Introduction:
One of the biggest mistakes most marketers do nowadays, is think email marketing is dead. Many marketers today drop the email marketing scheme to go with social media. Come to think of it, social media look much more sexy than email. But, is a social media post really as effective as an email? Before we answer that question, lets state a well known fact. It is easier to send a friend request on Facebook than to collect an email online. But believe me, email marketing is thrice as worth it as social media marketing. So, what is email marketing?
Email marketing is the targeting of customers through emails. Every emails sent to a potential customers can be considered as email marketing. Email marketing involves sending a promotional email or an ad to a subscriber. Via his email address. A great deal of organisations today use email marketing. Even more bloggers do use email marketing today than ever before. For example, have you ever been browsing on a website, and you see some field where you are asked to submit your name and email to get a free eBook or update? That is the front part of email marketing.
Most bloggers use email marketing because it enhances the customer experience. With a well targeted email list, you can reach established customers and prospective ones too. Any given subscriber will be informed better and more easily via email. The email will have a greater visibility than a Facebook post. The Facebook post will be drowned in a stream of content in the minutes following its posting.
Do You Really Need Email Marketing?
If you want to improve your customers' or readers' experience, then you need email marketing. Forget about the glamour and the flashy of social media marketing. We are talking efficiency here. We are talking greater engagement. Greater reach. Greater click through rate and more. As many experienced marketers say, " the money is in the list". Some even say "your net worth depends on your network". In the following lines, I will explain the advantages of email marketing. In these explanations, I will use statistics. The sites which produced those stats will be mentioned at the end of this article. So, let's get into the advantages of using email marketing.:
Potential Reach:
Did you know that in 2013, there were about 3.2 billion email accounts created in the world? 95% of online consumers use an email address. The most interesting fact is; 91% of those consumers check their email accounts at least once a day. Today, we browse more with our phones than our computers. As a result, we are more easily notified when we receive emails. Our phones place the notifications right in front of our eyes.
Today, it is easier to check to an email than a Facebook or Twitter post. This is because when we post content, so does a million other people. As a result, finding one particular post you liked 3 weeks ago can be the most daunting task.
Actual Reach:
Before I explain this part in more detail, let's get some interesting numbers. In the first half of 2013, a research conducted using emails as a marketing channel revealed some staggering facts. The one that stands out the most is this; 18% of the emails sent during a campaign never reach their destinations. 4% of the sent emails are sent into the spam folder. That makes 22% of the sent emails that do not actually reach the intended receiver.
On the other hand, 78% of the emails sent during an email campaign actually reach their destination. Think of it this way, If you send 1000 emails, 780 emails will reach their destination. In addition to that, 91% of the receivers check their emails daily. This means, about 709 receivers will actually see your email. This is great efficiency, as less than 30% of the emails sent are lost.
Now, let's compare these numbers with those of a Facebook campaign carried out in the same way. This revealed that 74% of the Facebook posts are actually lost within the big stream of content. That is a problem. That means, per thousand Facebook posts, 740 are lost in the stream of content. That leaves us with 260 posts seen by our target readers. Another bad thing is, everyone who sees your content will not actually click through. Less than half will actually do. That leaves us with less than 130 people who are actually interested in our offers.
Click Through Rates:
In the previous point, we talked about what percentage of people who see and may like your posts and mails. Now let's talk about people who actually complete the actions and do what you want them to do. Let's say clicking on a link. This link may take them to a landing page or a website.
Click through rate is the percentage of people that receive your message and actually click on it. The click through rate of a tweet is 0.5 percent as opposed to 3% for an email. These numbers look small at first. But, this means that people click 6 times more on an email link than on a tweeted link.
Let's keep on using our example of 1000 emails and 1000 social media posts. A 0.5% click through rate means per thousand, 5 people will actually click on your link. This is for social media. Sometimes the click through rates are higher, but those are particular cases. The numbers we use here are average ones.
A 3% click through rate with emails means 30 clicks per thousand. That is the best click through rate you will obtain on average. The numbers are not astounding, but efficient numbers are not always astounding. The difference is such because, when people give you their email addresses they actually want to hear more form you.
Your Readers Want It This Way:
Most people use social media to communicate with friends first. Seldom are they used to receive business news and reviews. There are specialized websites for that. 77% of the users during a survey online said they prefer to receive promotional messages in their emails. 4% said they prefer these messages on social media. This speaks to the fact that by submitting an email, people are literally giving you a business meeting location.
Emails Are Private:
It is easier for a reader to express his problems in private than in the open. Everybody is not comfortable when it comes to expressing their shortcomings in the open. When a user wishes to express his struggles and he can't meet with you, what does he do? He writes you an email. This way, he can tell you everything. You can answer specifically to him.
I will soon create a page where I post user requested content. Every weekend.
Email Marketing and newsletters
Conclusion:
You want to use emails if you want to boast your online presence. Also, this is for you if you want to enhance reader experience. Setting up an email marketing campaign is not really expensive. We are talking about 6$ to 20$. Per month. Some services like MailChimp even offer free services for your first 2000 subscribers.
Email marketing is not dead. If anything, it kills that silence between your subscribers and you. In an upcoming post, I will talk about building an email list. Thanks for reading. Talk to you guys soon.
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