Email Marketing Is not Dead! Here's Why.

Quick Summary of Email Marketing:?

Email marketing first started in 1978 with the first email marketing campaign receiving over 13 million dollars from 400 businesses. Ever since then, email marketing has evolved immensely and has remained one of the most effective marketing strategies. Small and large businesses, brands, corporations, etc. all use email marketing because of its versatility and effectiveness.??

Value of Email Marketing:

Email marketing provides many benefits to both the user and consumer, when used effectively. One of the main draws to email marketing is the sheer number of people who actively use email (more than 4 billion globally). This gives brands flexibility on how they want to approach their email marketing strategy. Maybe a brand wants to reach a broad spectrum of people or just a small specifced target market (keeping business goals in mind is key to figuring out who you want to target).??

Email marketing has a relatively high return on investment (ROI). It is stated that the average ROI when using email marketing is $36:1. This means that for every one dollar spent, there is a $36 dollar return. While this is the average ROI across all email marketing industries, here are some ROI’s for specific industries:??

• Software & technology: 40:1?

• Marketing, PR, & advertising agency: 42:1?

• Retail, ecommerce, & consumer goods or services: 45:1?

• Media, publishing, events, sports, & entertainment: 45:1?

• Travel, tourism, & hospitality: 53:1?

Another reason why email marketing is valuable is because it allows brands to directly reach their audience. Consumers have the option to sign up for an email list. This gives brands an insight into the specific people who want to receive content revolving around their product/service. This can lead to building a strong relationship between brand and consumer compared to other marketing strategies. ?

Why it's not dead:?

Rather than describing why email marketing isn't dead with a long boring paragraph, I'll just give you a few statistics to persuade you:??

• There are over 4.371 billion email users. This figure is predicted to reach 4.84 billion by 2027 which is a growth of more than 4% yearly. - Radicati Group (2023)?

• The number of email users is still growing. 78.72% of EU individuals aged 16 to 78 use internet to send / receive emails in 2023. Compare this to only 48% in 2007. – Eurostat “Individuals using the internet for sending/receiving e-mails” (2024)?

• 94% of consumers check their email every day. - DMA Consumer Tracker (2023)?

Not persuaded? Here’s some more!?

• DMA research puts the ROI of email marketing in 2018 at US$ 32.28, better than any other direct marketing channel and up from 30.03 the year before. - DMA UK "Marketer email tracker 2018" (2018)?

• The worldwide market for email marketing will reach US $22.16 Bn in 2025. The industry has an expected annual growth rate of 19.60%. - Transparency market research “Email Marketing Global Industry Analysis” (2017)?

• One in five (19%) of consumers said they read every email newsletter they receive just to see if something’s on offer. - Forrester Research "North American technographics survey" (2014)?

If you somehow don't believe me and still think email marketing is dead, check out this article for an abundant more statistics on why it's alive and well!?

Marketing Automation and How its Different/Similar to Email Marketing:

Marketing automation is an email software that is based upon an “If/Then” statement. For example, you send out a link to a special two-for-one offer to your target market. All the people who clicked on the link and purchase something will then receive a thank you follow up email. Additionally, like in the name, marketing automation automates repetitive tasks and can track metrics from digital marketing campaigns across multiple channels?(including emails). Email marketing is a part of marketing automation because it's a vital channel to reach a target audience.?

On the other hand, there are some key differences between email marketing and marketing automation. Marketing automation is based upon user behavior and reaches a broad range of channels. Email marketing is centered around primarily reaching a target audience and potential customers through email with various types of content. ?

What are Some Good Practices to keep in Mind while using Email Marketing?

• Build a strong/nurturing relationships with consumers. Continuously sending personalized messages, special offers, updates on products/services offered, etc to your target market can lead to consumers speaking highly about your brand and engaging more often. This can also lead to higher conversions. ?
• Target people who want to see your content! Nobody wants to be spammed with content they don't want to see so finding the people who want to see your content is important when using email marketing.?
• Make sure your emails are optimized for all devices. Having the designs and other features of your emails optimized for all devices helps streamline your content and will provide a better user experience. ?

While I could go on forever on the best practices for email marketing, here is a great article covering this topic.

Best Practices for Email Marketing List Segmentation:?

Email marketing segmentation refers to brands segmenting their target audience into smaller groups. This is done to make sure their customers are receiving the most optimal content in relation to them.?

Here are some Good Topics to Keep in Mind while Segmenting your Audience: ?

Demographic Segmentation: This refers to the actual characteristics of your audience. Some features to pay attention to (within this segmentation concept) are age, gender, hometown, job, salary, etc. Basically, you are figuring out who the consumer is and where they come from. ?

Behavioral Segmentation: This refers to tracking the buying behavior of customers. Some key features to track are what they are buying, why they are buying the products/services they do, what links they click on, etc. This helps figure out the main intention of why customers are interacting with your products/services.?

Lifestyle Segmentation: This refers to how long a customer has been aware of your brand and where they are in the marketing funnel. This helps us to see how often content should be sent and what kind of content these customers want to see. ?