Seven Reasons Why Email Marketing (Still!) Rocks

Email marketing is overlooked by far too many businesses. If you haven't considered email marketing already then read through these seven points and prepare to have your mind blown at the endless possibilities that email marketing can offer to your company. 

1. Brand Awareness

Customers love to be loyal, and if they regularly receive emails from you then they'll be aware of your brand and much more likely to buy from you rather than another company that they aren't familiar with. If your emails are aesthetically pleasing, interesting, informative and personal -- basically something that the customer enjoys receiving, then your brand will stay at the top of their mind. You can also make your emails sharable by adding links to social networking sites. This way, customer's will practically do your marketing for you by sharing offers with their friends on public networks, creating brand awareness on a larger scale.

2. It's personal

If you keep track of what users are doing on your site then you'll have the opportunity to get really personal with your email marketing. Obviously you will already have basic information about your customers and remembering to address a customer by name has already been proven to increase sales, but you can go further than that. Give out birthday coupons, check out previous products they have looked at, the last time they logged onto your site. All of these aspects and more can be analysed to create a great, personal, marketing plan. You can even get super-personal by beginning an email with reference to the product they last bought from you:

"Hey Stephanie,

How's the pedometer working out for you?

Check out our new range of sports bottles..."

With people now receiving emails directly to their smartphones it is becoming a much more personal method of communication, and by creating emails like the one above you can step away from generic marketing emails that will be deleted before opening and really use email-marketing to your advantage to generate repeat sales.

3. Impulse Buying

Online shopping is the perfect platform for the impulse buy. With the use of strategic email marketing, customers can go from spotting a great offer from you to taking advantage of that offer with the click of a button. By sending an email with an inviting call to action and a link straight to the checkout you can boost sales quicker than any other marketing technique. If you personalize these emails your chances of tempting customers into impulse buys will become even greater. Show you care about your customer's needs by sending them emails offering product-add ons or upgrades, anything that will improve a product they have already bought from you.

4. It's measurable

As oppose to other marketing channels (such as handing out flyers or cold calling), email marketing can deliver precise, to the letter, analytics. Email marketing can give accurate figures on delivery rates, unsubscriptions, click through rates, and more. Not only does this offer instant feedback on your marketing, it also gives you the chance to follow patterns and see where you're going wrong -- thus, giving you opportunity to immediately improve.

5. The freedom of opt-in, opt-out, and unsubscribe

The great thing about email marketing is that it gives the consumer the freedom of choice. By filling in the initial contact form the customer can choose whether to opt-in and receive your emails or on the other hand, choose not to opt-out and still receive your emails. Then if a few months/years down the line they change their mind then they can choose to unsubscribe. This idea of 'freedom' may not seem like such a big deal but it helps to create a great relationship between your business and your customers.

6. It's quick, easy, and cheap

With the correct email marketing technologies you can deliver emails to thousands of prospective customers within seconds. You can also set up automatic response emails to ensure that no matter what the time, your customer receives a quick, polite response.

It's ridiculously inexpensive too! Think about all the costs that come with sending out flyers or advertising posters: postage fees, design costs, advertising fees... With email marketing those costs are obliterated, just create the email on your computer, click once and hey presto! It's done. Using email marketing instead of other methods can also earn you brownie-points with your customers by showing that you're a paperless, 'green' company

And it's so easy! Almost everyone knows how to send an email, no experience needed. The bottom line is that no other marketing technique can reach as many customers in the short amount of time and little cost that emails can; and it all happens with one effortless click of a button!

7. It works!

If this blog hasn't already convinced you then these stats should do the trick:

1. According to a 2012 survey conducted by Exact target, 66% of online American have bought something as a result of receiving a marketing message via email. That’s more than 3 times that of Facebook (20%), and more than 4 times (16%) that of text

2. The total number of worldwide email accounts is expected to increase to over 4.3 billion by the end of 2016

3. 91% of consumers check their email daily

4. When marketed through email, consumers spend 138% more than people who don't receive email offers.

5. Less than 1 in 2000 subscribers mark an email as SPAM.

6. 70% say they always open emails from their favorite companies. Conversely, only 18% say they never open commercial emails.

7. More than 50% of marketers aren't optimizing emails for mobile viewing' yet 63% of Americans and 41% of Europeans will close or delete an email not optimized for mobile.

So there you have it, email marketing (still!) rocks. For more articles like this one, make sure you Like us on Facebook, Follow us on Twitter and Add us to your circles on Google+!