Even though social media is gaining popularity among marketers, email marketing is still an extremely viable way to reach your customers and prospects. Using an email software platform, you can automate much of the core messages and then add a personalized touch to each email. It's one of the best forms of communication, particularly for small businesses. Here are five important reasons to use email in your campaigns.
Real-time Communication
The fact that you can communicate with target customers in real-time creates an atmosphere of immediacy. Even if recipients don't read the messages until hours later, email has an effect similar to the telephone and voicemail, in terms of direct communication. You never know how quickly people will read your email, now that so many people take smartphones with them everywhere they go.
If you send them a digital coupon that's good for a limited time, they may respond ever faster, especially if it's a local deal. Furthermore, email is useful for delivering calls to action that can accelerate purchasing decisions. It helps close deals and convert leads.
Time and Cost Efficiency
One of the most advantageous reasons to invest in email for your marketing campaigns is that it will save you a substantial amount of money on marketing compared with other channels. Using email marketing software will increase your efficiency and productivity even more. It takes the pressure off investing in more expensive advertising such as television, radio or print. Here are other key factors on how it can save you time and money:
- Easy to compose and share
- Provides ability to reach hundreds or thousands at low costs
- Communicate more often without running up high costs
- Allows you to concentrate on learning about customers
- Gives your customers a sense you care about their interests
- Better return on investment than most other marketing strategies
Ability to Track Responses
Through email marketing you can track sales and user engagement. By linking your emails to an analytics program you can learn quickly which customers respond the quickest and with the most enthusiasm to your campaigns. If you use customer relationship management (CRM) software, the analytics will already be integrated with the system.
This data can be accessed instantly when printing out reports, which can reveal which customers are most ready to purchase. Knowing who your most loyal buyers and prospects are allows you to prioritize sales calls, which can speed up profits. Email is also a powerful way to test different types of marketing ideas without spending a fortune. Simply let the analytics guide you toward which messages work or not with specific individuals or persona groups.
Personalized Messages
While last century allowed businesses of all sizes to use a "one-size-fits-all" marketing approach, this century is more about personalization, niche targeting and customer loyalty. Part of the reason for this cultural shift is that the internet has made it easy for consumers to research products before they buy. That's why online reviews now play a more crucial element in purchasing decisions. Consumers are tired of taking chances on products without having full knowledge about them before purchasing.
Personalization matters because in the run-up to broadband, which revolutionized both ecommerce and online marketing, people were bombarded with generic emails in addition to traditional forms of marketing. Internet users now ignore spam the same way they began to dodge phone calls and voicemail from telemarketers.
One of the reasons this barrage of sales pitches was annoying was that it was not personalized. Every sale was pitched the same way as consumers were treated as dehumanized statistics rather than unique individuals.
In this era of personalized emails, however, you have a greater chance of increasing your response rate by treating each person as a special individual. If you still do generic email blasts, then you may experience the same effect as door-to-door salespersons who only end up talking with one out of every 50 home occupants. People in general don't like to be trivialized or hyped with sales pitches for products they don't want. Many people do, however, enjoy hearing from communicators concerned about their personal needs.
A huge advantage to having an email marketing is that you can create sales personas of your target market, by putting people into group descriptions. This strategy allows you to segment your user database and deliver specific targeted messages to certain groups. You can further customize each message by adding information about the customer that you've learned from previous interactions stored in your database.
More Eco-friendly
Finally, email is much safer for the environment than sending out tons of physical direct mail, which is more expensive anyway. You will not be wasting paper, time, energy or money on a high percentage of mail-outs. You won't have to worry as much about losses that result from outdated contact information and you won't have to pay a printer, especially if you compose your own emails using multimedia tools.
The world has become more environmentally conscious this century, so you will be able to promote your business as more green, if you choose. Many people do care about preserving forests and avoiding waste. So much of direct mail, newspapers and magazines just end up in the trash without people ever paying attention to the advertising in them. Think about how much of the earth's natural resources you will be conserving, in which you can take credit on your website.
Electronic communication continues to advance in many ways, while email marketing is still a preferred primary channel for many successful businesses. Consider investing in a CRM platform and hiring an online marketing consultant to help you set your email campaigns in motion. It's still one of the most efficient and personalized ways to reach and capitalize on a target market.
