Did you know that there are 3 billion email accounts set up all over the world? You’d probably have a difficult time finding someone you know who didn’t have one. Yet 97 percent of all electronic mail is spam, or unwanted and unsolicited messages sent to a bulk amount of recipients at one time.
When they’re used responsibly, however, email marketing tools can build lasting customer loyalty, not annoyance. Studies have shown that email marketing can be up to 10 times more effective than other web marketing solutions — including search engine optimization. Why is that? The reasons might surprise you.
Most consumers are cool with getting updates, as long as it’s permission-based.
As we talked about above, spamming is a plague on the email accounts of the world. You want to deliver your promotions, deals and general updates to your customers, but you don’t want to antagonize them, either. Studies show that 77 percent of customers want email marketing updates as long as they’ve previously given their permission to receive them. Plus, 44 percent of email recipients made at least one purchase based on a promotion they received in their inbox. It pays to spread the word.
Email is the most direct way to communicate with consumers.
Over 90 percent of businesses say they use email marketing in order to share important information about both their products and company operations. This allows the consumers a window into the companies they love, and the companies get to promote their services in return. One of the most preferred methods of reaching customers via email updates is once a week, as more frequent messages tend to intimidate or annoy recipients.
Social media share buttons help you maximize each message.
When a customer is very enthusiastic about a deal, they’ll likely become an evangelist for it, spreading the word via social networking platforms. You can meet them halfway and include buttons to post to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other sites right inside the body of the message. Companies that utilize this email marketing option see a 158 percent higher click-through rate than those that don’t.
Double- and triple-post to optimize your reach.
It’s always great to see your customers sharing your updates for you. But as a company, you need to be able to take the lead and post about these promotions on social media sites, too. You might have folks who follow you on Twitter but haven’t yet subscribed to your email marketing services. Covering all your bases on social media helps you reach as many potential customers as you possibly can.
Email marketing is growing right alongside SEO and social media marketing.
Over 55 percent of businesses planned to expand their company email sending services in 2013. Though the online marketing world remains abuzz about SEO, that particular marketing tool is still behind social media for effectiveness among businesses. Email marketing beats them both. Nearly 60 percent of businesses plan to keep increasing their already potent email marketing campaigns in hopes of reaching a wider audience in the future.
This is not a simple time for businesses. Any product must now compete with the thousands of other distractions we’ve made for ourselves. Email marketing has become of the most successful tools because it invites a conversation by sending a simple invitation.