Email Marketing - Alive or Dead? A woman sitting on a chair with a laptop thinking

Email Marketing – Alive or Dead?

Email marketing has come a long way since its infancy stage. Recently some companies have chosen to focus more on social media. So is email marketing alive or dead? Let’s talk about a better balance and how you can properly utilize email marketing’s unending potential.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. We only recommend products we personally use. At no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Email marketing is very much alive and a critical tool, but only if you are using it properly. Check out these statistics:

  • U.S. statistics show that on average, 90% of people age ranged 15-65+ use email.
  • Peoples’ first check of the day: Email 58%, Search 20%, Social Media 14%
  •  For the “Big 3” of social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), the engagement rate isn’t even 0.6%. Compare that to email’s average open rate of 22.86% and even its click-through rate of 3.71%.

So as you can see, email marketing dwarfs social media when it comes to engagement. That’s not to say you shouldn’t be using social media. It just shouldn’t be your focus. Moving on, there are a few things you need to be doing to ensure your email marketing campaigns have a more significant impact. In this article, we will focus on our three top tips to help you attract new subscribers and turn them into customers.

The Right Way to Collect Emails

There is a right and wrong way to collect emails and gain subscribers. First of all: your placement. Is your email sign up all the way at the bottom of your homepage, squirreled away in the footer? How much traffic do you think you are going to get down there? 

A good practice is either having it higher on your page or on multiple pages. Another option is to use an email marketing tool like OptinMonster that places a discreet (not obtrusive) slider on your website. We like OptinMonster (we use it on our sites and our clients) because of the many different options it provides. It allows you to create an attractive and valuable call to action.

Tip: Once you have decided on layout and content, you should test it out yourself to be sure everything is working as it should. Be sure that it looks as good on mobile devices as it does on a computer screen.

The next thing you need to consider is the ‘Why.’ Why are your customers going to want to sign up? Give them a reason, an incentive. It doesn’t have to be crazy. Perhaps a white paper that would be of interest or a small percentage off future services or products. These small gestures go a long way to building a long-term relationship.

Combining these practices will have a more significant impact on your sign-ups than that lonely little box at the bottom of your page that only says, as Jonathan put it, “Hey, sign up for my newsletter…yaaaay.” 

Use Targeted Emails for a Successful Marketing Campaign

What are targeted emails? Simply put, these are emails that are sent to a specific person based on their interests, demographics, or geographics. How do you know what this is? Simple: ask! When you build your sign up think about what you need to know to serve your customers better.

Gathering this data is advantageous because you know you are sending information on things that matter to them, making it more likely that they will open it.

Merge Tags and Personalization

Merge tags are more of a technical consideration but an essential one. Imagine sending a letter to someone but not including their name in your opening salutation. Merge tags do precisely that. They take your client’s names directly from your sign-up form and address each email personally.

In addition, using merge tags drastically reduces the percentage of your emails being blocked or ending up in spam, wasting your marketing efforts.

Email Marketing Key Takeaway

Email marketing has a 4400% ROI. That means that every dollar you spend on email marketing has the potential to bring you a $44 return. I like those numbers! Also keep in mind that, unlike social media that can be fickle and difficult to ensure that you are reaching your target audience, you own your email list and have a direct line of communication. By utilizing it effectively, you can build customer loyalty.

There are many other avenues to email marketing strategies. Like automation, templates, landing pages – the list goes on. We will be sure to keep the education coming to help you and your business grow.

You may also enjoy: