How to Create Your Own Database In Email Marketing

To do email marketing, you need to send messages. But, to whom?

Naturally, any business or entity that seeks to expand via email marketing must establish a database that consists of email addresses that are acquired legally. How you build your lists matters for two reasons: first, email marketing is a permission-based marketing method; second, sending the right message to the right people is what makes email marketing actually valuable. After all, you do marketing to get profit. If your messages reach to someone who doesn’t care about what you offer; or doesn’t reach to anywhere at all, you better don’t spend money for something you most probably won’t profit.

Before starting to tell how to establish your own database, it is of utmost importance to tell how not to. It is as simple as that: Don’t buy lists from outer sources.

See this article to learn more about why buying lists from outer sources damages your marketing campaign.

HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN DATABASE

There are many ways to establish a mailing database and they all work well. However, once you establish a database, you are not done yet. According to researches, more than one fifth (22,5%) of your database erodes every year. There are reasons for this; but what is certain is that you need to keep building on your database and clean-up it regularly as part of your marketing strategy.

INBOX cleans your database automatically and reports the bouncing addresses to you; so, you don’t really have to put too much effort for the letter. But staying active for building up on your database requires strategies to follow.

Things to Do via Email

Create Valuable Content

Start expanding your database with the contacts you already have. By creating valuable contents for your newsletters, you foster share rates for your emails. The more your subscribers share what you send, the more newcomers will subscribe to your list. Be attractive.

Encourage “Sharing”

Beyond creating attractive contents, you can also encourage your subscribers to share your emails. It is as simple as one click; so why not lead people to do it.

You can organize small competitions, offer discounts or simply enlarge the share buttons to encourage your subscribers to share your emails.

Also, do not forget to add a “subscribe” button in your emails for the people who are forwarded.

Create Different Subscription Models

One size doesn’t fit all. So, adding people to sub-lists that are categorized by different subscription models is a good idea. While subscribing to your database, ask people about what they are interested in and how often they would want to hear from you; then put their addresses to different pools. This will decrease unsubscription rates and encourage more people to sign up for your database.

Delete Inactive Contacts Regularly

Although it seems like gamble to delete contacts from your database, it is a tactic to have an optimized database for responsiveness. You are recommended to separate your subscribers into sub-lists according to their activeness. You can then send the inactive members an email to approve their stay in your database; otherwise delete them. It is actually meaningless to send email to someone who is not interested in what you send; so, don’t waste money. Also, sending such a “re-engagement” mail will encourage the inactive subscribers to be more active if they are still interested in having a contact with you.

Place Subscription Buttons to Your Employees’ Signatures

Please beware of that almost 80% of your future sales will be generated from 20% of the already existing customers. So, if you haven’t established a digital tie with them over your mailing database, start doing so with this method.

Every day, your employees send emails for business purposes. Adding a subscription button their signature will lead many people to join your database.

Things to Do via New Contents

Create Contents that Requires Subscription to Download

Many companies today have blog pages. It helps increase visibility on search engines and the valuable content in them is something to share; which introduces you to the new potential customers.

You can create new contents that is of value to the people interested in your business, sector, products etc. This content might be an almanac, yearbook, statistical research or anything of that kind. You can then ask for subscription to download the full version of that piece of work. Even if a person may not be interested in what you do, they may encounter your work and you will have a chance to offer them something in the future.

You can also share such contents from your social media accounts to generate increased flow and even give ads for your content and not for your products and services. Think it as an indirect advertisement and an investment for the future.

Things to Do via Social Media

Share Your Blog Posts

Be active in social media and consider having a blog page if you still don’t have. No matter what business you do. Sharing your blog posts will make you more visible on social media. Many companies have combined their digital marketing efforts and increased the size of their mailing lists with methods to apply on social media.

Add Easy Subscription Buttons to Your Facebook Page

After an update a year ago, Facebook allows you to add subscription buttons and links on your company page. An active Facebook page generates followers and many of them becomes subscribers to your database.

At this point, it is also important to understand why you should have people subscribe to your database; while you can already interact with them over social media.

Well, in email marketing, you interact with people directly. Once you send a message, they can reach it on any electronic device they have. But on social media, it is far less likely to be encountered by a follower. First of all, they need to open the application or the web page. Secondly, even if they do, they would need to spend some time to encounter your posts. Thirdly, the length of time for this encounter depends on the personal interest algorithms of these people. Researchers say, only 5% of your followers see what you post on your Facebook page.

Make Offers that Require Subscription

Social media is a good place to start contests and offer deals. You can ask for subscription for participation.

Create a YouTube Page and Add Subscription Buttons

Just like a blog page, YouTube pages can be a good source for making indirect advertisements via creative content. YouTube allows you to add buttons on your videos; so you can generate new subscriptions from YouTube, as well.

Things to Do via Your Web-Site

Add Accessible Subscription Buttons to Each and Every Page

Many web-sites have subscription buttons only on the front page; but it may be any page on your web-site that convinces a visitor to subscribe to your database. So, making subscription buttons accessible on each and every page is important. People don’t spend time to search for your web form; unless you make it visible.

Embed pop-ups that Wouldn’t Annoy People

Embedding pop-ups for easy and fast subscription is a good idea; however, you need to do it in a way that wouldn’t irritate people and simply close your web-site. The pop-up may come after a certain time period on a page; so that people can first have the information that they are looking for. Also, make sure that closing the pop-up is easy.

Create a Subscription-Based Forum

This method may change depending on the nature of your business. But if there is something to discuss and share regarding what you do, creating a forum page would generate many subscriptions to your database.

Things to Do via Partnerships and Affiliations

Make Promotions on Your Affiliate’s Web-site

Affiliate marketing can help lead increased subscriptions. By defining a working target group, you can establish affiliations and embed your advertisements on certain pages to receive your target group’s contact information.

Join and Start Projects with Partnerships

Of course, you don’t do this simply for having new subscribers; but keep in mind that projects like webinars, contests etc. are actually good opportunities to enhance your email marketing by having new subscriptions.

source: https://useinbox.com/how-to-create-your-own-database-in-email-marketing/

How Do I Build an Effective Email Database for My Business?

Why Do I Need an Email Database?

Email databases provide the opportunity to reach out to your customers and prospects with relevant information about your company and special offers for its products as well as other marketing communications. It is important to understand why building one is so important to growing a business, there were over 3.8 billion email users in 2018 and this global total is predicted to rise to 4.2 billion by the end of 2022 according to The Radicati Group. Not only are email users a huge catchment but it is also a very direct and personal way of reaching them. It is worth using the range of steps you can take to gather essential email addresses for your database.

Consideration should also be given to the type of information to keep in your database. Using your database to categorise customers can provide valuable insight into your customer base and enhance your marketing campaigns. A good database can be exploited as a marketing tool to help increase your company’s sales while email is a low-cost way to spread the word about your business. With 9 out of 10 marketing professionals polled in the 2015 DMA National Client Report stating that email is ‘important’ or ‘very important’ it’s worthwhile taking time to plan out exactly how you intend to use it to ensure you reap the benefits. Email is described as the workhorse of digital marketing and was consistently ranked as the single-most-effective tactic for awareness, acquisition and conversion in a Gigaom Research paper, and was sited by 56% of respondents as the most effective tactic for retention.

What Is an Email Database?

An email database is a collection or list of the names and email addresses of your business’ actual and potential customers. It can be compiled by collecting the addresses of people who express interest in your company or products and from those who purchase products from you. Email-marketing databases can also be purchased for use in marketing campaigns, but these are generally less useful than emails acquired directly by your company.

The list is generally stored within an email delivery software service or a CRM (customer relationship manager) software program from which bulk emails can be sent.

Why Is an Email Database so Important to My Business?

Email marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing when measured in terms of conversion rate, that is the number of individuals who receive and view the emails and go on to actually purchase a product or ask for more information about the products or services offered. Adobe Campaign has found that Americans are “practically addicted to email” and that more than half of the millennials they canvassed even check emails from the bathroom and 58% of Americans prefer emails over other marketing touch points This is why making your email database as extensive as possible is crucial: doing so gives you a ready-made audience you can provide with relevant information about sales, special offers, new products and any other information that is likely to drive sales of your products.

Email Marketing is so effective because it provides:

• Better conversion and click-through (CTR) rates than other forms of marketing: Conversion rates and click-through rates help determine the efficacy of online marketing campaigns. Email marketing has consistently outperformed other forms of marketing such as banner ads and social media marketing in this regard. Because consumers are more likely to open and view emails than other forms of marketing, conversion rates are also higher with this form of marketing.
• Longer shelf time: Unlike banner ads, which are only good for as long as you pay to have them up, emails typically attract consumer views for a number of days and even weeks after they are sent out. In addition, even if they aren’t acted on right away, they can be saved for later access.
• Opt–in sign-up: Most email lists consist of consumers who have opted-in in order to receive information about a company’s product offerings. As a result, they represent a group that is more likely to be interested in purchasing a company’s products than consumers reached via traditional advertising efforts.
• Mobile access: With consumers increasingly consuming media on mobile devices, the ability of email marketing to consistently reach this audience helps its success rate. Unlike forms of advertising such as TV or newspapers which are not always easy to access on a mobile device, emails are typically easier to view, improving the success rate corresponding to their usage.
• Repeat business: By regularly staying in touch with your list you encourage customers to continue to do business with your company. Unlike impulse buying, which generally results in short term sales, repeat business from loyal customers provides your business with a steady level of ongoing revenue. Continuous email contact is a proven method of encouraging this type of behaviour.

How to Capture Email Addresses?

There are a variety of methods for adding email addresses to your database. One of the best ways to do so is to add a landing page or other functionality to your website where those who would like to receive further information about your products, special deals and the like can enter their email address. You can also encourage followers of your company on social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, to sign up for your mailing list by directing them to your website via links on those sites.

Email address mailing lists can also be purchased. While these lists generally don’t feature conversion rates as attractive as lists you have built organically, they can be useful if they are chosen to contain addresses of consumers who are likely to be interested in the products your company offers.

Including those mentioned above, methods for capturing email addresses include:

• Website opt-in landing page: Allows visitors to sign up to receive emails from your company, can be located on single or multiple pages, can be timed to pop up after a pre determined period e.g. 5 seconds.
• Competitions and prizes: Offering prizes to incentivise individuals to provide their email information is also a good way to quickly build your email database.
• Social media: Communications on social media such as tweets and Facebook posts containing links to your website or a specific landing page where interested parties can enter their email information.
• Physical sign-up: If your business has a brick and mortar presence or if you have a partnership agreement with a business the sales person can hand out a sign-up sheet or ask customers and prospects for their email address as a why to keep them up to with new products and offerings.
• Purchasing email lists: This is typically the most expensive way to build your email database. However, it does provide a way to quickly add names to your list when necessary. If you choose this route, the following considerations should be taken into account:

• Acquire current emails: Make sure any email list you purchase has a high percentage of current, valid emails.
• Topicality: The more targeted the list the better. Try to acquire emails of consumers who have expressed an interest in the type of products your company offers.
• Opt-in emails: Lists compiled of consumers who have expressed an interest in receiving information should be used whenever possible. Using non opt-in lists increases the chances of being reported as a spammer, even when opt-out links are offered in email marketing communications.

Once you’ve collected emails, you will need to store them in a database which makes it easy to use them in your email marketing campaigns. There are a variety of CRM (customer relationship manager) programs available to do just this covering SME’s to enterprise level, including AWeber, Salesforce to name a few.

What Type of Information Should Go in My Database?

A variety of information helping you categorise and selectively target different groups of prospects should be captured in your database. These include:

• Name
• Address
• Location (City, Post Code, Address)
• Type of products interested in
• Type of products purchased (if relevant)

How Do I Drive Sales from My Email Database?

Once you’ve built your email database it’s time to put it to use. There are a variety of ways you can utilise it to help drive business. These include:

Sales: Let your audience know when a sale is occurring. Consumers love a bargain, and email contact offers one of the most efficient ways to let people know when they have a chance to get one.

Special offers and prizes: Give those on your list a chance to benefit from letting you send them emails. Notify your list that they have a chance to take advantage of a special offer only for those on the list. Or offer prizes for those who take certain actions, such as mentioning your business online, or referring a friend.

Include links: Don’t just tell your list about a sale or special offer, enable them to take part by providing links so they can order your products online.

Provide business updates: Every email communication doesn’t have to revolve around selling product. Notifying your list about important updates and milestones your business has achieved helps keep your audience engaged and increases customer loyalty. This can include things like the debut of a new product, or other important developments. If you publish a company blog you can use your email list to notify your audience when a new blog is published.

Feature customer stories / case studies: Another method of building consumer engagement in, and loyalty to, your company is to provide information about how other customers have made use of your products. This is another soft-sell approach that increases engagement and helps build customer loyalty to your brand.

Building a strong database has been shown to pay dividends and with a raft of new marketing and sales applications being developed, including the rise of Marketing Automation, so keep in mind that in order to capitalise on these exciting technologies you will need to set up an email database and CRM

source: https://bomamarketing.com/2017/01/19/how-do-i-build-an-effective-email-database-for-my-business/

How to Build an Email List from Scratch (Top Tips From an Expert)

Geoff Roberts has a long history in digital marketing. He advises companies about how to improve their digital marketing game, co-founded Outseta, and served as the VP of marketing for Bizness Apps and Roambi. His consultancy, SaaS Growth Strategy, specifically targets companies in the SaaS space.

What would you tell marketers who are just learning how to build an email list?

When you’re first learning how to build an email list, the process can seem intimidating. You might not know exactly where to start.

Geoff offers three main suggestions for new marketers who need to build an email list from scratch. You can use these strategies to create strong relationships with your audience and to accelerate your list-building campaign.

“Set email list-building expectations up front”

Consumers are careful with their contact information. They won’t opt in to receive marketing messages unless they perceive clear value.

Geoff advises entrepreneurs to “make it crystal clear to visitors why they should subscribe to your email list and what they’ll get if they do.” He says, “A simple ‘Sign-up for our email list’ call-to-action is destined to fall flat on its face.”

I couldn’t agree more. People don’t just want to sign up for your email list. They want to get special offers, get insider information, and learn from your expertise.

Geoff uses his own lead-capture form from his website as an example of how to set clear expectations for your visitors.

This lead-capture form tells subscribers exactly what they get. They know how frequently they’ll hear from Outseta and what each email will contain.

You can do the same thing with your own lead-capture form. You might have a different email marketing strategy — sending just one email per month, for instance — and different incentives, but you have to be clear about your value proposition.

“Deliver as much value as you possibly can.”

According to Geoff, value is the machine that drives any email marketing campaign.

“Churn kills SaaS businesses, and the same is true when building your email list  — the fastest way to grow is to make sure that, when you do get a new subscriber, they stick around and don’t unsubscribe.”

Geoff makes an excellent point that learning how to build an email list isn’t just about acquiring new subscribers. That’s just the beginning of the battle.

Once you have a subscriber, you must keep him or her happy. Follow through on the expectations you set forth when convincing subscribers to sign up.

Geoff goes on to say, “The good news is [that] the fastest way to get new email subscribers and to keep them around is to provide enormous value. Whether you are offering free tools, e-books, or blog posts — it really doesn’t matter. What matters is the quality of your offering.”

We’ve talked about lead magnets and value-driven email marketing before here on the Crazy Egg blog. When you generously give value to your subscribers, they’ll look forward to your emails, open them, and interact with them.

Geoff stresses the importance of solving specific problems and helping your subscribers achieve their goals. Figure out what your audience wants, then deliver.

“Don’t interrupt the visitor’s experience with irrelevant offers.”

Perfecting user experience is an important part of conversion rate optimization (CRO). You don’t want to interrupt or distract visitors when they land on your site. Instead, you want to serve up a fantastic experience that guides them to the action you want them to take.

For instance, Geoff points out popups as potentially distracting elements on a website. He recommends their use on e-commerce sites, but less so on SaaS sites. He says, “You won’t see any pop-ups on our website. While we may miss out on some emails as a result, my argument is [that] this benefits our brand [and] our credibility, and keeps the bounce rate of our site visitors down.”

When you interrupt the user experience, you risk bounces. Consumers don’t have much patience these days, so they’ll exit a site if they get annoyed.

This doesn’t mean you can’t use tools to help capture more emails. Geoff says, “I’d encourage you to use persistent bars at the top or bottom of your page for these offers, as they are less disruptive than pop-ups. Hello Bar is an easy-to-use tool that can help with this.”

What are the top one or two mistakes marketers make that turn off readers from subscribing?

Building on that last point, I asked Geoff about common mistakes marketers make when figuring out how to build an email list from scratch. He responded concisely with two major errors that can result in fewer subscribers:

“The top one that comes to mind is scraping emails off the web and entering them into an email list they didn’t sign up for. The second would simply be over-communicating with your list. Both hurt your credibility and result in your subscribers tuning you out or unsubscribing altogether.”

I feel the exact same way. My own email list is one of my most important marketing assets, so I don’t abuse it. People sign up for my list, and those are the only people who receive my emails. Additionally, I don’t send out an email unless I have something important to say.

More importantly, every email contains value. I genuinely want to help my subscribers, so I’m cognizant of their needs and expectations.

source: https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/how-build-email-list/

What are the Benefits of Building an Email List?

An email list is a database of email subscribers who have opted in to receive promotional messages from your company.

Some people use deceptive practices to build an email list — such as buying email subscribers — but it’s best to collect emails from people who really want to hear from you.

Geoff Roberts says, “The best email list building strategies really boil down to two common denominators: Creating a relevant user experience with conversion in mind, and providing as much value as possible to your website visitors.”

What are the positive results companies have seen from investing in this marketing strategy?

He goes on to say: “If you use these concepts as your compass when you begin building your email list, you’ll realize better results than you will by focusing on any one particular hack or deceptive form of email capture trickery.”

How do you put those ideas into motion? First, don’t buy email subscribers or spam people who haven’t specifically requested to hear from you. Second, use the best strategies to build an email list from scratch.

Let’s look at some of Geoff Roberts’s most effective tips for achieving those goals.

source: https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/how-build-email-list/

7 reasons using email marketing to grow your business

Today’s marketers need to do more with less. They needs to connect with their audience in a highly personalized way, while staying on budget. Marketers that can do this—connect with their prospects and customers in a highly targeted way—will be successful in delivering ROI and revenue back to the business.

As the VentureBeat report illustrates, no marketing category has the longevity of email marketing. While some marketing trends come and go, email remains the most powerful channel available to the modern marketer.

Here are 7 reasons why:

1. Email has larger reach.

With Facebook boasting over 1 billion active users and Twitter boasting 255 million, it’s tempting to believe that social media is the most effective way to reach the masses. These are impressive numbers, but what isn’t so frequently shared are the statistics on email usage.

The total number of worldwide email accounts was 3.9 billion in 2013, and projected to reach 4.9 billion by 2017, according to Radicati.

While this might seem surprising at first, think about your own online behavior: When you sign up for a website (like an online store), you have to enter your email address to create the account. You even need an email address to create a Facebook or Twitter account. What’s more, Facebook and Twitter email to notify users of activity, like when someone is tagged in a photo.

Email is the currency of the web, and anybody who’s online has an active email address. And while Facebook and Twitter might seem pretty ubiquitous, the ongoing struggle over data breaches and privacy means plenty of people are exiting some social media channels.

So when it comes to connecting with your prospects and customers, there’s no channel with a wider reach than email.

2. Email delivers your message.

If marketers have to choose between adding a subscriber to their email list, or gaining a new Facebook fan, they should go for the email subscriber every time.

There are two key reasons why:

First, 90% of email gets delivered to the intended recipient’s inbox, whereas only 2% of your Facebook fans see your posts in their News Feed. This is because Facebook limits the number of times your posts appear in the News Feed in an attempt to drive brands towards their paid advertising options.

This is a big deal when it comes to getting your messages in front of your desired audience.

On Facebook, if you post an update to your 10,000 fans only about 200 of them will even have a chance of seeing it in their News Feed. Alternatively, if you send an email campaign to 10,000 subscribers at least 9,000 of them will receive it in their inbox.

This means your message is 45 times more likely to be seen using email than Facebook.

Secondly, your email subscribers have explicitly told you they want to hear from you when they signed up for your email list.

There are strict laws and regulations around SPAM laws, so if you’re emailing a prospect or customer, it’s because they gave you their permission. Now think about the ads in your Facebook News Feed – did you ask those companies to market to you?

Probably not. More than likely, you performed a Google search or visited their website. That’s decidedly different than proactively signing up from an email newsletter.

Email is proven to ensure your audience gets your message.

3. Email drives conversions.

Most marketers are laser focused on driving conversions. Regardless of whether they do so in the form of leads, sales, memberships, or a metric unique to your business strategy, the ultimate goal for marketers is to turn potential customers into paying customers.

And when it comes to conversions, there isn’t a more powerful channel than email.

In fact, the average click-through rate of an email campaign is around 3% (of total recipients), whereas the average click-through rate from a tweet is around 0.5%.

This means you are 6x more likely to get someone to click through to your website via email than you are from Twitter. As discussed earlier, your email subscribers have told you they want to hear from you and this isn’t typically the case with social.

4.24% of visitors from email marketing buy something as compared to 2.49% of visitors from search engines and 0.59% from social media, according to a survey conducted by Monetate.

What’s more, email is highly measurable. Campaign Monitor customers have real-time access to metrics like opens, clicks, bounces, forwards, social shares, and more.

Additionally, those who integrate their email marketing into a CRM like Salesforce can see firsthand how their email marketing impacts business opportunities and deals.

As a marketer focused on nurturing leads and driving conversions—as most marketers are—email marketing trumps all other communication channels for business.

4. Email has a higher ROI.

Given email’s unmatched ability to drive conversions, it makes sense that email is also the most effective marketing channel to drive ROI for your company. In fact, email marketing yields an average 3,800% return on investment for businesses and for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return on investment is $38.

It’s clear from these statistics that email is a cost-effective channel for marketers, but why does it outperform other channels so significantly when it comes to ROI?

It comes down to delivering highly personalized and relevant messages. Unlike social networks where you send status updates to every follower regardless of their location, interests & purchase history, email allows you to be hyper-targeted with your communications.

The more data you have about your customers in an email marketing tool like Campaign Monitor—including insights pulled in from integrated systems like your CRM, customer service solution, etc—the more targeted you can be.

Campaign Monitor customer Rip Curl utilized segmentation and dynamic content to deliver the right message to the right person. For example, they know the gender of their subscribers and where they are located geographically, so they can ensure that females in the United States receive a promotion about bathing suits during the summer months and males in Australia receive an email about wetsuits during the winter months.

This use of segmentation and dynamic content helps to ensure the content they send is relevant to every individual recipient and that relevance drives people to click-through, make purchases – and increase the ROI of their email marketing campaigns.

5. Email is the preferred communication channel.

For many, social networks are a personal form of communication used to keep up to date with friends & family. When people log in to their social media accounts, they’re there to see photos and updates from people they know and care about.

Email, on the contrary, is a much more professional medium and people expect to receive information about products and services through that channel.

In fact, studies show 72% people prefer to receive promotional content through email, compared to 17% who prefer social media.

6. Email is an open platform.

Over the past few years, many brands have invested millions of dollars into buying large social followings in order to be able to communicate and engage with an audience.

But while businesses are investing in various social media platforms, Facebook has frequently updated its algorithm to reduce the amount of followers who will see a brand’s post, unless those posts are paid advertisements.

This practice has become so prevalent that 98% of brand followers will never see the posts in their News Feeds. Twitter seems to be moving in a similar direction with the announcement it will introduce an algorithm-controlled feed as well.

The issue with channels like Facebook and Twitter is they’re owned and controlled by third parties which means marketers are at the mercy of changes the platforms make to their platform.

Meanwhile, email isn’t owned or controlled by any one particular entity. It’s an open communication platform and there are a multitude of services that provide access to send and receive email.

The diverse array of companies involved in email marketing ensures that no one party can make changes that would have a widespread effect, and unlike Facebook or Twitter, if you invest the time and money into building and cultivating a great email list, your subscriber list will be an asset you own. Thus you’ll be able to leverage your list without the threat of someone limiting its effectiveness.

7. Email will be around forever.

Remember MySpace? What?

The once-hot site was the largest social networking site in the world between 2005 and 2008, and in June 2006 surpassed Google as the most visited website in the United States. Yet where is MySpace now? All those users eventually moved on to other social networks, and the site is now the 1,500th most popular website in the United States.

Imagine investing significant amounts of time and money to build an audience on a platform only to find it a ghost town just a year or two later. The impact on your ability to reach and engage potential customers would be catastrophic.

On the other hand, email has a long history of stability. The first promotional email campaign was sent in 1978 to a total of 400 people and email has been growing consistently since.

Interestingly, the email space itself has evolved from a time where you needed a developer to build an email to today, where tools like Campaign Monitor empower the modern marketer to create and send beautiful branded emails with ease. This shift has put the power of business email into the hands of more people.

Building your email list, unlike building a social media following, is a stable long-term investment that will pay off for many years to come.

You can find out more email marketing plan here.

source: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/why-email/

Why Email Marketing Today

Remember the movie, You’ve Got Mail? You know the one where Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan fall in love with each other after exchanging emails? Though that film hit theaters in 1998, it still demonstrates why email marketing remains one of the most important communication tools in today’s society.

AOL may be obsolete, but email sure isn’t!

Though small business owners may not be looking for love online, they certainly are looking for ways to connect and build relationships with their leads and customers. And if you’re not using email marketing to do that, you may be missing out on a powerful opportunity.

But you may be wondering, can email marketing really make a difference in your business?

Well, to answer that question, we’ve put together a list of just a few reasons why email marketing is one of the best digital marketing tactics that a small business can invest in.

Consumers Prefer Email

The number one reason why email marketing is a no-brainer for companies is because consumers prefer email. Most small businesses are working with limited marketing budgets, which means that they can’t waste time with marketing tactics that won’t resonate well with their target market. While social media has become a popular way for small businesses to communicate with their audience, brands sometimes just can’t get the organic reach they are looking for through these channels. However, social media isn’t the only answer. Email also provides a professional and direct medium that allows businesses to reach out to their leads and customers.

What’s more is that most consumers actually prefer to communicate with brands through email. The most probable reason is because it is permission based. The people on your list actually signed up because they want to get updates from you. They’re interested in learning more about your brand including your promotions and discounts. And that alone makes email marketing such an effective strategy to reach your consumers. In fact, one study from Marketing Sherpa reports that 72% of consumers prefer to receive promotional messages through email.

When it comes to business promotional content, consumers prefer to be contacted through email.

You may be wondering why consumers prefer receiving updates from brands through email. Here are just a few reasons why we think email marketing works so well with the modern consumer:

• It’s convenient. With access to email right on their smartphone, most consumers find this type of communication very convenient. Not only can consumers stay connected with their favorite brands wherever they are, but they can easily redeem any coupon codes or other special offers right from their phone.
• It’s personal. Today’s consumer is bombarded with marketing messages, and they tend to respond best to those that are personalized and relevant. With this marketing strategy, you can personalize your messages and content based on the subscribers preferences and buying patterns. Email segmentation makes it easy to deliver the most relevant offers and content to the consumer.
• It’s instant. Consumers like the ability to get information about exclusive offers and last minute deals. Sending email campaigns allows your small business to instantly and directly get the word out about these sales and promotions so that your consumers can take advantage of the opportunity to save.  

Now that you know why email marketing is so popular with consumers, it’s important to understand how often they prefer to receive email communications and what types of email communications you should deliver. Many studies have shown that email users prefer to receive marketing emails just once a week. This frequency allows you to communicate consistently without overwhelming your subscribers.

When it comes to the types of email messages that consumers like to receive, there are a few different reasons why consumers generally sign up for email communications from brands:

• Coupons and Sales Promotions
• Loyalty or Rewards Programs
• Company News and Updates
• Contests and Sweepstakes
• Free Content like E-Books
• Products or Service Information
• Exclusive Peeks at New Products

The only way to know for sure what types of content resonate with your unique target audience is to track the success of your email campaigns over time. Track metrics such as open rates, click through rates, and conversions to see which types of content your subscribers respond to best. Unsubscribe rate patterns can also help you better understand what types of content your audience is not so interested in.  

Email Helps You Reach More Mobile Consumers

It’s no secret that today’s consumer has become increasingly more mobile, proving yet another reason why email marketing is ideal for reaching your customer. Though not all consumers shop from their smartphone, many will check their email from these devices. In fact, reading and sending emails is one of the most popular activities for smartphone users, beating out web browsing, the Facebook app, and even apps for maps or directions.

Mobile device users tend to use their devices often to check their email, including marketing messages from brands like yours!

The popularity of email on mobile devices makes email marketing the ideal tactic for small businesses that want to reach their mobile consumers. Unlike creating an app or SMS marketing, this kind of online marketing does not require small businesses to invest a significant amount in new technology or different types of software. In addition, it allows your business to reach beyond smartphones to connect with consumers on other types of mobile devices like tablets.

Now that you know why email marketing is essential for reaching mobile customers, let’s talk about optimizing your emails for these devices. As you can see from the infographic below, 48% of emails are opened on mobile devices, and 69% of mobile users will delete emails that aren’t optimized for their device. This means that if you are not working to optimize your marketing emails for mobile then you may be missing out on the opportunity to reach these mobile consumers.

If you want to get the most out of your marketing emails and know why email marketing works, then it’s vital that your email content is optimized for mobile devices.

There are a few things that you should keep in mind when developing mobile-friendly emails:

• Keep it simple. Use a clean and simple email design that translates well to a smaller screen. Start with a responsive template that you know subscribers will be able to read on their mobile devices.
• Limit your images. Images are a great way to engage your audience. However, you should be limit the amount of images in your email messages. Too many images can take a long time to load, and larger images may not be viewable on a smaller screen without excessive scrolling.
• Optimize your text. Not only do you need to pay attention to the images that you use in your email messages, but you will also have to be conscious about your text. You want it to be easy to read and scroll through on a smaller device screen. Make sure the message gets to the point right away and avoid using long paragraphs.
• Use CTA buttons. When it comes to your email call-to-action, use a button instead of a link. Buttons are easier to click on a touchscreen device than links. Make the button large enough for those with larger fingers to easily click and navigate to the next step in the buyers journey.

More and more consumers are going mobile every day. If you want to catch the attention of this growing audience, your small business should invest in email marketing that’s optimized for mobile device users.

Email Marketing has More Features

Social media marketing may be a hit now but we can’t deny the fact that it has its own limitations. For instance, social media posts and ads have limited characters and fields. You need to convey your message in a short, concise manner so as not to violate the social media ads’ requirement.

On the other hand, emails are more interactive. You can use the full features of HTML. And you can also personalize the content. Plus, the media that you can include is unlimited.

Email Marketing is Affordable

Most small businesses are working with a limited budget, which means that they need to find the most affordable ways to reach and engage their audience. Email marketing is a cost-effective digital marketing tactic that takes very little investment to get started. Additionally, it is also relatively inexpensive to maintain over time, allowing small businesses to get more for their marketing spend.

It’s no surprise why so many small business owners are eager to start developing email marketing campaigns.

While traditional marketing tactics like print and TV ads or direct mail can cost thousands of dollars over the course of a year, email marketing allows small businesses to reach a wide audience for just pennies per recipient. Such a significant ROI allows you to do more with less, which why email marketing is great for small businesses that are working with smaller budgets.

The costs involved with this marketing strategy are relatively few. That being said, the exact costs of your campaigns will depend on a few different factors, including what resources you have in-house. In addition to creating an email strategy and identifying campaign opportunities, you will also need to decide on who will create the marketing content and implement your campaigns.

Businesses Achieve High Email Marketing ROI

Now that you know how affordable email marketing can be for your organization, let’s talk about ROI. One of the top reasons why email marketing is so effective for small businesses is that it provides a strong return on investment. No matter how tight your small business marketing budget may be, you can still take advantage of the immense benefits that email marketing provides.

Consumers who receive marketing emails tend to spend more, providing an attractive ROI for small businesses.

Though the actual percentage of email marketing ROI will vary from business to business, there are a number of ways why email marketing provides value for small business owners:

• Email marketing increases company revenue. The most obvious way that email marketing helps provide a positive ROI for small businesses is by helping to increase revenue. Email allows you to reach a wide and willing audience while also keeping costs relatively low, leading to positive revenues.
• Email drives more traffic to your company website. Another way that email provides a return on investment is by helping drive more traffic to your company’s website. Email subscribers are more likely to be qualified leads, which means that this traffic is relevant, increasing the chances of conversion.
• Email marketing can improve sales conversions. Marketing emails work well as part of your lead nurturing campaigns as they can help move leads through the marketing funnel quickly and effectively. This means that email marketing is an effective way to improve sales conversions.
• Email helps you improve brand awareness. Increasing visibility and building relationships with your target consumers is an important part of not only landing new sales but sustaining repeat sales over time. Email campaigns like email marketing newsletters help you build brand awareness, which contributes to sustainable growth over time.

When you are working with a limited marketing budget, it’s important that you get the most for your marketing spend. Email marketing helps small businesses get a significant return on their marketing investment, no matter how limited their budget may be.  

Email Integrates Well with Other Tactics

Yet another one of the top benefits of email marketing for small businesses is that it integrates well with other marketing tactics. Email does not have to be used in a vacuum. Small businesses can create marketing emails to meet a variety of marketing goals and use email to support a number of other campaigns. This allows them to get the most out of their marketing spend.

For example, email marketing integrates well with social media marketing. If you are running a social media contest or giveaway, you can drum up excitement for the campaign through email. Additionally, you can use email marketing to grow your social media audience by including social share buttons and CTAs within your email content.

Email marketing is versatile, allowing small business owners to integrate this tactic into their other digital marketing campaigns like social media.

Another way that email marketing can be integrated with other tactics is by offering your business a platform for promoting new content. Content marketing is a vital part of any digital marketing strategy as it allows your business to educate, entertain, and connect with your leads and customers. However, your content marketing is only effective if you have a way of getting your content assets in front of your leads. Email is an effective way to promote this content across your target market, allowing you to get more eyes on your content and drive more traffic back to your site.

Don’t let the intricacies of email marketing hold you back from using this tactic to grow your business.

Has email marketing got you scratching your head?  check out email marketing services page. Still have a question? Leave it in the comments below, and one of our experts will be happy to answer you.

source: https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/why-email-marketing/