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Email, perhaps the most anticipated digital document in the early days of the Internet. You’d login to the Internet via your 56k modem, and after a series of “connection buzzes” you’re connected to the Internet and see the wonderful notification message pop-up, ‘You’ve Got Mail’.
We used to love our email, reading every mail that came into our inbox. However, after years of being spammed by marketers, schemes, scams etc. email has gotten a bad rep. How do you feel about email now? Is it still a viable marketing channel for business owners?
The short answer is YES, but I believe it will take more than a resounding YES to convince you. There are 4 billion email accounts to date worldwide, and it’s predicted to reach 4.1 billion by 2022, which is more than half of the global population!
With such staggering stats, there has to be something to be gained from Email Marketing. Let’s dive into the undeniable reasons why Email Marketing still matters today.
It’s undeniable that people are more mobile today than they ever were, smartphones are mini computers and these days almost everyone owns one. Even though not everyone will shop from their smartphones, however, many will check their email on it.
What you should know though, is that the most popular activity people do using their mobile device is checking their email, as reported by IDC. With over 5 billion unique mobile users globally to date, Malaysia has a share of over 21 million unique mobile users.
Even if you are a local business targeting the local market, that’s a huge number of prospects to reach out to. Add to the fact that mobile users often check their email, which includes marketing messages from businesses like yours!
Email marketing is the ideal tactic for businesses, especially small businesses as unlike apps or SMS marketing, there’s no need to invest in new technology or software development. It is also more accessible as it reaches prospects who are using other types of mobile devices besides smartphones, e.g. tablets, laptops.
Businesses have budgets to work within, most small businesses have a limited budget and are always looking for affordable ways to reach and engage their audience.
Email Marketing is not only affordable to get started with, it is also relatively inexpensive to maintain over time. This allows small businesses to get more out of their marketing spend.
Traditional marketing channels such as TV and magazine ads, or direct mail are expensive and limits the amount of content you can deliver.
Email Marketing on the other hand allows businesses to reach wider audiences without content limitations at extremely low prices.
It can cost as low as few cents per recipient, making Email Marketing great for businesses with small budgets.
Email is a convenient and quick way for businesses to disseminate information such as latest products and promotions or giving out freebies.
Consumers also love to subscribe to brands which they like to stay updated with the latest offerings and promotions.In fact, Nielsen reported that in the US, 28 percent of online shoppers subscribe to newsletters in order to stay informed about their favorite brands.You can make your Email Marketing more attractive by offering coupons and rewards, this way you give incentive to your audience to not only sign-up for your newsletter but also to look forward to and open emails from your business.
The flexibility of Email Marketing is another reason why you should use it. Emails can be easily customized to include the name of the receiver and more, making it look personalized.
Customers are humans, and humans love personal attention, if you can provide the feeling that you are giving them your personal attention, the chances of conversion will be so much higher.
Email Marketing can also be integrated into other marketing campaigns. If you are running a social media campaign, you can utilize emails to generate excitement for the campaign.
You can also grow your website traffic and social media audience by adding social share buttons, CTAs, and links to useful and relevant content on your website in your email content.
People prefer doing business with other people whom they trust. Email allows you to build trust and authority with your existing customers, and prospects by sharing useful and relevant content.
Most people feel annoyed with newsletters simply because the content in the email doesn’t benefit them, or it’s choke full of sales pitches.
>As Gary Vaynerchuk preaches, you need to jab, jab, jab before you give a right hook. What this means is you need to give, give, give before you pitch your offer.
Give can be in the form of useful and relevant content, say if you are a pet store owner, then you could share pet grooming tips, or information on the different types of pet food which are suitable for specific pets etc.
The key being giving information which is useful for your target audience, you wouldn’t want to talk about pet food to someone who is looking for holiday destinations.
Continue to send content which your audience are interested in, and eventually they will be looking forward to receiving emails from your business.
Marketers used to send out mailers which contained brochures, coupons and other marketing material. The problem with physical mailers, you have no idea if the recipient even opens it or does it go straight to the bin.
The beauty of digital technology is that it is all trackable and there is various information which can be collected from the emails you send out. For one, you will be able to track the open rate, bounce rate for example.
This is important information as It gives you insights into the number of people who are actually opening and reading your email.
This in turn will give you an idea of whether the content you are sending out is suitable or should it be tweaked.
In the information age, information is power, and the more you measure the better you will get at your Email Marketing campaigns.
One more advantage of digital systems is the customizability it offers, you can design your newsletter in whatever way you want, insert images, videos and other media.
You can even personalize the email to include the recipient's name and other available personal information.
This makes the email appear to be written personally just for each particular individual.
A custom welcome message may make the prospects day and convert them, or a reminder about their shopping carts may be the push needed to make the customer check-out and complete the transaction.
The possibilities are endless, which is also the reason why Email Marketing can be easily integrated into any marketing campaign. Your imagination is the limit to achieving greater conversions.
Businesses are always trying to building and maintaining good relationships with their customers and prospects, but what about your business partners, and vendors?
If you were trying to maintain all these relationships and the traditional way by calling or meetings, then you would need a dedicated public relations executive to do so.
It’s probably the right thing to do as well if you have the budget, but for most budget conscious small businesses, this is not a viable option.
Email gives you the ability to communicate frequently with all your different audiences with minimal time and effort.
Build your relationships and maintain them well, for they are the lifeblood of any business.
I’m sure you’d agree that nothing beats the immediacy of social media. However, did you know that with each update Facebook pushes out, the visibility of your posts gets lower and lower?
To date, only less than 2% of your followers will see the posts you put out on your business pages.
Email Marketing is different, it has a deliverability rate of as high as 90%, compare this to the 2% visibility on Facebook.
This means if you posted a message to 10,000 of your followers, only 200 of them has the chance to see your post.
However, if you sent an email to a similar sized mailing list, at least 9,000 of your subscribers would receive your email in their inbox.
Add to the fact that your mailing list is made up of people who voluntarily opted in to receive marketing communication from your business, this makes the communication with this audience a lot more effective and powerful.
Email is currently the best marketing channel with the highest deliverability and reach to get your message across.
Give the affordability of Email Marketing as seen above, it would make sense that the ROI of this marketing channel is going to be high.
Email is unmatched in its ability to drive conversions as it is highly personalize-able and targeted. It has been proven that for every $1 spent on Email Marketing, the average ROI is $50.
A combination of cost-effectiveness and captured audience is a match made in heaven, what’s left for you to do is to deliver awesome and relevant content to this hyper-targeted audience.
The more data you have about your audience, the more accurate you will be able to target them, driving your ROI even higher.
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