The Best Marketing Tactic for Service Based Businesses: Email Marketing

Email has been around for decades, and businesses realized early on that this new method of communication opened doors for direct-to-consumer marketing. While other personal marketing methods have arrived since that time with the advent of cell phones and social media, email marketing remains a tried and tested method for connecting with customers and converting interest to sales.

Continue reading to learn more about email marketing and why it may be the most important tool in your business’ marketing arsenal.

Email Marketing Is Not Outdated

According to a 2021 Litmus poll, 41% of brands report that email marketing is crucial to their business bottom line. This is up from 32% back in 2019. While email marketing was important before, this statistical rise shows that the pandemic had a big effect on how email marketing was received and acted on by consumers. 

When given the option between receiving permission-based promotions via email or text message, clients are more likely to select the email option. While for some consumers this may mean that their inbox becomes cluttered with emails, for many savvy email users it means that they’re paying attention to the businesses and promotions they care about. 

As a business, you have an opportunity to reach people right in their pockets through email marketing. Over the years, emails have evolved from something you might check once a day on your family computer to something you’ll get pinged about as soon as something new comes in. 

Email Marketing Has a Long History

For more than 40 years now, email has been an important means of communication. In the beginning, “E-Mails” (as the word was originally styled) were an incredibly novel way for people to stay connected without the bulkiness of the faxing process or the long waits of the postal service. However, it was nowhere near as straightforward and streamlined as what we’re used to today. Emails still took quite a long time to send and receive, depending on the writer’s and recipient’s internet connections, and the user interfaces weren’t simplified for everyday use. Because of these drawbacks, email marketing hadn’t yet entered the picture as a truly useful marketing medium.

Over the years, significant improvements have been made to the way email functions and how users are able to interact with it. Google and Microsoft have helped to optimize the email experience by making the interface easy to navigate and more or less standard across different email hosting platforms. Huge leaps forward in terms of internet speeds and data connections have also reduced the time for sending and receiving emails to mere seconds, which means that when someone sends an email they can be certain that it’ll arrive to the intended recipient as soon as possible. Email marketing became incredibly common with the introduction of these improvements and remains a viable option for businesses looking to improve brand recognition and reach out to consumers in a personalized way.

Email Is Accessible to Many Demographics

It’s probable that you don’t know anyone over the age of 13 who doesn’t have an email address. If you can think of someone, it’s probably that they’re elderly—although even among senior citizens, email usage has continued to increase year of year. The relative simplicity of email compared to social media or other communication platforms makes it a very accessible option to many people, regardless of their computer literacy. For brands, this means that nearly every demographic can be reached via email marketing.

A Valid Email Address Is More Leverageable Than a Facebook Fan 

If digital marketers and businesses need to choose between adding a subscriber to their email list or adding a new Facebook fan, they should go for the email subscriber option every time.

Almost 90% of email gets delivered to the intended recipient’s inbox. But it’s not a sure bet that your Facebook fans will see your posts in their News Feed—far from it, in fact. 

Only a small percentage—1 to 5%—of the people who like your page will see your updates in their feed. In order to have your content seen by more people, you need to pay for promotions, which can get expensive. Compared to Facebook, most of your messages will be delivered to your desired audience through email.

Email Marketing is Measurable

Most email marketing tools have the facility to track what happens after the email is sent out. The amount of emails that are delivered, the number of emails that are returned ‘undeliverable’, the number of people who unsubscribe from your list, and the number of people who click on the links in your email can be measured and tracked using a quality email marketing tool. Although email marketing is more complex than simply sending and receiving an email on a personal level, it’s not difficult to learn how to understand the metrics and functions of the tool you’re using.

Email Marketing Lets You Own Your Data

Social media platforms don't allow you to own your contact list or even the ads and information that you post. Predictably, the content and your contact list are owned by the social media platform. What if the particular social media platform goes away tomorrow? Won’t you be losing all the content and the customers?

But it’s not the same with an email list. This contact list will always stay with you irrespective of the email provider. Plus, you'll also own the content that you produce and send to consumers.

If you wish to accelerate sales through email marketing, get in touch with Radically Distinct. We can help you devise an email marketing strategy and pipeline management system that takes your business to the next level. Get in touch with us today!