Chicago – November 1, 2018
In the day and age of viral social media, hyper local paid searches, and many more hi-tech marketing techniques, is simple plain-old email marketing dead? Does anyone even read their emails anymore, especially with the promotion emails getting automatically thrown into the obscure folders by machine learning email software?
Well, you would be surprised that email marketing is alive and thriving, and more importantly, here to stay. Let’s look at the reasons.
According to recent statistics 99% of us check email every day and some of us do it 20 times a day. We are more likely to read email from people and brands we know and trust. This is important when it comes to reaching your existing customer base – they are more likely to open and read your emails. And the deliverability rates for email is quite high – at 98.3%.
B2B emails are more likely to be opened (22%) than B2C (18.7%) emails.
(Source: Email benchmarking report 2017 – 15 Aug 2017 – https://dma.org.uk/research/email-benchmarking-report-2017)
Does it have an edge over other methods?
Email marketing has specific advantages for small business owners which can be summarized as – simple to do and biggest bang for the buck.
1) You can target specifically who should receive your emails. These can be existing customers, potential new leads, or both.
2) It’s fast – delivery is almost immediate to the user’s inbox.
3) It scales very well. Once you have designed your email message, it does not matter whether your email list has 100 recipients or 10,000. It also does not matter where the users reside – they can be in any corner of the planet.
4) It’s cheaper than other forms of digital marketing.
How often should you send email blasts?
Once a week. Maybe twice, at the most. Otherwise it is considered spammy. Try to be regular. Don’t expect immediate results. According to the “Rule of 7”, your prospective buyers will see the marketing message at least 7 times before they will act. Some say 3 times is enough while others argue it should be even higher than 7. The bottom line is that you must repeat your marketing message before you see results.
Ok, I am convinced. But how to do it?
There are commercial software options – MailChimp and Constant Contact are the most popular and successful. There are others like Drip, and Aweber. Most work quite well, and many even offer a free tier (limiting the number of people you can send to, or the number of times you can send each month). Some amount of learning is required which takes time (a lot actually!) and takes your focus away from your core business. So, in the end as a small business owner you have to ask yourself – is DIY really for you?
The other option is to use a full stack email marketing service where your campaigns can be designed, sent, tracked, analyzed, and reported. You can let professionals do the heavy lifting while you focus on your business.
Spread the word … Grow your customer base – start using email marketing today. We believe it works!
Drop us a note at info@cagoinc.com if you are interested in learning more about the email marketing services we offer.
