The debate over whether or not to keep up with Social Media is one that has gone on for years. While some businesses have benefited immensely from SM platforms, others have found that these tools have severely cut into their email marketing efforts. Let’s examine the reasons why email marketing is still important.
1. Customer Data And Relationships
One of the primary advantages of email marketing is that you can re-target and follow-up with customers (or potential customers) that have already shown an interest in your products or services. With the right email marketing software, you can build a list of customers that you can contact at any time via email.
As a business owner or marketer, you can collect data on your customers’ demographics, shopping habits, product preferences, and much more. This enables you to refine your marketing strategies and target the right audience for your products and services. The more you know about your customers, the better you can tailor your approach and communicate with them efficiently.
2. Brand Awareness
Another significant advantage of email marketing is that you can achieve (and test) brand awareness and understanding. With a little planning and targeting, you can ensure that your marketing messages reach the right audience at the right time. You can conduct A/B tests to see which messages and tactics work best for your particular industry, niche, or product range. As a result of these A/B tests, you can grow your business and build a more loyal customer base by demonstrating to them that you recognize their unique, individual needs.
2. Product Awareness
An important thing to consider when implementing a marketing plan is how much the target audience knows about your products and services. This is particularly important when trying to engage consumers via the inbound marketing model. You want to ensure that your marketing efforts are hitting the right nerve and that they are driving the right action. Email Marketing is a fantastic tool for reinforcing brand awareness and demonstrating how a product (or service) solves a problem.
One of the major upsides of email marketing is that you can take advantage of paid advertising. With a little research and segmentation, you can target consumers who are more likely to be interested in your product or service. You can engage with them via email marketing, and measure the success of these campaigns via email analytics.
3. Conversion Data
Even if you don’t have a paid advertising budget, you can still glean important business information from your email marketing efforts. Your analytics platform will provide you with detailed conversion data, including the following:
- The demographic information of your target audience
- Their location
- Their interests
- Shopping behavior
- Past purchases
- Social media platforms
- Email marketing software platform (if applicable)
In addition to this detailed data, you can also get reports that break down your conversions by day, hour, or even minute. This analysis can help you discover conversion rates for different campaigns and activities, and identify the most effective ones.
4. Digital Natives
It isn’t just about achieving brand awareness and engaging with customers. You also want to make sure that your marketing efforts are reaching your most valuable audience — the digital natives. Email marketing is a fantastic way to attract and engage with this audience, as they grew up surrounded by technology and have become accustomed to using digital media for everything.
The key is to develop a digital marketing strategy that is aligned with your existing business goals and objectives. With the right combination of content and engagement, you can gain valuable insight into the minds of today’s digital consumers and find useful ways to engage with them.
5. ROI
Finally, you want to ensure that your efforts are paying off and that you are getting the most value for your investment. To calculate your Return On Investment (ROI), you need to determine the amount of money spent on marketing and the subsequent profit or loss from this investment. This can be difficult to track, especially if you are not utilizing a marketing platform, but with the right metrics in place, the results are more than worth it.
The main disadvantage of email marketing is that it can be quite time-consuming. If you are looking to grow your business via new technologies and want to avoid being overwhelmed, then you might want to consider other types of marketing.
Email marketing can be an effective way to engage with customers and gain valuable insight into their needs. It’s a fantastic tool for driving action, measuring results, and growing an audience. Ultimately, it’s all about finding what works best for your business and sticking with it.