Email marketing is dead. How many times have you heard that statement over the course of the past decade? First, social media was supposed to replace it. Then, texting looked to take preference. And yet, here we are, only a few days away from 2018, and the concept is still alive and kicking.
In fact, it’s doing much more than that. As you watch Halloween movies, you cannot help but be reminded of a zombie that just won’t be killed, and only becomes more powerful instead. In reality, in an age when everyone is tired of spam and traditional advertising is on the verge of collapse, email offers the strongest return on investment of any marketing tactic available today.
How could that be? How could the same medium that is so hated, entire comedians have made their career out of mocking its worst users, also return $44 for every dollar spent on it? We have a few ideas.
Email Today is Not Email Yesterday
Email spammers still exist, but they almost seem like they came straight out of a time machine. Today, email marketing has become much more sophisticated, focusing on relevance over exposure and value over dishonesty.
In other words, the days of simply blasting a spam message to thousands of recipients are over. To be effective today, you need to make sure every recipient actually finds the email relevant to their unique situations, questions, and pain points. It’s the only way to ensure that your messages get the attention they need to drive conversions and customers.
Investment Can Be Minimal
Another reason for the effectiveness of email lies on the other side of the equation. Put simply, it’s easier to get a high return if your initial investment is low.
As long as you find effective ways to grow a relevant email list, the costs of actually using this channel for promotion are diminishing. Some email services, in fact, allow you to send free messages under certain subscriber threshold. Nurturing your existing contacts with relevant messages costs little, but brings big returns.
Targeting and Tracking Advantages
As email marketing has become more sophisticated, so have its possibilities for those who know how to take advantage of them. For instance, you can easily segment your audience list to send a number of targeted messages, rather than a single blast.
Similarly, you can track not only the open and click-through rates of your emails, but also your conversions. Especially with email software that is integrated into your website, conversion tracking allows you to get a better idea of how exactly your individual messages perform. Make adjustments and your success will grow over time.
Turning Email into the Hero of Your Digital Strategy
None of that, of course, is a given today. You only have to open your inbox to see countless examples of email marketing gone wrong. We send and receive more than 200 emails every day, so consider those the members of the zombie army that die easily at first contact.
But then, there’s the rest. There are the messages that cut through the clutter, somehow speaking directly to your current needs, and answering relevant questions. If you think about it, those emails are far from zombies. They’re the real heroes of digital marketing, resurrected again and again to prevail against competitors like social media and texting.
Exaggerated? Maybe. A bit tacky? Definitely. And no matter whether you see emails as zombies, heroes, or simply a valuable marketing tactic, one thing is for sure: if you use them right, they have the potential to propel your strategy to the next level of business growth.
To learn more about how to improve your marketing strategies, give us a call at 661-702-1310!
