Email Marketing – Yes You Need To Do It!

Email marketing is the highly effective digital marketing strategy of sending emails to prospects and customers. Effective marketing emails convert prospects into customers, and turn one-time buyers into loyal, raving fans. ~Optinmonster

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The Importance of Email Marketing

Despite the rise of social media and unsolicited spam email (which is never a good marketing strategy, by the way), email remains the most effective way to nurture leads and turn them into customers.
There are many reasons you should make email marketing one of your top priorities, but here are a few of main ones:

• Email is the #1 communication channel. Did you know that at least 99% of consumers check their email on a daily basis? That can’t be said of any other communication channel. In fact, over half of the population in the US over the age of 15 check their email before they do anything else, including checking social media. (Source: Optinmonster)
• You own your list. On any social media platform, your account (along with all your fans and posts) could be suspended or deleted at any time, for any reason, without notice. However, you own your email list. No one can take those leads away from you. That my friend is called an asset.
• Higher Engagement Rate: For the “Big 3” of social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), the engagement rate isn’t even 0.6%. Compare that to email’s average open rate of 22.86% and even its click-through rate of 3.71%. And that’s assuming that your social media followers even saw your post to begin with.
• Email converts better. People who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than those who do not receive email offers. In fact, email marketing has an ROI of 4400%. That’s huge! And if you are wondering if social media converts even better, think again: the average order value of an email is at least three times higher than that of social media.

Email is one of the most effective ways to make sales online. According to MarketingSherpa, about 60% of consumers subscribe to a brand’s list to get promotional messages and deals compared to only 20% that follow brands on social media.

Use email to connect with subscribers with relevant content.

• Engage, tell a story.
• Be authentic to your brand and your message.
• Be respectful and appreciative. Allowing someone into your email inbox is not unlike inviting them into your home. Be gracious

How to Start Email Marketing

Your email list.

You also shouldn’t just email everyone who’s given you a business card as they’re not necessarily likely to purchase from you.

Add a Call-To-Action (CTA) button on your website – SUBSCRIBE! Make it easy for people to click and subscribe. Highlight it in the top navigation bar or header; add it prominently on your home page. I like to have a CTA button in the sidebars of my sites and in the body of the content; that way they’re on every page.  (Like the one below... hey subscribe while you're at it!)

SUBSCRIBE

Ask existing clients to subscribe to your email list. Most will be happy to hear from you as long as you don’t bombard them with emails. Back to that respectful thing I mentioned.

There are a lot of great tips and tools for growing an email list. I’ll cover that in later blog posts.

Email Providers

You can’t just mass email people from your Gmail account. I know it seems like the simple, inexpensive place to start, but no, don’t do it. You’ll be quickly marked as a spammer and you’ll find all of your outbound emails being blocked. Again, just no.

Effective and “best practice” email marketing requires a reputable email service.   Anti-spam law is changing. In the European Union (EU), a new set of rules called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was introduced in May 2018. These new rules affect every email marketer who sends emails to people in Europe.  Eventually, in my opinion, we'll be seeing rules like GDPR being implemented in the US as well. 

A professional email service will give you the ability to manage your email list easily, create opt-out links and follow industry standard protocols.

The other benefit of a reputable email marketing provider is that your campaigns will be mobile-friendly. Mobile has surpassed desktop in email readership and will only continue to grow. Don’t miss an opportunity to connect with a poorly designed email.

Two of my favorites are Constant Contact and Mail Chimp. Personally, at least for the time being, I’m using Mail Chimp. My larger clients are all using Constant Contact.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is one of the largest and fastest growing email marketing service in the world. WPBeginner.com rated Constant Contact as the #1 Email Marketing service in 2019. It is also one of the easiest to use and beginner friendly email marketing services. You can easily manage your email lists, contacts, email templates, marketing calendar, and more.

Mail Chimp

Mail Chimp is great if you have a smaller list or you’re just starting out. Their platform isn’t as robust as that of Constant Contact’s, but it works nicely for a small organization.

Mail Chimp offers a forever free plan which allows you to send 12,000 emails for up to 2,000 subscribers. This plan is fairly limited because you don’t get features like send-time optimization, advanced segmentation, multi-variate testing, etc. You are also required to display their branding in your email.

I can help you with your email marketing strategy. From navigating email marketing providers and developing content down to setting up and integrating subscription forms into your website.  And to make it easy, check out this free trial being offered by Constant Contact!

I cannot stress enough the importance of growing and maintaining an email list. And your list doesn’t have to be big to start, just start. Even if it just consists of a few friends and family. They know people… who know people. Get my drift?

For me, hey at least I know my mom enjoys reading my newsletters. Hopefully you will too.

This post was selected as one of the top digital marketing articles of the week by UpCity, a B2B ratings and review company for digital marketing agencies and other marketing service providers.