How email marketing still packs a mighty punch
By Mike Stephenson
Social media are all the rage and represent important marketing tools.
But those tools should be used to build relationships with potential customers. Among the best ways to do that is to use social media to build your email marketing list. Only 4 percent of companies rate their email performance as excellent, according to Hubspot Academy’s Email Marketing Certification course, but the average person checks his or her email 74 times a day.
Email has been around since 1972 and often is overshadowed by social media, but email is more effective at driving sales. The ROI on email marketing is $38 for every $1 spent, according to research by Campaign Monitor, an email marketing and automation software provider. The firm also reports a reader is six times more likely to click through an email link than one on Twitter. Readers are five times more likely to see email messages than those on Facebook, according to the Radicati Group, a technology market research firm.
“If you land in their inbox, you have their undivided attention if they open it,” said author and Boom! Social CEO Kim Garst at AMA Tampa Bay’s November luncheon.
Buying email lists doesn’t promote engagement and isn’t a good use of resources. Instead, marketers should build lists from website visits and social media, using links and icons on each social account to entice people to join. Offering a discount, webinar or white paper that requires providing an email address can boost your list. The email list is something you own and can be a company asset not subject to the whims of a social media algorithm or platform rules.
Email not only provides a good ROI, but it also allows your company to build its database and market in a more personal way than social media. Personalized connections are a key to driving sales.
“Email marketing isn’t just the No. 1 digital marketing channel, it’s also companies’ top source of data for analytics,” said Chad White, the author of Email Marketing Rules and Research Director at Litmus, a web-based email creation, testing, and analytics platform. LINK: “So it’s not only a powerful channel on its own, but the data generated from email marketing helps power other marketing efforts by providing actionable data insights.”
Key Takeaways
- Email marketing brings a strong ROI.
- Social media can be key to building your email list.
- Email engagement can help build your database and allow more personalized marketing.
Coming up
Facebook Live and Periscope are two of the newest marketing tools. But could you be breaking the law? Kerry O’Shea Gorgone discusses the legalities every marketer should know about live streaming Dec. 8 at AMA Tampa Bay’s monthly luncheon.
Mike Stephenson spent 23 years as an editor at the Tampa Bay Times where he served on the email newsletter committee and initiated a newsletter about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He does freelance editing and writes personal histories through his website, stephensonstories.com. He recently completed Hubspot Academy’s Email Marketing certification course.