As with many things in digital, there’s always reports surrounding the imminent death of email in the near future. The social media frenzy has been thought to be the nail in the email coffin, but year after year, email is still here, still works and we want to share with you all exactly why!
If I was to tell you email had a return on investment of 3,800%, would you believe me? At the start of 2016, there was a 59.7% increase in email marketing spend across the world, with email marketing in use by 82% of B2B and B2C companies. There’s a reason so many people continue to include email marketing in their marketing budget every years.
How often do you check your emails? Most people can agree that they have at least one email account open in a browser for the majority of each day. So why do people think that email is on its way out?
It is often assumed that people get sick of being ‘spammed’ or they need to keep up with the latest social media platform taking over your phone. Did you know the average order value of an email is at least 3 times higher than that of social media? You are also 6 times more likely to get a click-through from an email campaign than you are from a tweet, which creates greater traffic to your website leading to greater sales opportunities. From this, you’ll increase your customer acquisition by 40 times, compared to social media.
Although exposure on Social Media platforms can greatly influence branding, how good are these ads if they are in the wrong hands? How many of these ‘likes’ are actually leading to sales, ROI and customer engagement?
Email exists outside of the timeline algorithms that control what you see on social media and solely relies on the sustained interest of your subscribers. Social media marketing’s target is incredible different, in that it can only be targeted to a certain extent and many times people rely on showing ads to as many people as quickly as possible.
Email marketing has a unique ability to reach a targeted audience that you have developed yourself, instead of depending on a pre-made audience of people who have similar interests. As you continue to develop and increase your subscriber list, you can segment this audience to further understand purchase habits to personalise products and services.
Personalised email messages improve click-through rates by an average of 14% and improve conversions by 10% which is why email continues to be successful as digital channels with monotonous information don’t gain the same engagement. With so many people using a wide range of social platforms, attention spans are scatterbrained and you really have to make sure that your information ‘speaks’ to the subscriber. Tailoring your content puts your company on the individual’s radar and leads to an increase in engagement.
Email also has the ability to be automated. You can target subscribers who haven’t opened campaigns, or those who click a specific link and catching these groups can also increase email ROI. Automated email messages average 70.5% higher open rates and 152% higher click-through rates than ‘business as usual’ marketing messages with 95% of companies using this type of email marketing.
Email is by far one of the most commonly used but under-appreciated marketing channels around. It not only gives you the opportunity to target your own specific audience but also has a greater ability to create sales, engagement and brand interaction. It is by far the digital industries best kept secret!
If you want to have a chat about your email ROI, get into contact with us today!