Importance of Email Marketing in a Digital Strategy

The digital age where a plethora of platforms have taken a huge leap when it comes to digital marketing, email marketing still remains at the top when it comes to driving results. Many will argue that emails are becoming obsolete amidst the advent of social platforms but the truth is otherwise. In this article, we will talk about the importance of email marketing in a digital strategy. 

Emails are an underappreciated tool for digital marketing but if we look at the stats, an average ROI on email marketing is $39 for every $1 spent. From here you can have an idea of how effective email marketing is for your business.  

You would be in a dilemma whether to use email marketing or other platforms like social media, content marketing, SEO, paid advertising, influencer marketing or any other option. But let me tell you a secret (which is not a secret anymore), for effective results you need to combine them all strategically so your business can derive the desired results. 

Why do you think we are talking about involving email marketing in your business strategy? Here are the reasons:

Direct and personal communication channel

Email is a form of direct and personal communication channel between the business and their customers or potential customers. Social media platforms are thought highly among business owners because they bring more viewers. Social media platforms are definitely an effective way to post your content but sometimes users may miss your content amidst a flood of other ‘interesting’ content. 

On the other hand, email gives you a chance to speak to your audience in  a personal and targeted manner. You do this by creating tailored messages, personalised offers, and specific recommendations based on individual behaviour and preferences. 

Your tailored email campaign speaks privately and directly to them because of the level of their personalization. The right approach could help to generate higher engagement and conversion rates. 

High return on investment (ROI)

As discussed at the starting, email marketing brings an average of $39 for every $1 spent. Now you have an idea of the high return on investment on email marketing. 

There are some key factors that contribute to email marketing’s high ROI including cost-effectiveness, the ability to reach a large number of subscribers, and the potential for personalization and segmentation. The effectiveness of email marketing also depends on creating a solid email strategy which brings in significant return. 

The effort in email marketing is often minimal because you set up effective systems that drove conversation and allow you for automated workflows including welcome series, cart abandonment sequences and re-engagement campaigns. 

Audience segmentation and targeting

With email marketing you tailor the content according to the relevancy of it for your subscribers. Email marketing allows businesses for precise audience segmentation. This allows them to group the subscribers based on interests, demographics, purchasing behaviour or engagement history. When you know your audience you will be able to create content which meets their specificities leading to higher open rates, click-through rates and of course, conversions. 

Let us understand this better with an example. Suppose an e-commerce brand has to launch an email campaign for customers who have made past purchases and for those who have only browsed the website. Now they know that they have to launch the campaign for two different groups. They will create different content for two different email campaigns aligning with the parameters of both the groups of people. 

By tailoring content of your email campaigns, your business will ensure that the email content resonates with the right audience at the right time to make the campaign more effective and efficient. 

Nurturing customer relationships

Emails are one effective way to build strong, long-lasting relationships with customers which is crucial for any business. Email marketing provides an effective platform for nurturing these relations over time and you know you have earned loyalty of your customers for your business. 

Personalised emails, relevant content and timely updates is the right strategic approach to engage with the customers on a regular basis. This will ensure consistent communication with your customers that can ensure to keep your brand top-of-mind. Doing so helps to keep your past customers re-engaged and turn one-time buyers into repeat customers. 

Email marketing is also a valuable marketing strategy to gather feedback from your customers through surveys or direct responses. The feed is crucial to get insights into customer preferences and experiences enabling you to continually refine your digital strategy. 

Allows automation

Automation is the key to scaling and email marketing is an effective way of acquiring customers because it has the ability to automate campaigns. Automated workflows enable businesses to send targeted, timely messages based on customer behaviour. 

Automated campaigns could be for people such as:

Welcome series for those who subscribe to your website. 

Abandoned cart reminders for those who leave items in the cart. 

Product recommendations which are based on customers’ past purchases and browsing history. 

Re-engagement campaigns for inactive subscribers. 

The automation helps by running in the background which means once they are set up, they require little to no manual intervention. Automation is the key to scaling because it allows the marketers to scale their efforts without having to create individual campaigns for every action a customer takes. 

Ownership of your contact list

Think of an email list as an asset whose control is totally in your hands. So, how do users on social media work? Well, they may disappear costing you a user who is maybe interested in your work. And what about the algorithms that are ever changing. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or even LinkedIn are always changing their rules and algorithms which can limit your reach. This can affect your ability to communicate with your audience. 

Email is the list of your subscribers that you own which means you will always have a direct way to connect with your audience (it rarely happens that someone shuts down their email Id). 

Therefore, focus on building and nurturing an email list should be a priority for every business as it could be a long-term asset that could pay dividends over time. 

Data driven campaigns

Email marketing helps businesses to track performance of their campaigns in real-time because of the access to detailed analytics. This enables marketers to monitor open-rates, click-through rates, conversion rates and other metrics to gain insights into customer behaviour. 

Marketers are able to create data driven campaigns by continuously working to optimise their campaigns. This includes testing different subject lines, offers, designs and calls-to-action. Opting for a data-driven approach ensures that each new email campaign is more effective than the last one which helps you to drive your audience by resonating with them. 

Supporting other marketing channels

As you have read before, you need to combine email marketing with other marketing channels to get better and effective results. Email marketing is a way to amplify the efforts of other marketing channels. 

A marketing campaign in this digital era does not work solely. You have to create strategies that combine the efforts on other channels like social media, content marketing, SEO to drive traffic. 

Use email marketing to encourage subscribers to follow you on various social media platforms where they can access your content. 

You can use email marketing to optimise your content by sharing blog posts, guides and other valuable content with your audience to drive traffic. 

SEO helps to improve your site’s engagement metrics and email newsletter could help you to drive traffic back to your website. 

Email marketing is an effective way to support and promote other elements of your digital marketing strategy which helps you to drive more audience engagement by using integrated marketing approaches. 

Adapting to mobile audience

In the digital age where not even a single person is operating without a gadget, mobile phones have made it convenient for people to have access to any digital platform, including emails. People access their emails in smartphones now, so make certain that you are using this to your advantage. In the world of notifications, your email would not go missed when strategically placed. Optimise your emails for mobile viewing so you can ensure your audience is engaging no matter what device they are using. Opt for a mobile-first approach because the rate of email opens on mobile is higher than on any other platform. 

Conclusion

You would be glad to know email marketing is here to stay even if you think it does not work. You think so because email campaigns are automated and the workflow runs in the background so you do not have to pay much heed. 

Isn’t it good for you because you can pay attention to other aspects of your business? Building a digital strategy could be challenging at first but once you know how to optimise various channels for marketing purposes you will get a hang of it. Ensure to combine email marketing with other channels to enjoy the benefits of digital marketing strategies.