Email Marketing is Not Dead - You Just Forgot the Benefits

Email marketing has been declared dead many times over the years because of spam filters, Can-SPAM laws, or that it has been replaced by more efficient methodologies (e.g. texting, chat, in-app communications, etc.). I am here to proclaim that email marketing is alive and one of the most cost-effective methods you can use to attract, engage, and cover new customers and keep existing ones.

After all, 99% of the people who have an email check it every single day (Optinmonster). The only things that have changed are the engagement rules, to ensure that what you are sending is both relevant, wanted, and maybe even anticipated by the recipient.

For years, email marketing has been a cornerstone of digital marketing strategies, and for good reason. Social media, apps, and other communication channels can work in conjunction with email marketing. Email remains a powerful tool for engaging and nurturing prospects. In fact, email marketing is up to 40 times more effective than social media according to a study done by McKinsey & Company.

In this series, we will begin a discussion on email marketing and present compelling evidence that proves the benefits of email marketing and its effectiveness in driving customer engagement and nurturing leads. We discuss best practices and provide you with use cases that have proven highly effective for our clients. Today, we are going to share why your company will benefit from a well-designed and well-implemented email marketing program.

Email Marketing - The Basics

Email marketing is the practice of sending targeted messages to a group of individuals via email. These messages can be promotional, informational, or educational in nature, and are typically sent to subscribers who have willingly opted in to receive communications from a business or organization.

One of the key advantages of email marketing is its ability to deliver personalized and highly targeted content. With advanced segmentation and automation tools, businesses can tailor their email campaigns to specific audience segments, based on factors such as demographics, interests, and past interactions.

Email Marketing serves five distinct functionalities:

• New Customer Acquisitions

• Transactional Emails

• Lead Nurturing Emails

• Sales Enablement Emails

• Client Retention Emails

The Benefits of Email Marketing

Email marketing allows businesses to extend their reach and connect with a larger audience. With over 4 billion email users worldwide, it provides an unparalleled opportunity to engage potential customers. Moreover, email marketing platforms offer advanced targeting options, enabling businesses to segment their audience based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. This ensures that the right message reaches the right people, increasing the chances of conversion.

Generate Traffic to Your Website – Email marketing campaigns are a great way to increase website traffic, because you can directly link to your website in your email. By offering the recipient something of high value to them, they will click on the link to engage that content.

Real-World Example – We had a direct-to-consumer client who sold collectibles of action cartoons, and pop culture figurines. When we were brought on, they had a full quarter of decreased traffic to their website. They were in a free-fall panic, because it not only declined over the previous quarter but was a radical decline from the same period the preceding year. We implemented an "awake the dead" email campaign that reached out to those who have not responded to an email in the past year. We offered an exclusive invite-only opportunity to see an upcoming themed limited edition line.

The results were overwhelming, as the client got a 150% increase in traffic to their website which was attributable to the email outreach. Best of all, they got a 47% increase in sales as a result.

Improve SEO – One of the often overlooked benefits, of an email marketing campaign, is improved search engine optimization (SEO). While Google, and other search engines, do not crawl or index emails, it will still have an impact on SEO.

Increased Traffic - First, there will be an increase in overall traffic to your website which the search engines will take note of. Everyone who clicks on the call-to-action (CTA) will represent a new unique visitor to your website.

Reduced Bounce Rates - More importantly, because the recipients of your email are clicking a CTA, to check out a high-quality offer or relevant content, they will stay on the site to investigate that and possibly other offers or content. This will have a marked impact on your bounce rate, which should improve your SEO.

Backlinks – The CTA’s, that the email recipients click to learn about your product offer or to find relevant content, will be backlinks to your website. When they click on these backlinks, it will be seen by Google and other search engines that your site is trustworthy and has relevant content. This will translate into improved SEO and more organic traffic.

Improved Sales – An effective email marketing campaign will share the benefits of your brand to a highly segmented list of your targeted buyer personas. Because it will address the pain points and concerns of where that group sits in the buyer’s journey, it will be highly relevant and resonate with them. That is why marketers who use segmented email campaigns see as much as a 760% increase in revenue (HubSpot).

Real-World Example - We implemented, for one of our clients who was an e-commerce retailer of baby products, an email campaign targeted to potential clients who had abandoned their shopping carts. By sending personalized emails with exclusive discounts and reminders, they were able to recover 49% of abandoned carts, resulting in a significant increase in sales.

Improve Return on Investment (ROI) - Email marketing consistently delivers one of the highest returns on investment (ROI) compared to other marketing channels. In a 2020 study, it was found that for every $1 spent on email marketing, an average return of at least $36 dollars was generated. However, for the retail, e-commerce, and consumer goods sectors, that return was $45 for every dollar spent (Statista).

Real-World Example – In our example above, our client's ROI was astronomical, even when you factor in the cost of having an agency develop and implement the email campaign. Our client sold their limited edition figurines between $110 - $140. The cost they incurred was a few hours to draft, craft, and execute the email.

Increases Brand Awareness – The old adage “out of sight, out of mind” is true. We all live busy lives, where our attention is directed by outside stimuli. It isn’t that your prospects and customers don’t want to think of you; they are just being bombarded with information overload. Emails are a cost-effective way to remind them that you exist and the benefits that you can have if they want to engage with you. Email allows businesses to directly reach their audience in a personal and intimate way. By delivering relevant and valuable content, businesses can foster meaningful connections with their prospects, leading to increased engagement and brand loyalty.

Cost-Effective - Compared to traditional marketing channels, such as print or TV advertising, email marketing is highly cost-effective. With minimal production and distribution costs, businesses can reach a large audience at a fraction of the cost of other marketing methods. The cost of producing an email is incredibly small, to the point that 87% of all brands believe that email marketing is critical to their business’s success (Litmus). The reason that it is so popular is that over 66% of customers make a purchase as a result of an email marketing message (Digital Marketing Association).

Immediate Results – There are very few marketing campaigns (outside paid demand programs) where you can flip a switch and get immediate results.

Real-World Example – If you have a well-segmented email list in your CRM, you are sitting on a gold mine (for Gen Z and younger – gold is like a physical bitcoin). We have taken a client’s dormant list and revived the dead, bringing back prospects and clients that they thought had lost interest in the brand. We have taken active client lists and created the best month of revenues for our client. We had a B2B SaaS client, who had long given up on prospects, who just failed to respond to previous attempts to reach them. The reason that previous attempts failed is that the client was focused on features and buy-now. We changed the narrative and discussed benefits and the value that the prospect would enjoy. The results were spectacular with a 24% increase in sale-qualified leads from that email outreach.

Metric Driven Performance - Email marketing provides businesses with valuable insights and metrics to measure the success of their campaigns. From open rates and click-through rates to conversion rates and revenue generated, businesses can track and analyze the performance of their email campaigns to optimize future efforts.

Real-World Example – If you are not A/B testing something, are you really doing marketing? We think not! Not every email is a walk-off grand slam home run; many are poor performers. How do you get spectacular results? You don’t send your first email to everyone on your list or even that segmented list you created of like-minded personas. You take a small segment of 40 contacts, and you test various versions of the email offer or promise. We have seen amazing increases in conversions by taking the time to perfect the offer, messaging, and imagery. One example was for a medical equipment company. If we would have sent the first version of the email, our conversion rate would have been about 7%. We optimized it and ended up with one that had an 18.65% conversion rate. Same concept but better results.

Enhanced Loyalty – Often, once a customer completes the transaction, they are forgotten about and not contacted again until it is time for a renewal or to upsell them. Imagine how valued you would feel if someone only contacted you when they needed something. It is sort of like having children in college. You don’t exist until they want or need something.

Email marketing plays a crucial role in nurturing customer relationships and fostering loyalty. By delivering relevant and valuable content to subscribers, businesses can keep their brand top-of-mind and establish themselves as industry leaders. Additionally, email marketing allows for two-way communication, enabling recipients to provide feedback, ask questions, or engage with the brand directly. This interactive nature strengthens the bond between the business and the customer, leading to increased loyalty and repeat purchases.

Conclusion

Email marketing is an essential tool for businesses, as it allows them to directly communicate with their target audience. It offers numerous benefits, such as cost-effectiveness, reaching a wide audience, and generating higher ROI.

By creating personalized and engaging email campaigns, businesses can build strong relationships with their customers, increase brand awareness, and drive sales. Email marketing also provides valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, enabling businesses to refine their strategies and improve their overall marketing efforts.

With the ability to track open rates, click-through rates, and conversions, email marketing provides measurable results and allows businesses to continuously optimize their campaigns for better performance. In today's digital world, email marketing is a powerful tool that cannot be overlooked by any business striving for growth and success.

We will continue our discussion in our next article on email marketing and how to optimize their performance. If you can't wait until then, email us.