Compared to other marketing strategies for business growth, email rarely gets the attention it deserves. Email has been around for years, so it’s not always as exciting to business leaders as things like social media or podcast creation.
But the evidence constantly shows that email campaigns and newsletters deliver benefits no business leader can afford to ignore.
In fact, 40% of B2B marketers say newsletters are essential to their content marketing success, and 73% of millennials prefer all business communications to come in the form of email.
What’s more, while it’s easy for customers to switch off from other forms of brand messaging, like blogs, social posts and videos, 99% of consumers check their email every day.
Let’s take a look at some of the biggest benefits of email campaigns and newsletters, to discover why every business leader should be investing in the power of email.
1. Email Builds and Nurtures Relationships
80% of small businesses say they rely on email for their customer retention strategies. Part of building a successful business in today’s world is developing strong, consistent relationships with your customers. You can only do that if you have a way to regularly connect with your audience.
Email newsletters give you an easy way to keep customers up-to-date with everything that’s happening in your organization. You can create campaigns to promote new products or services, share links to blog posts and podcasts, and even make announcements over email.
What’s more, with the right email marketing strategy, you can even connect with customers at every stage of their purchasing journey, gradually convincing them to buy more from your brand. For instance, if you join the KonMari email list, you’ll instantly receive a series of emails, starting with a welcome email, followed by messages tailored to your interests.
2. It Drives Website Traffic
Your website is the digital “storefront” for your business, and where you’re likely to capture most of your conversions and revenue. With that in mind, you should always be looking for ways to drive people back to your site as often as possible.
Email is an excellent way to convince customers to check out your site. You can send messages with links to your latest blog posts, to encourage customers to interact with your content. You could also send messages about special offers and deals to increase your chances of sales.
Email can even help you to bring customers back to your website when they “abandon their cart” or fail to make a purchase. For instance, you can send automated emails to customers when they don’t convert, and even entice them with a quick special offer:
If you want to drive more traffic to your social media accounts, you can do that too, by including social sharing buttons within your email campaigns.
3. Email Allows for Personalization
While email newsletters and campaigns are a great way to engage with your audience, they need to be carefully tailored to deliver the right results. Studies show that personalized emails are opened 82% more often than generic, mass-market blasts.
Fortunately, personalizing your emails can be a lot simpler than you’d think. Most email marketing automation tools come with features which allow you to segment your audience into different groups. This means you can adjust your messaging strategy based on a person’s purchasing history, behavior, location, and countless other factors.
You can even give your customers to choose exactly what kind of content they want to receive when they’re subscribing to your newsletter. With simple forms, you can ask customers what they’re interested in, and what they don’t want to receive from you, to reduce your unsubscribe rate.
4. It’s Cost Effective, and Has a Great ROI
Email newsletters and campaigns are generally a lot easier and more affordable to produce than other marketing efforts. If your business is relatively small, or has some budget constraints, you can get started with email without spending a fortune.
Small investments lead to big results with email marketing. Some studies suggest email can deliver an average ROI of around $36 for every $1 you spend. Those are some big returns for a small initial investment.
You can also experiment with various sales strategies through email, such as upselling and cross-selling, to increase your customer’s average order value.
The key to success is making sure you manage your email strategies correctly.
You’ll need to ensure you’re creating compelling content for your email messages that actively convinces customers to convert and connect with your brand.
5. You’ll Own Your Own Prospect List
One of the best things about email marketing and newsletters, is they help you to find and connect with quality leads. If you’re cautious about cleaning your email list, and attracting the right kinds of subscribers with your landing pages and campaigns, you can focus on generating more quality leads for your sales team, which once again boosts your ROI.
Most importantly, when you collect email subscribers for your list, you maintain ownership over those contacts. While you can reach a wide audience with platforms like social media, if you lose access to your account, you lose all your contacts too.
That’s not the case with email marketing. You maintain full control over your contact list, even if you decide to switch to an email marketing platform.
You’ll even be able to regularly update your email lists, based on statistics about open rates and engagement. This means you avoid wasting money on strategies to connect with customers who aren’t interested in your products or services.
6. Email Helps You Make Better Business Decisions
While email is great for promoting products and services, and increasing sales, it can also be a valuable tool for collecting insights into your target audience. Any business leader knows they need to understand their customers if they want to retain their loyalty.
With email marketing strategies, you can begin to gather insights into your customers you might not find elsewhere. You can use email marketing analytics to collect insights into the kind of content your customers read most often, or which messages get the highest open rates.
You can also use email to directly request feedback from your customers. Sending surveys to buyers and asking for their insights is one of the best ways to pave the way for business growth.
What’s more, the more you commit to gathering feedback from your customers, the more likely you are to earn their trust. A company that values the input of their target audience is always going to build better relationships with clients in the long-term.
Making the Most of Email Marketing
Email might not be the newest or sexiest way to connect with customers in today’s digital world, but it’s something every business should be utilizing. Whether you’re a small company just getting started, or a major corporation with thousands of customers, email works for all organizations.
However, you do need the right strategy. The success of your email newsletters and campaigns will depend on your ability to create amazing content, engage with your audience, and analyze your strategies. You’ll need to be able to run A/B tests to improve your ROI, experiment with different messaging methods, and frequency rates, and learn from every marketing effort.
That’s why working with a VA who can manage your email strategy for you is so helpful. With a VA, you can access end-to-end assistance with everything from email campaign creation, to analysis.
Contact Lune Valley VA today to learn more about how you can unlock the benefits of email newsletters and campaigns for your company.