Much like the wheel, compass, and electricity , the Internet is one of man’s greatest inventions that revolutionised history. And while this technology is nothing new now, and there are a teeming 7.7 billion of us born in the age of the internet (Generation Z), I still marvel at the fact that its invention took place in our lifetime.
In such a short amount of time, the Internet has drastically changed the way we live. 15-20 years ago, many jobs (including mine), did not even exist. You don’t even need to be a blogger, a social media manager or be working in the technology sector – ALL businesses are now run very differently due to the Internet.
No matter how long you have been in the game, every business–be it start-up or traditional, needs marketing.
And the way marketing is done has also changed incredibly over the last 10 years. Companies are finding themselves not only diversifying their budgets for the different types of marketing (print vs digital), but many are also overwhelmed trying to figure out which type of digital marketing to allocate more of their budget for.
The Age of Digital Marketing
Print is not (yet) completely dead, but it has been declining since the mid-2000’s. Companies, therefore, have been investing and focusing on digital marketing. It is of course a case-to-case basis, but many brands have been relying solely on digital marketing–and thriving at that.
And within digital marketing itself, there are many different kinds: there’s SEO, Social Media, Affiliate, Email Marketing, just to name a few.
Each type of digital marketing has its purpose, and in this post, we will discuss why Email Marketing is a crucial tool for your brand.
Why is Email Marketing important for businesses?
According to Statista: in 2018 alone, approximately 281 billion emails were sent and received everyday worldwide. In 2023, this figure is projected to increase to 4.4 billion users by year 2023.
But there’s more to just a growing number as to why it would do well for companies to prioritise email marketing.
1.) Email Marketing is highly targeted
As a whole, audience are finding ads in social media to be more pervasive and intrusive these days. Perhaps this is why when it comes to business and work, millennials prefer to be reached by email.
77 percent of consumers prefer permission-based email marketing and get promotional messages via email versus social media, SMS messages, direct mail or phone calls.
So when it comes to digital marketing, you cannot get a more targeted audience than email. This means that you have a market that willingly signed up to hear news, updates and promotions from your brand.
The average open rate for permission-based marketing is about 20% and that’s actually quite a lot considering how many emails (unsolicited or not) a person receives in one day.
Here’s a chart by Statista that shows what the average open rate for email marketing is per industry.
Tip: Once you have your market signed up, the last thing you want to do is bombard them with emails, which will cause them to unsubscribe. It has been found that the ideal frequency to send is 6.21 emails per week.
2.) It’s a stable form of marketing
Image credit: maropost.com
Any content produced on social media sites like Facebook or Instagram will automatically belong to them, and not the creators.
And no matter how big of an audience or followers you have amassed, your content’s visibility is still dependent on the said social media’s algorithms, which we all know is constantly evolving . With social media channels, It’s like a cat and mouse game- just when you think you have pinned an algorithm down, any social media outlet can have the prerogative to change the parameters of its algorithm.
80 percent of retail professionals say that email is their greatest driver of customer retention. The next channel is social media, identified by just 44 percent of those same individuals.
Tip: It might help to have a creative subject line on your email. A study by Campaign Monitor has shown that fifty-six percent of brands using emoji in their email subject lines had a higher unique open rate.
3.) Email Marketing is cost-effective
To get started with email marketing, you will only need a couple of things: a method to capture email addresses, and an email marketing service.
There are various ways to capture email addresses: your company website, or in-store when clients / customers fill out details (but you must disclose that you will use their email address for promotional updates).
It can be quite tricky when it comes to choosing which email marketing service company to go for. (I used CleverReach when I first started). Brands who are starting out with email marketing can easily maintain and grow their audience list with CleverReach’s Freemium account.
True to its name, you indeed get premium service for free: You can send up to 1,000 emails a month (up to 250 recipients). The Freemium account even provides CleverReach’s email marketing automation THEA , which allows you to send mails based on recipients’ behaviour with auto-responder and follow-up mails.
This free service also includes CleverReach’s comprehensive reporting tool, which allows you to analyse and optimise your mails / newsletters.
Choosing an email service company can be overwhelming but I truly have not come across any other company that provides such premium services to their entry-level / free tier.
Tip: Equally important to the subject heading of your email is the preview text. An email’s preview text ranges from 35-140 characters, so they must capture your subscriber’s attention, enticing them to click and read your content.
4.) R.O.I of Email Marketing is high
For such a low-cost form of digital marketing, the return on investment of email marketing is amazingly high. A study made by Campaign Monitor shows that for every $1.00 spent on email marketing, $44.00 is made in return.
Compare that figure to that of a billboard advertisement, where OAAA (The Outdoor Advertising Association of America) has calculated that for each dollar spent on outdoor advertisement, an average of $5.97 goes back.
When it comes to social media – yes, it is necessary for every brand to have social media presence and marketing. Social media is still an exciting medium for marketing whereby anything can happen. Let’s take Facebook, for example: The largest social media platform reportedly generated 55 billion US dollars in ad revenue for 2018 alone. Yet Facebook’s long-standing issue about user privacy is yet to be resolved. The outbreak of the Cambridge Analytica scandal last year saw major advertisers like Mozilla, Elon Musk’s Space X, and Sonos pull out as a sign of protest.
Email marketing has proven overall to not just have a high ROI but also to be a very stable marketing platform amidst social media scandals and algorithms.
Tip: Always stay compliant. As you stick to your goal of growing your email and newsletter subscribers, it is crucial to be aware of relevant compliance regulations. Among many things, your audience needs to be able to have the option to unsubscribe to future emails.
With CleverReach being based in Germany, it is GDPR compliant and is part of the Certified Senders Alliance. Leading Internet Service Providers assure CSA members that emails are delivered correctly, and are not put in the spam folder.
5.) Email Marketing allows flexibility and creativity
Anyone who’s tried creating ads for Facebook or Instagram will be all too familiar with the limitations of keeping your ad catchy and snappy, all the while keeping to their ad creative requirements.
Brands have the most control of their content with email marketing. Whether it’s photos, videos, a newsletter, or a combination of all these–brands can compose their message however way they see fit.
CleverReach has made newsletter marketing easy and quite simple for its users with its huge number of integrations and plug-in partners. One important integration they have is with WordPress, so you can use your WordPress data to create your newsletters with their drag and drop editor.
The simpler the interface and editor is, the less time you spend tinkering with new programs so you actually have more time to focus on content marketing.
Tip: When gathering your email database, try to offer an incentive. What’s in it for them when they sign up to your newsletter? Most brands offer a welcome voucher, discount, or freebies. Not only will you secure a sign-up; it will also likely get you a repeat customer.
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Many companies such as Bugatti, DHL, and Spotify use CleverReach for their email marketing. On top of their user-friendly editor, companies love the reliability and support that CleverReach offers their clients. They are based in Germany and offer live help Monday-Friday office hours Central European Time.
They have a wide variety of plans so they cater to all types and sizes of businesses.
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