Email marketing isn’t dead — it’s stronger than ever

Posted on December 2, 2019January 29, 2020 by Scott Murcott

As of 2019, and according to the Radicati Group, over half of the earth’s population has and uses email. What’s more is that this number is expected to reach upwards of 4.3 billion by 2023. In the age of personalised bombardment at every touchpoint of the buyer’s journey, perhaps email has become something of an online haven, where we’re able to pick and choose what we read or respond to.

As such, email marketing serves as a vital connection between brand and consumer in the wake of digital transformation.

Email lists are the foundation from which great marketing is built

Your email list is made up of people who have consented to receiving news and promotions from your business. Because of this, they’re highly receptive to your brand messaging and more likely to convert into customers in the future. Based on research from the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing on average experiences a 4300 percent ROI for businesses in the US alone.

Stay top-of-mind by keeping customers brand aware

It’s easy to get lost amid the digital clutter. Thankfully, emails and newsletters keep your readers aware of your brand with up-to-date news, promotions or industry-related content that aligns with your business. Furthermore, emails can continue the nurturing process by turning customers into brand ambassadors. And who doesn’t love a bit of positive word of mouth?

Email newsletters are educational

Sure, adverts are effective ways of connecting your brand with the demographics you’re targeting, but they’re designed to be surface-level, catchy hooks that generate interest. Newsletters, on the other hand, can deepen the customer’s understanding of your brand and the products and services you offer. Consider embedding relevant videos or visuals into the body of your newsletter, or linking to helpful, informative content that adds value for the reader and communicates who you are as a brand. It’s good to remember that the more familiar readers are with your business and its services, the more likely they are to purchase from you.

When it comes to acquisition, email marketing trumps social media

Social media is a brilliant tool for generating interest, building a community around your brand, and nurturing that all-important one-on-one relationship in the digital realm. In fact, you could consider it as the first step in nudging leads to paying customers. As a conversion tool, however, you’ll see the real acquisition results from email marketing. According to an eMarketer 2016 study, 81% of respondents reported that email marketing drives higher customer acquisition, beating out other popular channels such as organic and paid search.

Simple personalisation can make the biggest difference

According to the DMA, targeted emails such as newsletters deliver 58% of all revenue. And with email marketing, you’re able to segment your audience into specific lists — based on data you’ve collected from other digital channels — to deliver relevant, personalised messaging that’s valuable to your readers. If you give your subscribers content they want to consume, the less likely they are to unsubscribe.

The results are highly measurable

Email marketing lends itself to optimisation because the metrics are simple to track, measure and tweak.

A particular newsletter was well-received by a certain audience? You’ll be able to pinpoint why and apply those learnings to future communications. Conversely, if an email underperformed, you can adjust and improve similar messaging in the future. Other effective ways of measuring email performance are:

A/B testing your subject lines to determine which gets the best click-through rates.
Gauging the popularity of certain products, services or promotions and tailoring your communications based on those analytics.

Automation takes the legwork out of deployment

With automation, you’re able to deploy relevant emails to people who’ve performed specific actions. When triggered, automatic emails are sent out from segmented workflows using predefined criteria. This ensures your messaging is relevant to the consumer, saving you time and money as you focus on developing other key areas of your business.

WordPress automatically uses the PHP mail function to deploy emails, which can often bring up email issues such as ending up in the spam folder. The sticking point here is that it simply isn’t made for sending PHP emails to list of clients/customizer. So besides us recommending WP Mail SMTP to sort out your contact form emails from going to spam, we recommend signing up to one of the following email newsletter companies to create and manage larger email databases to send your newsletters to your customers.

Mailchimp for WordPress and WooCommerce

Currently over 17 million customers worldwide are using the MailChimp, making it the largest marketing automation solution in the world. With it, you’re able to bring your audience data, marketing channels, and insights together so you can reach your goals faster. With Mailchimp, you can promote your business across email, social, landing pages, postcards, and more — all from a single platform. What’s more, it’s free for up to 2000 customers.

Constant Contact

Emails built for your business — and your industry
Constant Contact has been a leading expert in email marketing for over 20 years. With their modern, mobile-optimized templates and drag-and-drop editor make it easy to create, customize, and send professional emails that work for your industry — from retail to real estate to nonprofits—and engage your customers on every device. No coding or stress necessary.