With so many new technologies for communicating with customers, email seems like a bastion of the “old guard”. Friends who live far away no longer keep up with each other by email, couples no longer get to know each other by exchanging emails like Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in the famous movie “You’ve Got an Email”. Now there is instant messaging, apps, artificial intelligence.
Well, maybe email isn’t as effective for Meg and Tom anymore… But customers can still fall in love with your brand through email.
In the evolution of companies towards omnichannel communication with customers, email is still one of the most important means of contact in any contact strategy. In this blog we have talked dozens of times about email as a contact channel. Customer requests, complaints, confirmations and notifications can be sent by email.
But today we are going to talk about email from another of its potentialities, which has been exploited by marketers for years, although not always in the most effective way: Email Marketing.
Email is a powerful marketing tool, a strategic weapon in the process of attracting, nurturing, converting and retaining customers. If you design your customer’s Customer Journey and email is not in almost every stage, you are losing a huge potential for interaction.
Why keep betting on Email Marketing in 2019?
1) For its profitability
Email is one of the media with the highest ROI in the digital ecosystem. Some metrics indicate that for every dollar invested in Email Marketing, between 38 and 44 dollars in revenue are received. The cost of sending an email is very low and accessible (even in mass mailings), and does not vary according to bids like social media or Google ads. Not to mention in comparison to non-digital media such as radio or print advertising.
2) Everyone has an email address
For any online tool or profile it is necessary to have an email address. That means that the vast majority of Internet users have an email. If you need a more shocking figure: more than half of the world’s population has an email.
3) Consumers prefer email for interacting with brands
Email has the right balance between immediacy of contact and the asynchrony that many customers prefer. Customers can open (and respond to) emails when they want to, which is much less invasive than other communications. Email is a medium that maintains a professional imprint, and allows you to go into more detail than shorter social media posts.
And best of all, when a customer has subscribed to your mailing list, he expects to receive news from your company. A recent study shows that 72% of customers prefer to receive promotions via email.
4) Boosts attraction, nutrition and retention
The most frequent use of email is through massive one-off campaigns, where promotions are sent to large databases (which sometimes had no previous link with the company). These mailings are not the most effective, but they still work as a tactic to attract traffic to the website or blog. It is a good tool in the attraction stage of the marketing funnel.
But where email really shines is in lead nurturing. When the contact is a qualified lead, email is the ideal way to send them content and information to accompany them throughout the sales cycle.
In addition, email is a great way to build customer loyalty and keep your brand in their orbit. Through periodic newsletters, customers are kept up to date with the company’s news and are provided with valuable information so that they can take better advantage of the product or service. In addition, you can create special promotions for customers, which greatly help to increase retention.
5) Email is adaptable to a mobile strategy
The time when people sat at their computers to read their e-mails is over. Today, 50% of emails are opened on mobile devices, which allows a much more immediate connection with the recipients. When email is designed for mobile, it generates high conversion rates. For example, by offering discount codes that connect directly to the online store, or QR codes that allow access to benefits at the nearest store.
6) It is ideal for large-scale customization.
Today we have segmentation and personalization tools that allow us to send email marketing campaigns that are relevant to users. Even when thousands of emails are sent at once, with email marketing managers it is possible to personalize fields such as the person’s name to make an individual greeting or mention the name of their company or city when this information has been previously registered. But even more: personalized content can be sent according to the person’s interests, for example by analyzing their browsing data on our site.
7) Integrates well with other marketing techniques
Almost any lead nurturing strategy has email as a great ally, regardless of the other means of communication used. Email is perfect for sending subscription confirmations in a recruitment campaign, even if the contacts have arrived through search engine ads. Or to expand the information about a product after a first contact was made through Messenger. It is also effective for announcing actions to be carried out in other media (a contest in social networks, for example). There is a reason why large Internet companies continue to use email to send reminders, reports or notifications. When content arrives in email, it remains available there. The message is not lost from sight as it can happen in other media.
8) If you automate, the sky is the limit.
The key to integrating email with your other media is automation. The true potential of email marketing is achieved by using a Marketing Automation platform that allows you to plan targeted mailings and complete contact and nurturing workflows. Email integrates with data and interactions coming from other channels, to have a complete view of the customer and accurately track their process in the buying cycle.
As you can see, we are not exaggerating with the title of this article: an email, well thought out within your strategy, can completely change the relationship with your leads and customers. You too can have a happy ending thanks to email!
Our Marketing & Sales tool integrates your Email Marketing actions with other digital campaigns, creating automation flows in a simple and effective way.
