Is Email Marketing Still Effective in 2018?

You can’t do much online without an email address these days. Everything from banking, to shopping, and of course social media requires an email address. And for good reason. Sometimes it has to do with security, sometimes it is for confirmation emails or password resets. The point is everyone has an email. Google claimed there were more than 1 billion active monthly users on its email service alone in 2016. As a business, this presents an exciting opportunity to market to these users. In fact, 82% of companies surveyed still use email marketing (Ascend2).

But as social media, AdWords, SEO and other forms of digital marketing are on the rise the question now is “is email marketing still effective in 2018”? The short answer is, yes. But, is it a resounding yes? Let’s explore.

(Almost) everyone has an email account they check regularly

A Radicati study showed that there will be more than 3.8 billion email users before the start of 2018 and more than 4.2 billion by 2022. The large majority of these users reported that it’s the first thing they do in the morning and one of the last things they do at night and the average American actually checks their email an average of three times a day. Which is a grand opportunity to put your content directly in front of a consumer at least once a day. And if you really think about it email is used in a variety of ways that social media isn’t. Say you make a purchase online – you typically get a confirmation sent to, you guessed it, your email. Users are typically more accustomed to using emails in regards to a transaction or when the information is time sensitive.

High conversion rates and ROI

Because building an email list is permission based, meaning the user has to opt-in to receive emails, your conversion rates are typically much higher than those for other forms of digital marketing. This is because if a user opts-in to your list they are most likely interested in what you have to offer. This means they’re more likely to open your emails and click on links inside of them. The Direct Marketing Association actually estimates that email marketing can bring in $40 for every $1 spent, on average.

Direct delivery means you’re always top of mind

For all of the MANY benefits social media and other forms of digital marketing offer, one thing sets email marketing apart the most. And that’s the ability to deliver your message DIRECTLY to a consumer. You see, most, if not all other forms of marketing online involve some sort of algorithm to make the decision on if your content even gets shown to users. With email marketing it’s guaranteed to hit their inbox. Of course it is still up to them if they want to open it or not but creating enticing subject lines can increase these open rates substantially.

Easy to tailor and segment different audiences

A great benefit of utilizing email marketing is the ability to gather data on your users (don’t worry, we’re not talking Facebook data here) such as open rates on specific types of emails, what links they clicked on, or unsubscribe rates. With this type of information you can segment subscribers into groups. The advantage of this is that you can now tailor an email campaign to different types of individuals. For example, you could now send three of the same email to three different segments you have created all with different subject lines that you’ve optimized for each group. Maybe one group opens emails more if they have emoji in the subject, one enjoys short titles, and the other likes it when you tell them exactly what’s in the email. You can now send those respective emails to those groups.

When used with other forms of digital marketing it is even more powerful

There’s no shortage of options on the internet to promote your business and grow sales. While this last part isn’t exclusive to email marketing it should be part of your marketing efforts. Cross promoting across other outlets is always a wise idea. This is because different users use different platforms and services to stay up-to-date and focusing solely on one is severely limiting your audience. Say you have a large email list but your Facebook audience is struggling a bit. By utilizing your list to cross promote your Facebook account you can help boost your presence there and discover new followers you may not have found otherwise. The same goes for website content, or other channels where a consumer can find you online. Cross promote everything, all of the time to help build a balanced online presence and increase brand recognition.

Is Email marketing dead? Not a chance

Overall, we feel that the combination of high ROI, great conversion rates, targeted audiences, and sheer number of users all help make a case that email marketing is most definitely not dead and should be a focus for your business in 2018. Of course, you can’t just throw an email campaign together, send it out and expect results. It takes strategic planning to know what to send, how often, and when based on your individual target audience. It’s also important to have a professional looking email and not something that looks generic or desperate. Also, there’s the part of all of this that is most important. And that’s successfully building your email list and keeping it growing using multiple strategic ideas. Email marketing can be a money machine for your business if done correctly. That’s why we offer these services to our clients as another option to grow their business online. We’ve helped countless businesses develop solid email marketing campaigns that are still working for them today. Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions or are interested to know more about how webFEAT Complete can help your email marketing efforts!

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