Everybody uses email

There are over 4 billion active accounts out there, a number that far exceeds membership of any social network to date (Facebook, the world’s most popular social network, comes in a distant second at 1.5 billion active accounts). With new social apps popping up constantly, email’s still probably the one channel that unites you and everyone you know. And with the number of active email accounts predicted to grow to 5.5 billion by 2019, both now and for the foreseeable future email is the connected world’s communication channel of choice.

The ROI can’t be beat

Although ROI (return-on-investment) is rightly losing ground as the end-all, be-all measurement of your marketing’s value, it’s still one of the most frequently used indicators for understanding if your efforts are paying off. And while numbers vary, one recent survey of marketers reported an average email marketing ROI of 3800%, meaning you’ll get 38 euros back for every one you invest. Compare that with rates of a meagre 120% ROI on print advertising (or 1.20 back on every 1 euro spent) and you’ll see why you should be investing time―and saving money―in email marketing.

Your message gets delivered

If my inbox is anything to judge by, the massive improvements in spam filtering technology mean those who’ve opted in to receive your marketing content no longer have to wade through ads for cut-rate Viagra, Eastern European call girls and offers for unmentionable physical enhancements―those messages go right to the spam box. As long as the people on your list have opted-in, and you’re sending your email marketing through a reliable email service provider (ESP), then your email marketing should end up right where it’s supposed to―the inbox.

Email gets opened

With enticing, personalized, well-polished subject lines, your email campaign open rates should sit comfortably in the 20-30% range (depending on the industry). Compared with a 6% chance of your message getting seen on Facebook via organic search, and you can see the benefits of sticking with email.

It’s not a shot in the dark

Email marketing is premised on permission marketing, or marketing to people who’ve already given you permission to do so. They’ve already volunteered their email address―by signing up to your newsletter or in response to an offer on your website―and said so. You’re not just firing blind into the internet, but sending your marketing to people who have a self-identified interest in your products or services. Which means that…

Your email list has qualified leads

When marketers report that their second-biggest marketing challenge is the quality of their leads, email marketing gives you a way to separate all your potential market from people who actually claimed an interest in you―and provides you with a direct channel for reaching them.

Your email list is yours

Since 2012 Facebook has been making it harder and harder for companies to get their message out by restricting organic reach. As a business, unless you’re already a household name or you’re conducting amazingly successful viral campaigns, you’ve got to pay for prominence on Facebook. And Google’s secretive algorithms change page ranking factors regularly, leaving everyone to play catch up. With email marketing, however, your email list is yours―and no algorithm change or pagerank factor will change that.

Your readers see what they want to see

Through smart segmentation of your email campaigns, you have the opportunity to show your readers what they want to see, and not what they don’t.

You can increase engagement

Tell your story―you can use your newsletter to recount the origin story of your business, talk about key employees, about what drives you, where you’re from and where you’re going next. Many client relationships are transactional in nature (exchanging information related to projects, updates and deliveries) and conducted via collaboration apps like Skype, Slack or Trello. But an email newsletter gives you a chance for clients and readers to get to know the human behind the app username.

You can build brand awareness

By getting your name, your logo, your story out to your subscribers on a constant basis, you can keep your business at the forefront of their minds―so they don’t need to look further next time they’ve got a project in the planning.

You can get new customers

By spreading the word through newsletters, offers and other marketing emails, you can win new customers over to your products and services. In fact, when compared with Facebook and Twitter, marketers say it’s 40 times more effective at getting new customers.

It’s aftersales service

You can use a newsletter to provide tutorials, tips and tricks for helping existing customers get the most out of the products and services they already use. Create up-to-date content to answer the questions customers ask you and include testimonials from other customers about how they solved a particular problem using one of your offerings.

You can upsell and cross-sell to current customers

Many customers come to you for one thing. Or maybe when they first signed up, you only offered one thing. But now your business has grown, you have a number of other products or services to offer, but they haven’t had a chance to know about it. With timely marketing messages and newsletters you can help your current customers understand what more they could be getting from you.

You’ve got the look

With Facebook, Linkedin and other social platforms you have little control over format and layout. But with your newsletter, as with your website, the look is yours to design. You can go with many of the readily available free templates or work with an agency like Moskito Design to help you design and build custom-made communications, tested for top performance on any app or email client.

It looks great on mobile

With over 63% of people checking their email on a smartphone, mobile-first responsive email design allows your marketing message to look great―and increase click-through― on whatever device your readers choose.

Conclusion

With 73% of marketers saying it’s an essential part of their business, if you’re not currently doing email marketing you’re just not tapping into vast potential for your brand. To put it very Italian terms, you may be sitting behind the wheel of a Ferrari, but you’re driving it like a Fiat Panda. By getting your email marketing strategy in gear you can put your email list to work for you and deliver great return on budget you invest.

The number 1 reason why you should do email marketing is that it’s not a shot in the dark.