3 reasons why you should start email marketing
- ashleightbishop
- Sep 26, 2024
- 5 min read
Marketing mistakes to avoid - Forgetting email marketing
In a world where social media seems to be the most sought after skill on a marketer’s CV, the long-standing email often gets overlooked. But whilst scrolling through Instagram, and faced by targeted ad after targeted ad, many people switch off and simply scroll straight past. Whilst social media has many strengths, it’s hard to build a long-term, meaningful (and measurable) one-to-one relationship with a customer just based on social.
Email marketing has come an incredibly long way, with the ability to create eye-catching, engaging and highly personalised content that can be automated based on hyper-specific triggers in order to create an incredibly relevant connection moment for your customer, landing your marketing message at the exact point your customer is ready for it.
The data and analytics that can be gathered from email now as well also means it is one of the most effective ways to understand your audience’s interests and needs, how and when they are most likely to engage - and convert.
So why is it overlooked, or at least, underutilised? Maybe it’s because it’s not the easiest marketing channel to set up and manage. There are many email marketing platforms that can be helpful in setting up your email campaigns but they often require a lot of heavy lifting at the beginning. Whether it’s back-end integration with your website, building out a new CRM database or developing campaign triggers to nudge a consumer through the acquisition funnel, it can be a fairly mammoth task before you even get started. Not to mention that many of these platforms come at a cost, and require emails to not only be written but also designed on a regular basis.
With all of this effort, it is easy to see why many smaller businesses don’t both with email marketing, certainly at the beginning of their journeys. Social media is free and comparatively easier to get started. But those who integrate email as early as possible are significantly more likely to see success and growth than those that don’t. Here are 3 reasons why you should use email marketing:
3 reasons for email marketing
They have already hand-raised so you know that there was a level of interest at some point to nurture
How many times have you seen a data capture box pop-up and just clicked straight off? We don’t readily give out our email addresses anymore. Our inboxes are already overflowing from work, so when we do, it’s only if it’s something we’re genuinely interested in and want to maintain a connection with.
If you’ve got an email address, it’s a clear sign that there is a ‘hand-raise’ from that person that they want to know more. Depending on how and where they provided their email, they are giving an indication as to where they are at in their customer journey. An email address provided for a discount may not be an indication of genuine interest in your brand, but there is a proactive sign that they are in purchase-decision territory. How you manage and cultivate this versus a consumer who signs up for a newsletter could be very different. One is ready to buy now - one is ready to buy in the future. One might be more price driven - one might be more brand driven.
Giving plenty of opportunity and incentive to provide an email address not only gives you in the data you need to know who is interested in your products and / or services, but a clear indication of their potential as a customer.
2. You already have their email address - less time and expense than getting new leads
It is well known that it is far more cost-effective to nurture existing leads than generate new ones. If you’ve captured their email, you already know there is a certain level of interest there that is well worth cultivating.
Reaching these new leads is always going to be the main challenge. Your email list - and therefore effectiveness - will always be limited to the size of your list. Whereas social reach is almost limitless. However your ability to cut-through and reach genuinely interested people is far greater amongst a group of people who have already expressed interest. Click-through rates on social are dismally low in comparison to email. Click-through rates on an average social campaign hover around 1%. Whereas open-rates on email campaigns generally range between 15-25%. So whilst it’s a smaller reach, the roi of email marketing is significantly higher.
In short, you need a lot more resource to see worthwhile ROI from a social media campaign, versus email.
3. Simple data such as open rates and click-throughs can help you identify the warmest leads
From open rates and bouncebacks to unsubscribes and click-throughs, email marketing offers a wealth of data that can be honed into and used to craft hyper-targeted campaigns with behaviour-led triggers. This means that highly personalised email campaigns can be set up to send campaigns automatically depending on exactly where someone is at in their journey.
If someone has added to their basket, and then disappeared, you can send a forgotten basket email. If someone has been sent a discount and not used it, you can send a reminder with some suggested products. If someone has previously purchased a perishable item, you can send them a follow up at the point you expect they would be running out. The opportunities to connect are endless and can be tailored to exactly how they are showing you they need to be engaged with.
On top of that, you can A/B test subject lines, email designs, button titles etc to see which result in more active engagement and conversion - giving you plenty of guidance for future campaign development. An unopened email may warrant a second send - or may be an opportunity to try an alternative subject line. All of these insights can help you shape how you communicate more effectively with your audience moving forward, depending on where they are at in their journey.
No business grows solely off one channel. A well considered marketing mix of multiple channels that work together to improve reach, reinforce key marketing messages and nurture consumers through the marketing funnel is essential to longevity and success. All of this gives you a wealth of information and insight into how to cultivate each consumer from prospect, to conversion. It might be a lot of work in the set-up but in terms of helping to create effective, streamlined strategies to nurture your leads, it is well worth it. However it is an involved process from the start and worthwhile considering what email marketing softwares are available to you (within your budget) in order to make the process as simple as possible.
If you need support with your email marketing, speak to a marketing agency or consultant who can take this off your hands or provide you with guidance on how to get started.
Relevant marketing communications are key to building a loyal community. For more information and tips, drop us a line or visit our website 💻
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