When clients come to MicroD for our digital marketing services, I’m always surprised by how many clients aren’t using email marketing. Usually, it’s simply because they don’t realize the benefits of email marketing. Sometimes they haven’t really gotten started with digital marketing. Many are still using traditional marketing techniques such as direct mailers, billboards, and print advertising. While this isn’t terrible, we’ve moved into a digital marketing age. Businesses without digital marketing strategies are quickly being left behind. Well, there are actually a lot of email marketing benefits. Let’s review so the top five benefits. Once you know, you’ll be ready to get started with email marketing campaigns today.
Email Marketing Benefit #1: Cost Efficient
Generally, the benefit of email marketing that appeals the most to our clients is that it’s incredibly cost effective.
Extensive Reach
The number of people you can reach with email marketing is boundless. You aren’t limited to a number of email addresses that you can include in an email marketing campaign. Plus, you have a more reliable delivery rate than with other forms of digital marketing.
Good Click-Through and Conversion Rates
Because emails are delivered directly to inboxes, people are more likely to see them. Due to algorithms used by social media platforms, your followers won’t see every time you post. However, with email, your recipient will at the very least see it.
Shareable
It’s super easy to make email offers and content shareable. A recipient can forward the email with just the click of a button. Sharing email content and offers on social media is also really easy. All you have to do is include sharing links (or buttons). Just make sure that these sharing links are clearly and prominently placed. People won’t share it if it isn’t simple.
Great Medium For Content
Social media is more restricted when it comes to content. You just don’t have that much space to convey your message. Email, however, allows you to have a bit more content. Plus, you can include more links to your landing pages, blog articles, social media platforms, and any other content that is relevant to your recipients.
High Return on Investment
Email Marketing really got going in the late 1990s. Since then the return on investment (ROI) has remained consistently high. One reason for this is that email marketing is so low cost. You aren’t spending money on printing or postage. Another reason is that the delivery rate is relatively reliable. People are simply more likely to notice and open an email than they are to pay attention to flyers in their home mailboxes. I don’t know about you, but I throw that junk mail right into the recycling bin.
Email Marketing Benefit #2: Measurable Results
With traditional direct mailing, you really have no method of measuring how effective your campaigns are. This isn’t true for email though. Using one of the many analytics tools available, you can measure the results of your email marketing efforts. That means that you have measurable data that can help you improve the efficacy of your email marketing strategy. Here are a few of the important measurements that you need for email marketing campaigns.
Open Rate
This is totally straight forward. You can measure the number of recipients who open your email. This helps you know how relevant your subject line is for your target audience. This helps you to understand if you are effectively marketing to your recipients.
Click-Through Rate
You can also measure the click-through rate on your emails. Click-through rate refers to the number of recipients who open your email and then click one or more links within the email. This really helps you know if you’re offering content that’s valuable to your recipients.
Opt-Out Rate
Opt-out rate is an important metric too. People who opt out are unsubscribing from your email list. This means that your email content is of no value to them. That could mean that your content isn’t any good, or it could mean that you’re marketing the wrong thing to the wrong audience.
Email Marketing Benefit #3: Targeted
Gone are the days of sending direct mailers, placing print ads, and airing television commercials. Targeting specific customer groups is a huge benefit of email marketing. There are several different options for targeting. Here are some of the most commonly used options for email marketing strategies.
Demographics
This is probably the easiest option with which to start. Demographics are simply basic aspects of a customer’s profile. This can include age and gender, and geographical area, which are especially relevant for retailers. For companies that sell or work with other companies, demographics may include industry and size of the company.
Value
Value refers to the current or potential worth of a customer. Understanding the value of a customer helps you identify ways to increase business. Here are some of the attributes to consider.
- Determination of which customers in whom you should invest
- Identification of target markets and new customers
- Determination of customers who are unprofitable and not worth investment
- Assessment of the best products or services to offer customer groups
Life Cycle (or Sales Cycle)
Most businesses have various stages of customer interaction. The first stage would be initial customer contact. Subsequent stages might include a sale followed by additional sales or business retention. Another benefit of email marketing is that you can target customers based on which stage of your sales cycle they are currently in.
Behavior
Using tracking methods and analytics, it’s possible to identify a customer’s behavior. You’re now able to categorize a customer based on factors such as links clicked in an email, web pages visited, and frequency of web page visits. This helps you understand a customer’s interests so that you can market more specific products or services to them, which increases likelihood of conversion.
Email Marketing Benefit #4: Drives Conversions
Speaking of conversions! Another great benefit of email marketing is that it drives conversions. Email marketing helps you maintain communication and build loyalty among existing and potential customers. That being said, it’s a good idea to learn how emails actually drive conversions.
Landing Pages
When your customers click on a link in your emails, where are they being directed. They should be directed to a relevant landing page. For example, if you are promoting a specific product, the link in the email should direct the customer to a landing page for that specific product. If the link directs them to your home page, for instance, then the customer has to search for the product. Basically, you want to make the process as easy as possible for the customer in order to increase the likelihood of conversion. Thus, targeted relevant landing pages are very important.
Split Testing
Split testing, also known as A/B testing, is a method of testing various elements of a campaign in order to refine strategies and improve conversion rates. You create two different email templates or two different landing pages, then you use one for 50% of your customer group and the other for 50% of your customer group. The key to split testing is to only test one element at a time. Here are a few elements that are good to test for an email marketing campaign.
- Subject Lines—The subject line is the first aspect of the email that a customer sees. You want to have a subject line that encourages the customer to open the email.
- Email Layouts—Once the customer opens the email, you want them to click on a link. Testing various aspects of layout can help you identify the most effective layout for your emails.
- Sending Times—Depending on your target customer, there are times of day during which people are more likely to open your emails. Maybe your customers are more likely to open your emails first thing in the morning. Maybe your customers are more likely to open your emails after work or on weekends. By sending emails at an optimal time, you increase the likelihood that customers will open the email, which increases the likelihood of conversions.
Social Sharing
Including sharing links to social media platforms increases your reach, plain and simple. If you content is relevant and valuable, or your offer is really great, people may be inclined to share it with others. Making your content easy to share is the best method for increasing social engagement. By increasing social engagement, you drive more traffic to your website, which increases your conversion rate.
Email Marketing Benefit #5: Fosters Relationships
Digital marketing is all about developing and maintaining relationships with your customers. The ability to foster relationships is a pretty fantastic benefit of email marketing. Delivery is more reliable with emails than with other forms of contact because emails go directly to the customer’s inbox. By maintaining contact with customers, you can build your brand awareness and credibility, which builds customer loyalty. Furthermore, email marketing can make it easy for customers to engage with you. All of this keeps you at top of mind for your customers.
Final Thoughts
There are a lot of email marketing benefits. It is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, and it has come a long way over the years. There a lot of great applications that you can use to automate and analyze your email marketing campaigns. While email marketing isn’t necessarily complicated, it does require a lot of time and effort in the beginning. As a busy business, investing in an email marketing agency to handle your email marketing strategy can really save you time, energy, and money.