learning to use email marketing in conjunction with other digital marketing techniques is the key to success for most small businesses.

Email Content is Easily Shareable

If one of your content marketing goals is to increase your brand awareness and build loyalty, you’ll want to create content that is easily shareable. And email marketing content is just that!

It’s easy for someone to read an email, enjoy its content, and then hit forward to send it to a friend or family member who might also be interested in it. This will expand your reach without you specifically trying!

Make It a Point to Explore How to Improve Your Email Marketing Strategy

As you can tell, email marketing is long from dead. Many small businesses across the world still count email marketing as their most successful marketing platform.

Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t! You don’t have to jump into email marketing with two feet right away. Take it slow. Start by slowly building your list and sending out emails. Some of my clients send a monthly email. Others only do it quarterly. Others send them out weekly. There is so magic number. It all depends on your audience, your brand, and your industry.

Need some help developing a strategy or making email marketing a more prominent part of your content marketing strategy? I’m here to help! Schedule a one-on-one call today.