- Cheap. There’s no doubt about it, sending email is inexpensive. You might pay for a 3rd party service to deliver your email and you may even hire a writer to create your emails for you, but overall, the costs involved with email are pretty small. And when you consider #2 on this list, any costs really pay for themselves. Or they should, if you’re doing it right.
- ROI is huge. The Direct Marketer’s Association states that email marketing had an average return of $43.52 for each dollar spent (2011). Yours probably could be higher since you’re most likely a solo entrepreneur with a smaller budget.
- Just about everyone has an email address. Yeah, a lot of people have Facebook accounts, but email still wins. You could email your best friends, parents and sister, but you most likely can’t Facebook (verb) all of them. Same goes with a lot of people on your mailing lists.
- Direct. Unlike other marketing methods, email reaches your subscribers directly and is addressed to them specifically, unlike the general broadcasting we do on social media and in other mediums.
- Personal and customizable. Email is also very personal and can be customized with names and other information subscribers voluntarily provide like they’re geographic location, their interests, their goals and more.
- Targeting. It’s easy to create multiple lists and fine-tune your targeting. You can segment customers based on the types of products they’re interested and subscribers based on the information that attracts them most. Where else do you have so much control?
- Retain your visitor. When someone visits your website for the first time, the chances of them coming back are almost ZERO. NIL. NADA. By asking them to leave their email address, you get the chance to ask them to come back over and over again.
- Build and cultivate relationships. Email is an opportunity for your business to build your brand and gain the trust of your subscribers. Do your email marketing right and your subscribers will feel like they know you and can count on you for sound advice and great products.
- Commercial. People expect commercial messages via email, making it much easier to sell via email than through web content or social media, for example. In fact, according to Marketing Land, 77% of us prefer to get commercial message through email.
- It’s mobile. While everyone is shouting that mobile apps and sites is where the money is at, never forget that email is one of those handy things available and readily used through mobile technology. According to a recent Mobile Movement study sponsored by Google, 82% of smartphone users check and send email on their mobile device.
- Fast to create. Whipping up an email can be as fast (or as slow…but don’t let it be) as you want. No need to spend days creating an advertisement. Just write and go.
- Quick results. Email gets out there instantly and can start working for your business within minutes because it hits those inboxes quickly and people check email frequently.
- Easy to collect data. You can find out information about open rates, click throughs, sales conversions and demographic data of your subscribers. When you can measure your marketing, you can easily improve it.
- Drives traffic to your other marketing channels. If you’re engaging in blogging, social media or other efforts, your email list is an easy source of traffic. If you’ve just posted a great blog post or a jaw-dropping image on Pinterest, all you have to do is email your list and you’ve got people seeing it.
- Customers. Once someone buys something, you need a way to reach them so you can grow your relationship and sell more products to them. Email makes it easy to do this because you can segment your customers from the rest of your database.
- Preferential Treatment: If you want to give special perks to your customers or certain subscribers, it’s easy to do with email. Give them advanced notice of new products, give them special discount offers and more.
- More focus. Social media is a great place to tap into large audiences, but whenever you post, you are competing with a bunch of unrelated noise and it’s not always easy to get attention. The same may go for an email inbox, but once your email is opened, the focus is on you.
- Follow-up. The best results come from following up. You can make follow up blog posts, ads or social media updates, but the chances of getting all your messages seen are much more likely with email.
- Advertising that people asked for. This is one of the most amazing things about email. It is permission-based advertising. Instead of bombarding people with ads they have no interest in, they actually come to your website and ask you to send commercial information.
An email list is an incredible asset you wholly own and that is why email marketing works. You don’t share it with Mark Zuckerberg and you can keep using it months and years down the road. So grow it, nurture it and get results from it.
Related Info Products:
Digital Success Network – Online Business Training Programs
Simple Traffic Solutions – Step by Step Traffic Generation Guide