With social media rapidly gaining steam in the marketing world, you’re not alone in wondering if email marketing is still an effective strategy in 2021. But despite frequent warnings heralding its death, email marketing is stronger than ever and is still a great tool to have in your marketing belt.
According to industry experts, email marketing is still the most effective strategy for gaining new customers and retaining your existing supporters. Email marketing still leads to higher conversion rates than most other marketing tools: in fact, according to Campaign Monitor, up to 174%, more conversions are generated by email marketing than from social media.
In modern life email is ubiquitous, and the average internet user checks their email every day: the average professional checks their email at least 15 times a day, and many of us check it even more frequently. Still not convinced? Here are a few reasons why industry leaders insist that a comprehensive email strategy should still be an essential component of your marketing plan.
They’ve Demonstrated Interest
“Customers who give you their contact information have already demonstrated that they want to hear from you. You’re able to interact with a pool of people you know will be engaged, and offer them something of value – whether that’s great deals or more information about your company’s values and products. By using email marketing effectively you can both increase brand awareness and make a much more memorable impression on your customers.” – Katie Lyon, Co-Founder of Allegiance Flag Supply
Reward Your Biggest Supporters
“Engaging new customers is only half the battle – you have to make sure you retain existing customers as well. In addition to providing great customer service and a great product, a good way to do this is by offering promotions and rewards for your email subscribers. If they’ve been following your brand for a while, they’ve shown that they appreciate your product and values. Reward those loyal customers with subscriber-only deals and promotions, and you’re much more likely to keep them engaged.” – Ryan Rottman, Co-Founder and CEO of OSDB
Customer Segmentation
“A lot of marketing is far too general to be effective. Why waste time and energy marketing products to people who have no use for them? What I think is great about email marketing is that you can segment your audience according to their interests, location, or other determining factors. If companies aren’t segmenting, they’re missing out on one of the biggest advantages of using email marketing. By segmenting and tailoring your content, you can make sure you’re giving your customers quality content that interests them. This will lead to a much more meaningful relationship with your customers over time.” – Dylan Arthur Garber, Co-Founder of Audien Hearing
Drive Users to Different Parts of Your Website
“Even your biggest fans probably haven’t done a deep dive through your website. You may have spent a lot of time creating great content for your site – but you need to make sure people know where to find it. By using email marketing you can direct traffic to different pages and let people see what they might have missed. In your email campaign, you might highlight a new blog post or a tutorial on how to use your product. That’s something that is often missed with other forms of marketing.” – Jason Sherman, Founder of TapRm
Be More Specific
“One of the things that makes email marketing so effective is that it can be very targeted, which will ultimately increase customer engagement and retention. By creating a customer-centric email campaign, you’re able to learn a lot more about their interests and use that information to curate content just for them. You’re not just sending information out into a void and hoping people are interested – you’re able to be much more strategic and personalized with email than you can with other platforms. With the rise of social media and other marketing tools, customers expect a tailored experience.” – Jeremy Gardner, CEO of MadeMan
Testing, Testing.
“In order to effectively reach your customers, you have to learn about their interests and habits. I’ve found that a great advantage of email marketing is that you can do A/B testing and see what actually drives people to interact with your content. Do customers prefer to see more images in your email campaigns, or more personal testimonies? By using A/B testing you can generate a lot of interesting data that will help you meet your customers where they’re at. It should be a continuing process; what interests people this year may not apply next year. Email marketing allows you to stay nimble and continue learning from your customers.” – Jay Levitt, Founder and CEO of Lofta
Reach a Wider Audience
“Email is one tool that is used by almost everyone, regardless of age or location. You may be able to reach a certain segment of your audience on Instagram, for example, but you can reach a much broader swath of customers through email. Especially now, in 2021, people use email for work and for staying in touch with family and friends. If you use email effectively, you’ll be able to reach those customers regularly and make sure they know what your company is up to.” – Steven Vigilante, Head of New Business Development of OLIPOP
They Expect to Hear From You
“Clients often ask me if email marketing is still an effective marketing tool for business. My answer is always yes, of course. That is if it’s done well enough to convert people into paying customers. So, why do I encourage my clients to give email marketing a go? Because you’re reaching an audience, who has asked to hear from you, they signed up for an offer or to join your database and they freely gave you their details. You already have that connection with them, and they expect to hear from you.” – Sam McFarlane, Social Media Manager of Sam Says
Email Marketing Complements Social Media Marketing
“You want to build your list through excellent content first, and then social media channels and email lists. Wow, them with your content to get them to sign up for your list. Email marketing definitely gives us a lot of pauses, because we know that every article we publish will be sent out to 80,000 people. They want to be marketed to, that’s why they signed up for your list. You have to have confidence in it. Just don’t be annoying about it. Make sure you have a vision for how you want to connect with them. The content should be worth reading and sending out to your list.” – Matt Jabs, Co-Founder of DIY Natural
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