10 Reasons Why Email Marketing Should Be Your Absolute Priority

Email Marketing has one problem, it’s not as shiny and sexy as Social Media.

Fortunately, that’s the only problem because when it comes to comparing them as marketing vehicles and return-on-investment, Email is by far the most effective way of directly affecting your bottom line and actually growing your business.

I know some of you don’t believe me BUT, I have 10 points here to prove it and if you want, you’re more than welcome to challenge any of them in the comment section… =)

Lets do this!

1) Penetration

There are more than 3.2 billion email accounts today. 95% of online consumers use email and, 91% check their email at least once a day (Source: Exact Target).

There is simply no competition. More importantly, it is such an integral part in our lives, no human being walks around saying he will quit email.

2) Reach

The concept of reach is completely different between Social Media and Email.

In social media we usually talk about “Potential Reach” to refer to the number of followers. For example in the case of SocialMouths, its potential reach on Facebook is 13k. That’s just the number of Page Likes (Fans) but your content only reaches a small fraction of that.

Granted, email is only opened by a fraction of subscribers, but here’s the difference, the actual message will reach its destination, s/he then has the option to not read it.

Now, lets be fair and say that according to ReturnPath, leader in email intelligence, revealed that in the first half of 2013:

• 18% of all email messages were either blocked or went missing
• 4% were delivered to the spam or junk folder

Even if 22% emails get lost, we’re still running with much higher potential than posting on Facebook where 74% of your messages are potentially missed (that percentage is higher in most cases).

Take in consideration we are talking about averages, your email or Facebook performance might be different.

3) Life Span

In a recent study, Wisemetrics (via SproutSocial), revealed that 75% of Facebook post impressions were achieved in just two hours and 30 minutes and, 75% of the “Reach” happens in only one hour and 50 minutes.

The life span of a Tweet is so short, its popularity can be predicted in the first five minutes, according to research conducted by The Twouija (via Slice of MIT). But you don’t need much to realize how fast Twitter moves.

Email doesn’t die, it needs to be killed. Email sits there inside your subscriber’s inbox waiting to be acknowledged, even if it’s just to delete it, it requires of an action to end its life.

4) Return-on-Investment

According to the 2013 Email Marketing Benchmark Report, 60% marketers say email marketing is producing ROI and 32% believe it will eventually.

For every $1 spent, $44.25 is the average return on email marketing investment (Exact Target).

For SocialMouths, email marketing accounts for more than 50% of the revenue.

Both Email and Social Media have costs, the difference is that most email providers have a monthly fee or some kind of cost and most social platforms don’t. some of you will even dare to say “Social Media is Free”. Don’t.

5) Analytics

Social media has proven over the years that measuring success is still under discussion and, many companies have different ways and systems to do so. The topic of measuring ROI produces hundreds of blog posts every year without coming to a solid conclusion. Here’s a post from Business Insider about how companies are starting to give up trying to track social media ROI.

Even the simple task of tracking traffic from social media is complicated.

Email on the other hand has a set of solid metrics that have been the standard for years: Growth, Open Rate, Click Rate, Complaints, Unsubscribes, and you can take it from there and even track sales and revenue.

A simple formula can tell you what the monetary value of your email subscriber is. Good luck figuring out the value of your Twitter follower.

6) Engagement

You don’t usually hear the words “email” and “engagement” in the same sentence.

Ask yourself this question: When was the last time a subscriber replied to one of your emails?

If you are a small business, email needs to become the ultimate engagement vehicle, a true 2-way street. We’re not talking about public engagement like Twitter or Facebook, we’re talking about one-on-one with prospects that have clearly expressed interest by joining your list.

First step to engagement paradise?

• Do not send email campaigns with a “noreply” address
• If replies are too many to handle from your personal account, at least set up a “From” address that’s accessible and checked periodically

7) Integration

The beauty of all this is that email and social media are friends, especially Facebook.

If you’re failing to see these potential connections, you’re probably wasting great opportunities not only for growth but to establish cross platform initiatives.

For point # 7, I’ll let Jay Baer from Convince & Convert do the talking, in case you’re not yet familiar with his already famous Madonna/Lady Gaga presentation.

I’ll go grab a coffee…

8) Promotional

77% prefer email to receive promotional content, while only 4% prefers Facebook, and LinkedIn users have zero (0%) tolerance for promotional messages.

I always talk about the natural perception users have for different networks and how that affects conversion. Facebook for example is viewed by the average user as a place to connect and interact with friends and family. I never heard anybody say “I can’t wait to see what Wells Fargo said on Facebook today”.

Email is perceived differently, perhaps due to its privacy or simply because we’ve grown used to receiving promotional items in the mix with other types.

In a recent study by Blue Kangaroo, 70% of recipients said they’ve used coupons and discounts from promotional email.

9) Mobility

Litmus is observing that 66% of Gmail messages are opened in mobile devices, the Experian Q2 2013 Quarterly Email Benchmark Study says that 50% of all “Unique Opens” and 40% of all “Unique Clicks” happen on mobile.

A while it’s understandable that the majority of transactions will take place on the web, Mobile email already accounts for 13%.

These are not small numbers and, while some marketers worry about having to be “compatible”, the smart ones are busy working on a whole new channel to deliver their messages: right to the hand of the subscriber!

10) Personalization

Email has the power to send one piece of content to thousands of people and still have some level of personalization.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, “Segmentation” of your list allows you to separate subscribers in different groups to send highly targeted messages depending on actions taken or specific times.

Recap

Yes, email is the only channel of communication that remains private, that is a direct connection between you and your prospect, and most importantly, it has an opt-in process that turns it into the purest form of Permission Marketing.

I love social media but, as they say, the money is in the list…

Where are you standing today in your email marketing efforts?

Author: Francisco Rosales – SocialMouths

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