11 Reasons Why Your Business Needs Email Marketing

DATE

October 20, 2017

Despite social media marketing being ‘all the rage’ right now, email marketing has proved once again to be one of the most effective communication tools of our time. With people spending so much time scrolling through their inbox every day, email marketing takes the conversation about your business right to your audience.

Email marketing continues to be one of the most important tools in a business’ toolbox in which to connect with existing and potential customers. While traditional advertising methods are far from obsolete, the power of the humble email is something that cannot be ignored. Of course, online ads to printed flyers all have their own merits, but email marketing (in many cases) offers a more versatile and flexible way of communicating with your customers.

It’s a clever way for businesses to connect directly with a targeted audience, in that the message can be easily tailored to maximise value, whether you are looking to contact prospective clients, enhance relationships, encourage repeat business, promote deals or nurture leads.

Here are 11 important reasons why your business needs email marketing as a part of your marketing plan and strategy.

11 reasons your business needs email marketing

1) COST EFFECTIVE

While traditional print and postal marketing can be expensive and time consuming, email marketing is obviously a very inexpensive option. With the use of text and automatic template systems, there are less hours and dollars required for artwork creation and mailing costs to get your messages across to your audience. There are now email marketing automation services and CRM software systems that can manage the entire process for you, meaning that effective email marketing strategies can be implemented in pretty much any business regardless of size, at a very cost effective rate. It’s also simple to quickly adapt or completely change the content whenever it is required without much disruption or expense.

2) IMMEDIACY

Unlike many other forms of marketing, email marketing is a very immediate method that dramatically reduces any delay in communication between your business and your audience. This is a key advantage of email, especially with all the focus today on CX (Customer Experience). Questions can be answered and orders processed via email almost immediately, and two-way communication allows further exchanges for anything like warranties and after-sale queries.

Due to email’s immediacy, it’s perfect for use in promoting impulse buys and short-term offers.

3) CUSTOMISABLE

With the evolution of the digital space, demographics and buyer personas, statistics are far more readily available, meaning that it is possible to target segments based on their sales history, location, gender and even behaviour. Email is perfectly suited for this, as tweaked and customised messages can be sent to sub-segments of a target audience, increasing the message’s relevancy, efficiency, and value – three essential elements for a marketing campaign to achieve success.

4) INTERACTIVITY

Email opens up two-way communication between a customer and a business which offers a host of benefits for both. Organisations are able to utilise this interaction to build a rapport and enhance the overall customer experience through the use of surveys and feedback which the customer can participate in. This knowledge can be quickly collated and actioned in order to improve the whole transaction and adjust anything to make future projects far more effective.

5) PERSONAL

Unlike traditional advertising that aims at the masses, email is far more personal because it’s being sent from a person or brand directly to an inbox. If done well, this moment gives your organisation the individual opportunity to address recipients personally, and offer content of value which can very effectively build and nurture a relationship.

6) MEASURABLE

Like most digital marketing, email marketing software enables businesses to track the progress and efficiency of a campaign at every step. Statistics like open rate, time of open, click throughs and conversions can be monitored and aggregated easily, allowing a business to use these tracking tools to control and measure the success of each campaign against strategic targets. As discussed previously, email marketing is also easily adaptable, so if a desired ROI is not being achieved with one campaign, the content and audience can be quickly adapted to correct this.

7) FREQUENCY

Due to email’s inexpensive and simple nature, an organisation can touch base with a customer as frequently as they wish. This may include monthly newsletters, nightly offers, or even anniversary messages to celebrate milestones. Whatever the case, this use of email offers a great way to effectively build brand awareness across your database.

8) CONTROLLABLE

Just like your website, your business has full ownership and control over your email campaigns, making it a more reliable and effective way to reach customers than social media. Social media platforms like Facebook own their platform, and allow you to ‘borrow’ or ‘lease’ a business space on it. This means that you are at the mercy of their strict rules and regulations when communicating with your customers.

Organic (non-paid) reach on social media platforms continues to decline, aimed at incentivising businesses to pay for more exposure. Facebook’s News Feed algorithm now only feeds organic content from publishers to around 2% of an audience, negatively affecting your marketing efforts in reaching your customers.

In comparison, the vast majority of marketing emails actually get delivered to the intended recipient’s inbox for them to look at, so the strike rate is far higher.

In addition, social media layouts and algorithms are constantly changing, meaning that the customer and businesses are always having to learn to adapt and follow, whereas email has a long and stable history – everyone knows how it works and it continues to function in a way that is controllable.

With the evolution of the digital space, there are many programs and companies like GDR Group, which make it simple for businesses to craft well-worded and beautifully constructed emails that are highly targeted and effective in reaching an audience.

9) EMAIL AUTOMATION TO NURTURE LEADS

The ability to combine email marketing with automation and AI further underpins the advantages of using this tool regularly. For example, utilising an auto-response when a customer subscribes or makes a purchase is a great way to automatically acknowledge them and thank them, creating an immediate relationship.

Automated Email marketing means that an organisation can use email to nurture leads and customers by sending them relevant emails specific to their needs and wants. For example, if you have a library of email response templates based on several stages of a consumer’s life cycle, then every time they reach a particular milestone, your automated system can send them a personalised email offering them more information (from an offer to the results of a survey) and keep them up to date.

An auto-response allows you to start communicating and building a relationship with leads immediately from the moment they activate their account or purchase something from your business, without disrupting you every time.

10) LOOK MORE PROFESSIONAL

Email marketing enables your brand to look very professional and can position your company in a favourable light with both your current and potential customers.

For example, using a company email address directly from the brand (such as yournews@yourbrand), straight to a customer creates a professional email exchange, especially given that people are always on the lookout for spam or scams.

If your email marketing campaign remains consistent, your customers will recognise both the email address and the appearance of each communication they get sent, resulting in the customer actively looking forward to receiving emails from their preferred brands.

11) ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY

This one certainly cannot be forgotten! Today, customers demand organisations to be more socially responsible, and being green is no exception. Email marketing has a very insignificant impact on the environment, with no ink, no paper, and no transportation!

So, is email marketing the right choice for your business?

Definitely.

With all the above advantages, email should not be missing from your marketing plan as its effectiveness is far too compelling to ignore. With the evolution of digital marketing, any business can now expand its reach, even globally. It has never been easier, quicker or cheaper to communicate with so many people, creating almost limitless potential to nurture existing customers and to acquire new ones. The immediacy, flexibility, cost effectiveness and ease of use of email marketing means that email is a tool no business can afford to ignore.

HOW CAN GDR MEDIA GROUP HELP?

At GDR, we understand that organisations and businesses like yours see the importance of email marketing, but often need some help.

We specialise in copywriting, content creation, email setup, automation and CRM management to allow your email campaigns to be successful and professional.

We can create the ideal email marketing plan for your business’ strategy, which will: