Is Email Marketing Dead?

Long live email marketing

“The rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated” – email marketing, probably.

Email marketing. Sometimes just seeing the words can fill you with dread and a sense of ‘oh-no-where-do-I-even-begin’. But take it from me – email marketing can be exciting!

Imagine your email marketing campaign as this little gift-wrapped parcel of curated content delivered straight to your audiences’ inbox. Inside the parcel could be anything, and your audience knows this (they did sign up for it, after all!). Inside you can showcase your favourite blog articles, provide an intimate look into what’s going on with your company, and even deliver sneaky discounts or promotions to your loyal subscribers.

A good email marketing campaign gets your audience to click open and maybe click a link or two – but great email marketing gets your audience excited to open their emails from you – every single time.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves!

What even is email marketing?

Email marketing uses an opt-in database of subscribers who want to hear more about your company. Imagine – a cherry picked audience who wants to stay engaged with your brand. And you can send emails straight to their inbox without any algorithms at play!

Email marketing is an incredibly important part of a content marketing strategy and is a great way to diversify the channels you’re using just in case something happens – say for instance if social media platforms suddenly shut down with no notice. Again. (If you haven’t read Bek’s blog about the benefits of email marketing and why it’s a great idea to not put all of your eggs in one basket, I definitely recommend it).

Wait – isn’t email marketing dead?

Not in the slightest! There is a misconception that email marketing is on the way out with the rise of paid and organic social media marketing. Last year there were an estimated 3.9 billion email users worldwide, almost one billion more than the estimated amount of social media users.

Every social media user, smartphone owner and regular internet user has an email account, and as new social media platforms become popular so quickly, email marketing is a stable way to make sure you are able to keep contacting and nurturing your loyal audience.

Despite the rise of other digital marketing channels and platforms, email marketing remains a highly effective strategy for businesses to connect with their audience and promote their products or services. Here are a few reasons why email marketing is still alive and thriving:

Widely used:

Email is a ubiquitous communication tool that billions of people around the world use on a daily basis. It provides a direct line of communication between businesses and their customers.

Personalisation:

Email allows businesses to personalise their messages and tailor them to specific segments of their audience. This level of customisation can lead to higher engagement and conversion rates.

Targeted campaigns:

With email marketing, your copywriters can target specific groups of people based on their demographics, interests, past purchase behaviour, or other relevant data. This targeting helps ensure that your messages reach the right audience, increasing the chances of generating a positive response.

Automation and efficiency:

Email marketing platforms offer automation features that enable businesses to set up automated campaigns triggered by user actions or specific events. This allows for personalised, timely, and relevant communication with customers, saving time and effort.

Measurable results:

Email marketing provides detailed analytics and metrics that allow businesses to track the performance of their campaigns. You can monitor open rates, click-through rates, conversions, and other key metrics to assess the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts.

Cost-effective:

Compared to many other marketing channels, email marketing is relatively cost-effective. Sending emails to a large number of recipients typically incurs minimal expenses, especially when compared to traditional advertising methods.

While it’s important to adapt to evolving consumer preferences and integrate email marketing with other marketing channels, email remains a powerful tool for businesses to engage their audience, nurture customer relationships, and drive conversions.

So then, how does email marketing work?

Email marketing campaigns are created in an email marketing program such as MailChimp or Campaign Monitor. Campaigns can consist of a single email blast to a segment of your audience, or a multi-faceted campaign designed to target your audience in a more personalised way.

Once you have an email template set up, email marketing campaigns are a great way to direct users to your best pieces of content – a new blog, a new item on sale, or an upcoming event. Email marketing can neatly tie together your content marketing across all of your platforms, and also create a sense of exclusivity, with special promotions or sneak peeks into upcoming products or events.

Another awesome positive of email marketing is you can use it to influence your SEO:

• If you’re creating long-form emails you can share them as a blog, both creating new reusable content for you and helping your Google indexing.
• Call to actions can send your customers directly to your website – which is where you want them to be! Quality traffic to your website helps Google to determine users are actually finding value in your website, ranking it that little bit higher.

To summarise – creating email campaigns with opportunities for your audience to spend time on your website can definitely help get that little bit extra attention from Google to help your SEO rankings.

Keep your audience curated to keep them engaged.

In the early naughties there was the thought that the bigger the database, the better the email marketing strategy. We know, now, this is very obviously not true. The spray and pray tactic means holding onto a database of persons who aren’t very engaged in your audience, skewing your metrics and making it determine how well your email marketing content has performed.

Large databases of contacts who are unengaged also mean paying a higher cost for your email marketing software, which generally have monthly plans determined by the number of users in your database – and why should you pay for something which isn’t generating a return?

Some people are hesitant about creating re-engagement campaigns for, or even segmenting their email audience, however the beauty of email marketing software is creating highly engaged email lists who can be targeted based on their previous interactions with your content.

Email marketing strategies to avoid – at all costs.

The naughties tactic of building a huge database I briefly mentioned? A lot of those databases were created with highly questionable, or even unlawful, tactics. One of the biggest things to remember with webmail marketing is when someone opts out of your emails – they have opted out on your emails.

Quite possibly the only more important rule to remember is: you cannot add someone to your email list who has not opted-in to become a subscriber. Not only is it incredibly frustrating to get emails from someone you haven’t subscribed to, in some countries it is actually illegal – but that’s okay because you want a database of loyal subscribers who are actually interested in your brand, remember? [wink emoji]

Still Not Convinced that Email Marketing is Thriving and Surviving?

Here are some industry statistics related to email marketing:

1. Email open rates: The average open rate for email marketing campaigns across industries is around 20%. However, this can vary depending on factors such as the industry, the quality of the email list, and the effectiveness of the subject line and content.
2. Click-through rates (CTRs): The average CTR for email campaigns is approximately 2-3%. Again, this can vary based on industry, audience, and the quality of the email content and call-to-action.
3. Conversion rates: Conversion rates from email campaigns vary significantly depending on the industry and the specific goals of the campaign. On average, the conversion rate for email marketing is around 1-3%.
4. ROI (Return on Investment): Email marketing consistently delivers a high ROI. According to a survey conducted by the Data & Marketing Association (DMA), the average ROI for email marketing is $42 for every $1 spent, making it one of the most cost-effective marketing channels.
5. Mobile email usage: With the increasing use of smartphones, a significant portion of email opens occurs on mobile devices. In fact, as of 2021, around 46% of all email opens happened on mobile devices.
6. Personalisation impact: Personalised emails tend to perform better than generic mass emails. According to research by Experian, personalized emails have 29% higher open rates and 41% higher click-through rates compared to non-personalised emails.
7. Abandoned cart recovery: Email campaigns targeting customers who have abandoned their shopping carts can be highly effective. According to a study by SaleCycle, the average global cart abandonment rate is around 75.6%, but sending abandoned cart emails can help recover a portion of those potential sales.

Remember that these statistics are general benchmarks and can vary depending on your industry, target audience, email list quality, and the effectiveness of your email marketing strategy. It’s important to track your own email metrics and analyse them to gain insights specific to your business.

Need help with your email marketing strategy?

BeKonstructive offer content marketing, and social media management services, as well as email marketing strategy, design, and campaigns. If you need help managing your email marketing audiences, wrapping your head around your email marketing software, or creating a campaign to keep your audience updated and engaged, please get in touch! We’re always happy to help, and no job is too big or too small!