Wrong. Email marketing gets a bad rap for sure. Is it the coolest, latest thing to come down the digital marketing pike? Heck no! But it’s effective.

Many marketers are seduced by the latest and greatest examples of social media advertising or viral social media marketing campaigns. That’s great. There’s no doubt that social media gains more attention than email marketing but claims that email marketing is no longer effective are just not true.

Email marketing should be a cornerstone of your marketing efforts. Keep reading to find out why.

Why Email?

1. Email is the most pervasive communication channel.

99% of consumers check their email daily. What other communication channel can say that?  

2. Your people are your people.

You worked hard to build your email list, whether through signup forms, asking people at checkout, or just by having a great brand that people want to hear from. The people on your email list literally ASKED you to send marketing materials to them. How great is that?! And what’s even better is that you control what they hear from you and when. Social media can’t say the same because not everyone sees your posts or ads all of the time, accounts can be suspended, etc. But nobody can take those email leads from you.

3. Email works.

According to OptinMonster (and who doesn’t love that name?), people who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than those who do not receive email offers. In fact, email marketing has an ROI (returns on investment) of 4400%.  Wondering how social media does compared to email? The average order value of an email is at least three times higher than that of social media. Convinced yet?

4. Email Marketing is doable for small businesses

One of the biggest misconceptions about email marketing is that it’s difficult, complicated, and takes an entire marketing team to execute. Sure, if you want more complicated campaigns or more advanced segmentation, it helps to have a team of marketing professionals (much like ourselves) to help small businesses plan and execute their email marketing strategy.

But don’t fret. Email marketing has been around long enough to no longer be a big, scary undertaking for most small businesses. Email platforms like Mailchimp offer free plans and a plethora of resources  for those that are just getting started, seasoned email marketers, and those somewhere in between.

A Few Tips to Get Started 

Got a list? If so, that’s a good start. There are a few ways to build your email list. Depending on how advanced your email marketing efforts are, Hubspot makes some great recommendations for building your list in ways that don’t necessarily feel like work for the consumer.

If these tips seem a bit advanced for where your list building efforts are currently, here a few things you can do both in-store and online to help grow your email customer list:

1. Place a signup sheet at your checkout location. We know, we know, this can seem a bit basic at first, but most of us know that it’s way more expensive to gain a new customer than retain a previous customer, so if they’re buying something, well, they’re already a customer! Encourage or even incentivize employees to ask customers to add their name and email address to a piece of paper and voila, you have begun building your list.
2. Have a website? Even better! Add a signup form to the header portion of your website so that people already looking for your goods or services, i.e. browsing your website, can sign up to receive information and offers from you. I mean, they’re already interested so why not encourage them to learn more about your business?
3. Leverage business cards or host an event (after COVID-19 is over, of course). Good old-fashioned networking is a great way to expand your email list. Much in the same way that employees can encourage customers to sign up on a sheet of paper, put out a fishbowl and ask people to drop their business cards as part of a giveaway. A free lunch for example. I mean, who doesn’t love a free lunch?

Got an email platform?

Already love your MailChimp? Awesome! Exact Target working great for you? Just as cool. But if you’re new to the email marketing world, here’s a short list of providers that offer varying degrees of sophistication based on where you’re at in your email marketing journey, what you’re hoping to accomplish, and how many people you have in your database (Database sounds fancy but it’s really just the names and email addresses of the people you have on your list). Just a note, we are simply passing information along here. We are making no recommendations for or against any of the following services nor have we received any compensation for mentioning them.

1. Mailchimp: We’ve mentioned this provider a few times and that’s because it’s well-known, it has a free option, and we consider it fairly easy to use. They also have a vast online resource for helping you grow your email marketing program, create automated messaging, and even a Creative Assistant to help you create images for your email based on your website content.
2. Constant Contact: This feels like the first real player for small business email marketing that most people are familiar with. Founded in 1995, Constant Contact has been a staple of small business email marketing for years. They have plans starting at $20/month that have tons of features to help you get started in your email marketing journey.
3. Hubspot: This platform is for those a bit more advanced in their email marketing journey and combines email marketing with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool for those looking to really put their lists to work. Prices vary based on the services you need and there is a vast online Hubspot community to help you with almost any question or concern you may have.

Confused yet?

If so, don’t worry. Like we mentioned before, email marketing has been around for awhile, so there is plenty of online help (and opinions) available to you if you’re just getting started. Been at it for a minute and looking to grow your email marketing? Well, there’s plenty of online help there as well.

Hopefully if you’ve kept reading this far we’ve persuaded you to at least think of email marketing as a powerful tool in your digital marketing portfolio. Don’t consider yourself to have a portfolio? Well, hopefully we’ve helped dipping your toe into the email marketing world a bit less scary. Should you have questions about email marketing or anything in general really, feel free to reach out and say hello.

Authored by

Rebekah Petroskey