Remember the movie, You’ve Got Mail? The 1998 Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan starrer wherein the lead pair falls in love with each other after communicating back and forth? Well, how did this communication happen? Email! That’s right, reiterating the fact that email was a very resourceful and popular medium of communication, even back in the 1990s.
Although businesses may not employ this tool for finding love, they can surely use it for attracting potential customers and engaging existing ones. Especially, in case of small businesses, email is one of the most cost-effective and result-driven marketing channels, compared to traditional and other new-age mediums of communication.
According to a survey by Direct Marketing Association, an average email marketing campaign’s ROI is 122%. That is four times higher than social media and paid search. Another interesting study on eMarketer stated that 80% SMB professionals believe that email marketing is the best channel for driving customer acquisition and retention.
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If you are still in two minds about how Email Marketing can work wonders for your business, here are 10 reasons that will help you decide.
Most Preferred Channel: With email, consumers have the choice to receive and view brand communication as per their convenience. It takes away the risk of customer annoyance by allowing customers to voluntarily opt for receiving messages from the companies that they are interested in. A study conducted by Adobe Campaign revealed that 74% consumers prefer that brands interact with them via email, one of the most non-intrusive marketing channels today.
Convenient: Since email is a web-based service, it requires no additional downloads or installation. All that an SMB needs to get started off with an email marketing campaign is a list of customer email addresses and the right content. With email marketing software, segmentation and targeted communication has become easier than ever.
Cost-Effective: When it comes to small businesses, email marketing is the holy grail to achieve the desired business outcomes in a short period of time. Unlike major corporates, SMBs do not have the luxury of spending extravagantly on their marketing campaigns. Emails offer small businesses the advantage of reaching out to a broader set of customers with minimal budget and resources.
Brand Building: Frequent communication with your customers via email helps create a face and voice for your brand. Customers are more likely to interact with those brands that are known to them instead of companies that sporadically send irrelevant messages. Email marketing is a powerful tool that helps brands develop credibility and brand recall amongst their customers.
Personalized Experiences: An average customer today is exposed to nearly 5,000 ads a day. Moreover, the attention span of the new-age ‘digital first’ customer is now lesser than that of a goldfish. To cut through the clutter and get noticed by your customers, SMBs must make use of personalization. Email marketing software enables businesses to create and send customized messages to different sets of customers, based on their needs and preferences for an enhanced customer experience.
Customized Consumer Journeys: The beautiful thing about email marketing is that it gives businesses the ability to tailor-make customer journeys and deliver value in each interaction. Businesses can design a single email marketing campaign that triggers different emails based on the stage that the customer is currently in. A good example of one such email marketing method is the Drip Campaign; which can begin with a Welcome Mail for new customers, followed by a Promotional Mail detailing the offers and discounts on the website, a Transactional Email confirming the order details, a Thank You Email for being associated with the brand, etc.
Integrated Campaigns: The simplicity offered by an email means that it can easily and seamlessly integrate with other marketing channels, making cross-channel communication a possibility for small businesses. Email marketing can be leveraged efficiently to drive traffic to the official company blog or to the respective social media channels. By incorporating engaging blog content, press releases, infographics, social media share buttons, etc. in the email, SMBs can achieve higher visibility across channels.
Improved Customer Reach: Nearly 78% customers use their smartphones to view emails on a day-to-day basis. With mobile devices finding a permanent place in a customer’s pocket today, email marketing on mobile has become an integral part of reaching out to more customers and maximizing the customer base. Mobile email marketing is simple and affordable as it does not require the business to invest in developing special apps or deploying new technologies. They can communicate with their customers at any time via email, irrespective of the device type or operating system used by the customer.
Higher Conversions: Email marketing helps move consumers swiftly and easily through the marketing funnel. With personalized messaging targeted at the right time to the right customer, brands can generate consumer interest, encourage interactions and translate this engagement into a new conversion.
Increased ROI: One of the reasons why email marketing is the most reliable and preferred mediums for small businesses is that it allows you to do more with less. Even with the smallest amount of budget, email empowers a business to connect with a broad set of leads and convert them into new customers, thereby significantly improving the bottom line. 59% of businesses are of the opinion that Email is the most effective channel in terms of revenue generation.
Considering all the benefits of email listed above, it is quite clear that Email Marketing is the way ahead for small businesses just starting out with their marketing initiatives. If you have not yet begun taking advantage of email for driving business growth, now is the time!
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