Email marketing may boast about its effective ROI, but not all small businesses use it. Since less than 50 percent of companies invest in email automation, it seems that most companies do not see this as a meaningful way to market their business.

Although there is a strong temptation to chase the shiny new marketing channel, the fact is that email can be an effective marketing channel if you get it right. Email marketing is an effective way to communicate with customers when done right and should be a staple of every marketing strategy for small businesses.

Email marketing may not be the ‘sexiest’ way to promote your business, but if you are willing to spend time and effort, it can be one of the most consistent and profitable ways to grow. Many people think that email marketing is outdated, but there are a few reasons to prove that it is just as effective as social media marketing.

You’ve probably heard a bit about how small businesses use email marketing to increase their sales, reach new customers, and connect with current customers. Automated emails that companies send you to become a new subscriber to their email list may seem annoying, but if you use effective email marketing techniques, you can improve your customer loyalty. People are not willing to buy your product or service until they learn about your company. Sending targeted emails can help you stay ahead of your target audience.

The ROI

If the effective ROI is not enough to convince you, remember that email marketing is the channel that most consumers want to use to communicate with them. Email marketing works the same as SMS marketing except that desktop users and most smartphone users find email less irritating than SMS messages.

Research from studies shows that email marketing best hits the charts when it comes to attracting and retaining customers compared to organic search, paid search and social media. Email marketing offers so many advantages as a distribution channel for content that even marketers do not just use it organically, as a third of marketers (32 percent) enter into paid collaborations to promote their content to their partner email databases.

In Comparison With Social Media

Social media is important, but the gold standard of marketing is to get people to sign up to your email list. Marketing by email allows you to reach many Internet users, even when they are not on social media.

It is clear that the email is still one of the most popular forms of communication with more ways to reach customers than ever before. With the instantism of social media you would think they would overtake email as the fastest way to reach new and current customers.

In 2019, 2.936 billion emails were sent and received every day (Statista 2020). It is estimated that more than one billion people will use e-mail by 2024.
This use makes email the third most popular sales channel after social media (91 percent) and corporate websites and blogs (89 percent). Despite the astronomical ROI figure, the average company only spends 13% of its marketing budget on email but it accounts for 19% of sales. Despite the cost, email, like many other online marketing tools, is actually cheaper.

Trust Factor

E-mails can also be used to build trust with customers over time to make them regular customers. Marketing by e-mail is associated with low upfront costs and can be maintained cost-effectively over time. Versatility – Unlike most social media and email providers, there is a diversified demographic, meaning people of all ages, genders, and social status can use email.

According to Adestra, consumers prefer e-mails to communicate with brands they are already connected to. By contrast, social networks must treat people as if they were customers.

If you are a marketer with a small or developing business, you should learn how email can help you. If you do business in the developed world, your customers will use more email than you do. As a small business, it is best to first develop a simple welcome email and send the first email to new customers.

Check out these three examples from some of the most innovative email management firms in the world to see how you can make email even more effective.

Drawbacks

The problem with email marketing is the actual email marketing strategy that companies use to get customers. It takes time and experimentation to find the right strategy and approach, but mostly the results are solid, if not better than what you get from other marketing channels. When companies take the time to really figure out an effective email marketing strategy, the resulting results can be stunning.

Think of it as one of the most cost-effective and convertible forms of digital marketing today. No marketing tool is 100 percent successful unless it is used as part of a strategic, integrated and leveraged approach to marketing. That may sound a bit daunting, but it’s about developing your marketing plan.

Conclusion

Many traditional marketing channels, such as direct advertising, billboards and radio spots, are not on most companies’ radar. In practice, email marketing does not deliver the results some businesses need – which is why many companies choose not to invest in email marketing.

Given that companies and email technology have known each other for more than 40 years, and that these firms exploit marketing channels as powerful as email, the competition for users’ attention has become fierce. The numbers show that when you run an email campaign, it is noticed by a large number of users, however, via social media, people who don’t use social media every day may miss your publication.

Cited Sources
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