Did you know that, according to Statista, there were about 4.26 billion email users globally? Or that 92% of the digital population in the United States has reported using emails? And that 333 billion emails were sent and received worldwide? These numbers will only continue to grow year after year. And this is all the more reason why businesses need to leverage email marketing.
Email marketing makes use of email to directly communicate with the audience and inform them about promotional messages, advertisements, company or product updates, events and sales, and more. Email marketing gives a lot of flexibility to businesses and digital marketers who want to target specific audiences, prospects, or customers. Ignoring the power of emails in your digital marketing for businesses would put a brand at a disadvantage.
Is email marketing for businesses helpful for the brand?
Email marketing offers several benefits for businesses. This makes it a popular and effective tool in their overall marketing strategy, especially when done right.
Here are some key advantages and ways that email marketing can be helpful for businesses:
- Cost-Effective: Email marketing is relatively inexpensive compared to other marketing channels. It eliminates various costs like printing, postage, and advertising space.
- Targeted Communication: Businesses can segment their email lists based on various criteria, such as demographics, location, purchase history, and more. This allows for highly targeted and personalized communication with specific audience segments.
- High ROI (Return on Investment): Due to its low cost and high potential reach, email marketing often provides a significant return on investment. Well-crafted email campaigns can generate leads, drive sales, and enhance customer loyalty for a business.
- Measurable Results: Email marketing platforms offer analytics and reporting tools. This allows businesses to track the performance of their campaigns. Metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and more provide valuable insights for optimizing future campaigns and getting the necessary results.
- Automation: Email marketing can be automated to send targeted messages at specific times or in response to certain actions. This helps in nurturing leads, onboarding new customers, and maintaining ongoing engagement without continuous manual effort. Automation is especially beneficial for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
- Global Reach: Emails can be sent to a large audience with just a click. This makes it possible for businesses to reach a global audience instantly. This is particularly beneficial for businesses looking to expand their reach beyond local markets.
- Brand Awareness: Consistent and well-designed email campaigns contribute to building brand awareness. Emails can include branding elements such as logos, colors, and messaging, which reinforce the brand identity with each communication.
- Customer Engagement: Email provides a direct line of communication between businesses and their customers or clients. It allows for interactive content, such as surveys, polls, and clickable elements. All of these help boost engagement and interaction.
- Customer Retention: Email marketing is also an effective tool for customer retention. This is because it keeps customers informed about new products, special offers, and relevant content. This helps in building long-term relationships with customers and encourages them to repeat transactions.
- Mobile-Friendly: With the increasing use of mobile devices, email campaigns can be optimized for mobile viewing. This ensures that messages are accessible to a wide audience, no matter where they are or what time zone they are in.
- Personalization: Personalized emails based on customer data and behavior can significantly improve engagement. Personalization can include using the recipient’s name, recommending products based on past purchases, and tailoring content to their interests.
Email marketing statistics
If you’re still not convinced that email marketing for businesses can be beneficial, it’s quite understandable. However, it’s also good to remember that trying it for your marketing efforts might be worthwhile. Looking at numbers, facts, and proven results from other marketers might help you decide whether or not to include email marketing in your digital marketing strategy.
Here are a few email marketing statistics to put things into perspective:
- 320% more revenue is generated from automated emails than non-automated emails. (Campaign Monitor)
- 79% of B2B marketers report email as the most successful channel for content distribution. (Optin Monster)
- 42.3% of Americans subscribe to retail email lists to receive savings and discounts. (Optin Monster)
- Personalized emails deliver 6 times higher transactional rates, compared to non-personalized ones. (Instapage)
- Email subscribers are 3.9x more likely to share your content on social media, just as long as they’re relevant and have a clear call-to-action or CTA. (Quick Sprout)
- 90% of businesses say that email marketing is important to their company’s overall success. (Litmus 2021 State of Email Report)
- 55% of consumers admit that email is their preferred communication channel from businesses they support. (Constant Contact Small Business Now Report)
- 60% of consumers say they’ve purchased as a result of a marketing email they received. (Constant Contact)
- 76 percent of buyers expected more personalized attention to develop an intimate relationship with your brand. (Litmus 2021 State of Email Report)
- Segmented email campaigns result in 30% more email opens and 50% more click-throughs than unsegmented or non-targeted emails. (Help Scout)
Email marketing can impact a lot of parts of a business and beyond. These statistics are just a few examples of how email marketing can affect both businesses and consumers.
What kind of businesses need email marketing?
Email marketing can be beneficial for a wide range of businesses and across various industries. While its effectiveness can vary based on the business model, target audience, strategy, and goals, a lot of businesses can leverage email marketing to achieve their objectives.
Here are some examples of businesses that can take advantage of marketing emails:
- E-commerce Businesses: Email marketing is a powerful tool for online retailers, and in the digital world today, e-commerce businesses can use emails to help grow their business. It can be used for promoting products, announcing sales and discounts, sending abandoned cart reminders, and nurturing customer relationships.
- Service-Based Businesses: Businesses that offer services, such as consulting firms, agencies, and freelancers, can use email marketing to showcase their expertise, share valuable content, and stay top-of-mind among clients.
- Local Businesses: Local businesses, such as restaurants, retail stores, and service providers, can use email marketing to inform their community about special promotions, new products, or any upcoming events.
- B2B (Business-to-Business) Companies: B2B companies can utilize email marketing for lead generation—nurturing business relationships, and sharing industry insights. Email campaigns can target decision-makers within other businesses.
- Nonprofit Organizations: Nonprofits can use email marketing to communicate with donors, share success stories, and promote fundraising events. In fact, organizations like this report the best email performance among various sectors. Email is an effective way for nonprofits to keep supporters or partners engaged and informed.
- Educational Institutions: Schools, colleges, and other educational institutions can use email marketing for communication and business growth. This includes student recruitment, sharing campus news, and providing information about courses and programs.
- Fitness and Wellness Businesses: Gyms, fitness studios, and wellness centers can use email marketing to promote classes, share health tips, and engage with members on a regular basis.
- Event Planners: Businesses involved in event planning can use email marketing to promote upcoming events, send invitations, and provide important details to attendees.
- Real Estate Agencies: Real estate agents and agencies can use email marketing to connect with their audience. They can showcase properties, share market updates, and nurture relationships with potential buyers and sellers.
- Software as a Service (SaaS) Companies: SaaS can also use email marketing for businesses, such as customer onboarding, product updates, and customer retention. It’s a valuable channel for keeping users informed and engaged.
- Travel and Hospitality Industry: Hotels, travel agencies, and tourism businesses can use email marketing to promote travel deals, share destination guides, and keep customers informed about special offers.
- Content Creators: Bloggers, podcasters, and other content creators can use email marketing as well. They can use emails to notify subscribers about new content, share exclusive updates, and build a loyal audience.
These are just a few types of businesses that can grow with the help of marketing emails. If any other businesses need a way to communicate and connect with their audience, emails are a good channel.
How to do email marketing for businesses
Executing a successful email marketing campaign involves careful planning, strategic implementation, and ongoing optimization.
Here are key steps, best practices, and email marketing for business tips to help you achieve success:
Define Your Goals
Clearly outline the objectives of your email marketing campaign. Whether it’s increasing sales, building brand awareness, or driving website traffic, having specific goals will guide your email marketing strategy.
Build a Quality Email List
Focus on growing a permission-based email list composed of individuals who have opted in to receive your communications. You can do this by implementing an email subscription pop-up on your website, collecting emails and leads on events, including an email opt-in on successful transactions, using gated content, and more. Avoid purchasing email lists as much as you can, as they can result in low engagement and potential legal issues.
Segment Your Audience
Divide your email list into segments based on factors such as demographics, location, purchase history, or behavior. This allows for targeted and personalized messaging, increasing the relevance of your emails.
Create Compelling Content
Craft engaging and valuable content for your emails. This could include promotions, educational content, exclusive offers, and more. Use a mix of text, images, and other multimedia elements to keep your emails visually appealing.
Businesses can also utilize various email marketing types to help them grow. This includes newsletters, welcome or onboarding emails, abandoned cart emails, feedback and review requests, re-engagement emails, and more.
Optimize for Mobile
Given the prevalence of mobile device usage in this day and age, it’s crucial to ensure that your emails are mobile-friendly. Test your email templates to make sure they display correctly on various devices and screen sizes.
Craft Attention-Grabbing Subject Lines
The subject line is the first thing recipients see, so make it compelling and relevant. Experiment with different approaches, such as personalization or urgency, to see what resonates best with your audience.
Focus on Personalization
Personalize your emails based on recipient data, such as their name, preferences, interests, or purchase history. Personalization can significantly increase engagement and make your communications more relevant.
Use A/B Testing
Experiment with different elements of your emails through A/B testing. Test variations of subject lines, content, calls-to-action, and more to identify what resonates best with your audience. Once you’ve found the best formula or email content format, you can utilize this for other future emails.
Include Clear Calls-to-Action (CTAs)
An effective email clearly states the desired action for the recipients to take. This includes making a purchase, downloading a resource, or subscribing to a newsletter. Make sure to use persuasive and actionable language.
Optimize Sending Times
Test different days and times to identify when your audience is most responsive. Consider time zones and the characteristics of your target audience when scheduling your email campaigns.
Monitor and Analyze Performance
Monitoring and analyzing are also keys to success. Regularly analyze the performance of your email campaigns using key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and unsubscribe rates. You can use these insights to refine your future campaigns.
Maintain Consistency
Establish a consistent sending frequency to keep your brand top-of-mind without overwhelming your audience. Whether it’s weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, consistency helps build trust and familiarity with your audience.
Ensure Compliance with Regulations
Familiarize yourself with email marketing regulations, such as the CAN-SPAM Act and GDPR, and ensure your campaigns comply with these rules. This includes providing clear opt-out options and respecting user privacy.
Utilize Automation
Implement automation for tasks like welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders, and follow-up sequences. Automation helps save time, ensures timely responses, and even allows for personalized communication. Fortunately, there are various email marketing tools for automation now, including HubSpot, MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, and more.
Seek Feedback and Iterate
Encourage feedback from your audience and use it to improve your email marketing strategy. Regularly review your results, learn from successes and failures, and iterate on your approach accordingly.
Email marketing for businesses can lead to a lot of opportunities and marketing success. Keep these email marketing tips and steps in mind as you try to incorporate emails into your marketing strategy.
Need a hand? Marketing Experts PH has email marketing experts ready to tackle email marketing with you. Talk to our experts now, and let’s discuss how you can leverage marketing emails for your business!
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