While social media and other new forms of marketing technology are changing the way businesses view their marketing strategies, email remains an important channel. In fact, 80% of professionals say it promotes customer retention and acquisition. Regardless of your industry, business size, and other factors, email still has an important role to play in marketing.
That said, as email becomes an increasingly competitive aspect of marketing plans, it takes more to stand out from the rest of the market. Keeping up with developing email marketing trends and best practices will help you and your business craft a successful approach. Once you build your subscriber list, be sure to segment it, periodically verify email addresses, and personalize messages you send out.
If you’re still not convinced, consider this: email can be even more successful than other marketing platforms, with an estimated 4400% ROI. These are just some of the reasons email marketing continues to be an important factor.
Outreach
Social media and other platforms such as TV, the internet, and the like, can be effective channels, but it’s important to remember that people using these media aren’t there to see your ads. That’s why the read rates on these platforms are typically very low. Email, by contrast, sees read rates of nearly 25%, showing how much it can help you reach out to users who are actively engaged.
The customers on your email list are people who signed up to see your content, which also means that they expect them to provide value. Try to limit your outreach to content that your recipients will personally benefit from. Consider segmenting your audience in order to send each group the content they’re most interested in.
Conversion
While outreach is obviously important to every marketer, the end goal is converting those clicks into sales and other favorable actions. Facebook’s average click through rate is less than one percent; email, by contrast, is over 4 percent. That means the average email reader is worth four times as much to your business as someone viewing your Facebook ad.
In order to capitalize on this dynamic, implement a clear call to action incentivizing email recipients to become engaged with your business. Limited-time or exclusive offers, for example, will help drive traffic and keep users interested in your brand. If your customers know your emails often contain sales or discounts, they’ll be much more likely to continue opening them and clicking through for deals.
Email marketing is a versatile tool that can be used to target broad or narrow audiences. Its incredible ROI and promising metrics show how its capabilities can be leveraged as part of a larger marketing approach. Follow these guidelines to start building a sustainable email marketing campaign that will help you keep existing customers and attract new ones.
