Not Using Email Marketing Yet? Here Are 7 Reasons to Start

As an entrepreneur, you probably hear about email marketing a lot. It outperforms social media, resulting in three times more conversions than Facebook, and implementing email marketing has become incredibly simple, even for non-techies. But yet less than 30% of small business owners in America are investing into this channel.

If you, too, are still hesitant about using it for your business, we’ve gathered seven reasons that should convince you to start building an email marketing strategy today.

1. Email shows the highest ROI of all channels.

It is only natural to question the affordability of a new channel, especially when it comes to small and medium business. Yet, investing in email as your next marketing effort is probably the safest bet because its performance numbers are truly impressive. For every dollar spent on email marketing, the ROI is an average $44 in the US, and it’s growing every year.

Campaign Monitor

Of course, that number varies by industry, as well as whether you’re in the B2B or the B2C sector. However, multiple research shows that email remains the key channel for the businesses using it.

For instance, WordStream data illustrates that every third retail brand email subscriber eventually makes a purchase, and those making a purchase through email tend to spend 138% more than non-subscribers. Email is also the most effective revenue generating channel for B2B and works extremely well for all pet-related services.

2. You don’t need a design team.

For years, email marketing was a prerogative of tech companies simply because it often required coding skills, the knowledge of HTML, and web design. Today, to send out a newsletter, all you need to have is a message, a few visuals, and a list of subscribers (we’ll talk about getting subscribers next). The technical process has been simplified and automated, and what used to be a job for three professionals, can now be performed by just one.

Modern email marketing services such as Mailchimp, Drip, Active Campaign, Constant Contact, and others allow you to build professional-looking and mobile-friendly newsletters using drag-n-drop editors, themes, and templates. With these tools, sending out a special offer to thousands of customers is just as easy as sending an email to a friend. Most importantly, you get detailed statistics on your campaign performance in a user-friendly format and can adjust your future emails based on results.

3. Building an email list is easier than before.

Some business owners are reluctant to use email marketing simply because they lack subscribers. But all you need to start growing a list is a website with decent traffic. Along with email marketing, the process of email list building has evolved greatly over the past few years. Even if you have no coding skills, there are a few solutions for you to quickly add email opt-in forms to your website and start collecting subscribers. If you haven’t done this before, a subscription form like this one from GetSiteControl might be a great fit for you.

This is how it works: Once signed up, you can create smart email subscription forms that will be displayed on a website under the conditions you choose. For example, you might prefer popups that appear after a visitor spends a certain amount of time on the website, or a lightbox to stop those abandoning a webpage. You might want to display different forms to different groups of visitors based on their location or device. It all depends on your strategy.

The subscribers collected from your website will automatically be sent to your list based on which email marketing service you connect it to. The entire process takes a few minutes and given that a well-targeted popup can convert from 3% to 9% of your website visitors into subscribers, it’s definitely worth the effort. If you’re looking for inspiration, here is a list of email newsletter signup examples that work on successful websites and can be replicated on yours.

4. Email marketing fosters long-lasting relationships.

The cost of email marketing leads is typically much lower than lead acquisition cost on other channels. But that’s not the only reason email marketing can be a game-changer.

You’ve probably heard about the cold, warm, and qualified lead types. Cold leads are those people yet unfamiliar with your business. You may be trying to reach them via cold calling or cold emailing, PR, and ads – but unless they respond to your message and show some interest in your products or services, they won’t be considered warm prospects. And even if you eventually convert them into customers but fail to capture their email addresses, you’re leaving money on the table.

Now, we’ve already spoken about the ROI of email marketing, and the main reason for such high numbers is that people on your email list are already warm and qualified leads. They subscribed voluntarily because they liked what you offered. That means when you send your first email, they might even be ready to make a purchase. And most importantly, having them on your email list, you have a chance to develop long-term relationships and foster repeat sales.  

5. Email brings dozens of tactics for various business types.

A decade ago, most email campaigns included blasting a large group of people with one-size-fits-all messages – mainly company news and special offers. Clearly, that wouldn’t be an ideal scenario for many businesses. Today we have email marketing automation that shifts the focus of campaigns from the brand to the customer’s needs.

Sendinblue

Online, you’ll find various automation strategies proven to work for specific businesses and broken down into steps. For example, you can run drip campaigns which is where you send emails based on user behavior on the website or their reaction to the previous newsletters. You can send out emails based on customers’ purchase history, recover abandoned carts, warm-up prospects who haven’t been active for a long time, and much more.

Another tactic, called segmentation, allows you to send custom emails to the groups of subscribers based on their demographics, interests, location, or customer journey stage.

6. Email marketing gives you the power of personalization.

Personalized messages will always be more effective than generic ones because they stand out and look relevant to the prospects. And email is the only channel providing you with such in-depth personalization possibilities. According to Campaign Monitor, personalized emails lead to higher click-through rates, increase conversion by 10%, and deliver six times higher transaction rates.

Typically, we’re talking about a set of rules allowing you to tailor messages based on who they are sent to. And it goes far beyond using subscriber’s first name in the subject line and sending birthdays coupons. For example, based on your customer’s location, you can personalize the time of the day they receive an email. You can also send personalized recommendations related to the customer’s interests.

If you need inspiration, here is an excellent roundup of personalized emails collected by HubSpot.

7. You can easily reach a mobile audience.

Internet traffic is going mobile, so businesses are looking for ways to target smartphone users through social media ads and mobile search engine optimization. But given most consumers’ brief attention span, the task might seem challenging.

Email appears to be just the right channel to reach mobile audience for a few reasons. First of all, 75% of consumers tend to check email on their mobile devices to sort and preview the important messages. That provides brands with the highest chances to get seen by the prospects. And what’s noteworthy, marketing emails viewed on a smartphone often drive to planned purchases. According to WordStream, “when a prospect or customer who opens an email on a mobile device opens that same email again on another device, they are 65% more likely to click through to your site/offering.”

Getting Started With Email Marketing for Your Small Business

Email marketing is a powerful tool that is now affordable and accessible for small and medium businesses. It has huge potential that’s growing every year and unfolds numerous tactics for increasing sales. If you’re ready to start developing your strategy, start with the best email marketing platforms and find one that will will work for your business.

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from Fundera Ledger https://www.fundera.com/blog/reasons-to-start-email-marketing/