Why should your business be making email marketing a priority?

Deciding how best to invest your marketing budget can be tricky. There are so many options, which one is right for your business?

The most basic aim of marketing is to attract new customers and keep the current ones happy. A great way to do this, with measurable results, is to start email marketing.

What is email marketing?

In its simplest terms email marketing is when a company uses electronic mail to send a message to their audience.

The most common uses for email advertising are:

• Welcome emails – when a customer creates an account with your company
• Newsletters
• Announcements
• Deals

These emails are sent with a the purpose of:

• Enhancing your relationship with your current customers
• Building a relationship with new customers
• Convincing customers to make a purchase

Why does email marketing work?

Communication with customers is vital to any business. Customers need to both feel valued and regularly be reminded of your presence. In the modern world new brands are popping up every day; to retain customers you have to find a way to make them remember you. 

Most online users have an email address, you can’t make a purchases or create an online account without one. There is estimated to be 3.7 billion email users world wide by the end of 2017 . This is an staggering number of people, even more than Facebook! With this amount of people email marketing is one of the best tools for reaching the largest audience.

People check their inbox daily,  66% of online consumers check their email account multiple times per day. By embracing email marketing you will reaching your customers in a place they constantly are – their inbox.

Email marketing is a great way for you to communicate your company’s message to your audience. It allows you to provide your customers with extra information that could tip there decision to make a purchase. When people first come in contact with a brand they are not always at the stage of being ready to make a purchase. Obtaining their email and sending regular newsletters or campaigns to their inbox keeps you at the front of their mind so when they are ready to make a purchase your brand is the first place they will go to.

Email marketing is cost effective

Email marketing is extremely cost effective, with research showing for every $1 (£0.77) spent you can see an average return of $44.25 (£34.13).

The upfront cost is very low and you only need to spend a small sum to see a large return. Many email marketing tools allow for templates so you can have a great design created and stay consistent with every email sent out. Templates mean your emails look professional every time and can also reduce cost through cutting time spent creating each individual email.

Emails are easily shared. Your customers can forward them on to their friends and family helping you to increase your customer base with with little cost.

People often throw direct mail into the bin if they are not interested. Whereas, if the recipient of an email does not find it useful at the present time they can archive it for future reference. 

Gain credibility

Customers only do business with companies they trust. By sharing your original content to your audiences inbox you give them a ‘feel’ for what your company is about. You can convey your message in the personal voice of your business. This help customer establish whether or not they should do business with you.

Customers these days want more than just a product, they need you to give them something additional that they can’t get elsewhere, knowledge that only you have. Creating newsletters and sharing your company’s knowledge with your customers builds a relationship with them. In turn, showing them you have expertise in your field and are a reliable source of information.

Analyse data

Tools such as MailChimp give you great stats on all of your campaigns that are updated in real time. It makes it easy to guage your customer engagement and do A/B testing to find the most effective content to include in your emails. This fine tuning can ensure your money is being spent well getting the most conversions possible for every pound spent.

Being able to measure things like click-through-rates and conversion gives you hard data to easily see exact and credible numbers for your ROI. Most forms of marketing do not give you this exact data and can at best give you estimates.

Email marketing is an opportunity that many businesses are yet to take advantage of. Many businesses don’t have the knowledge or the time to put into creating regular campaigns. To learn more about how we can help your business create effective email marketing campaigns or templates get in touch.