Email marketing is one of the most popular forms of direct marketing. It is a fast, effective way to reach potential customers through email. Even though email itself is old technology, the 4.2 billion users worldwide can’t be ignored.
Marketing through email is a good way to reach your target audience, but how can you transform emails into sales? And why market through email when other communication channels exist that may appeal more to potential clients?
Why Email Marketing?
Despite being one of the earliest forms of online advertising, email marketing has remained at the top of the list of priorities for the vast majority of business owners. As advertisements and marketing campaigns proliferate, people’s email inboxes are the last place they can go to escape the advertising noise. Gaining access to their email will allow you to build a solid relationship with them that will undoubtedly result in future sales. Here’s why the majority of marketers continue to think that email marketing is the most effective medium available:
Email produces the best ROI.
Email marketing yields a $38 return on investment (ROI) for every $1 spent. According to McKinsey, email is 40 times more successful than Facebook or Twitter in generating new clients. Additionally, DMA claims that properly targeted email marketing campaigns can boost sales by 760%.
Email has a wide audience.
There were over 2.9 billion active email accounts at the end of 2019. That number of users is more active than the combined active users of Twitter (315 million) and Facebook (1.8 billion). Everyone who uses the internet regularly needs an email address since it essentially serves as the internet’s equivalent of money. Email is, therefore, the most effective tool available to internet business owners when it comes to prospecting new consumers online.
Email has a high rate of conversion.
The average open and click-through rate (CTR) on Facebook is 0.119%, while the CTR on Twitter is between 1% and 3%. On the other hand, email has an average CTR of 3.42% across all areas and devices. And with its minimal operational costs, email marketing is widely regarded as the most cost-efficient method of generating new leads over other forms of online advertising.
Rapid growth is being seen in mobile-friendly email marketing.
As a result of mobile marketing’s growing popularity, 68% of businesses, according to Salesforce, have already incorporated it into their marketing plan. It’s no surprise that email openings on mobile have increased by 180% in the past three years and that typical smartphone conversion rates have increased by 64%, given that 79% of individuals use smartphones to check their email—a higher percentage than those who use their smartphones for calls.
Making your campaigns mobile-friendly is essential. Optimizing every component of your email marketing would be an even better strategy for increasing traffic and revenue.
How to Effectively Connect with your Customers?
Now that you know the benefits of email marketing, it’s important to understand how to make it work for your business. Here are some practices industry professionals use to turn their emails into sales and avoid spam folders.
1. Research Your Chosen Email Service Effectively
If using email services is easy enough to use for marketing, you have to know what service has a more extensive user base. Based on the latest statistics in 2022, Google Mail is behind in email client market share at 28%. Apple’s iPhone mail app leads the total email market share at 38%, a 10% lead from Google’s offering.
Using an email list comprising Gmail and iPhone Mail users can help reach a significant share of the email service market user base. Researching and understanding recent email market share developments can help your business gain traction quickly.
2. Create a Consistent Email Schedule
The average person receives hundreds of emails a day, and it’s difficult to stand out in someone’s inbox. If you want your email to get noticed, make sure you post regularly (could be blog posts or other articles). Otherwise, you’ll get drowned out in an ocean of emails that can stack up to thousands at a time.
A consistent email schedule is a great way to navigate your target audience’s email. It ensures that your emails can maximize engagement by being at the top of the list. It is way better than just sending a series of emails out of nowhere.
Consistency is not the only factor in an effective email schedule. The tempo of your emails matters just as much as their frequency.
If you send too many emails in a short period of time, your emails will fall into the spam folder. If you don’t send enough emails, people may forget that you exist and not engage with your content. Finding the right balance between these two extremes by sending emails at regular intervals is a valuable way to get people’s attention, encourage engagement, and stay out of the spam folder.
3. Using An Email Marketing Tool
Productivity is essential in any business, and the best way to achieve it is by managing your time effectively. For example, using different ready-to-use email templates or marketing automation tools to lessen your email management tasks can be a great addition to your marketing strategy.
Moreover, by using these tools, you can easily make interactive emails and direct your customers and potential prospects to different parts of your site, like landing pages with not much of a hassle.
Researching those tools, how they work, and what their features are, can help your business achieve great heights.
4. Know Your Brand
Knowing your brand is like knowing yourself. It leads to seeing what your goal is and how you want to achieve it. Marketing is about making your brand and product known.
Simply knowing your brand from the inside and out will show you viable ways to connect with potential and existing customers through email. You can turn buyers into repeat customers if you can consistently connect your brand with your audience. It will possibly encourage them to sign up for your email list.
5. Quality Over Quantity
It’s much better to send emails to your customers that are high-quality and engaging than it is to send out an endless stream of messages without thought or purpose. Not only do these emails stay out of the spam folder, but they also help convert and retain customers.
In 2020 alone, 56% of businesses increased spending on content creation. A compelling subject line paired with an interesting email can help increase engagement. Pique your audience’s curiosity to engage them faster and convert potential customers to regulars.
Personalizing these subject lines or content will also go a long way in creating connections and maintaining established ones. Segment your emails according to your audience, to make it more relevant and engaging for them.
In 2022, more than two-thirds of customers (66%) expect companies to acknowledge their unique wants and needs. That is a significant share of customers that want to be understood. Showing this through personalization in the sent emails can help create this image that your business understands and that their opinions matter.
To Wrap it All Up…
Email marketing is an easy way to establish an online presence and integrate technology into your business. It creates an opportunity to reach out to a large user base. Not only does it drive revenue, but it also connects you with your customers on a personal level.
The simplicity of this strategy is both its strength and weakness. It’s very easy to mess up, but careful planning can help you avoid this problem.
Another strength of this form of marketing is how easy it is to customize through different tools. Marketing automation tools and ready-to-use email templates are available on the internet. You just have to choose from a myriad of providers to suit your business needs.
Staying out of spam folders is relatively easy, especially if you create personalized emails, send them at the right time, use an engaging subject line, and provide quality content. All these things will help you connect with your target audience as well.
Marketing is a way to connect your brand to potential and existing users. Connection is formed when you show authenticity and creativity. Email marketing has the flexibility and profitability to ensure your foray into digital marketing is a huge success.
To know more about other effective marketing efforts and strategies, read here.
