Despite a recent decline in email click through rates, marketers remain optimistic about the benefits of email marketing.

And you should too.

According to the Marketing Sherpa 2012 Email Marketing Benchmark Report 67% of marketers planned on increasing their email budget last year.

Why?
Because email marketing works.

Not only is email marketing great for your business, but the points below highlight why it is the preferred communication channel for marketers.

  • It prompts direct sales
  • It builds relationships through engagement
  • It supports other sales channels
  • It is driven by data

Let’s dig deeper into why email is so great.

Email marketing works because it gives you the opportunity to easily and efficiently personalise campaigns to target different segments of your audience. Personalisation makes your customers feel special while engaging with them on a deeper level. If you want to make the most of personalising your campaigns here are 4 tips to improve your email marketing with personalisation.

The detailed reporting features available with email marketing software such as Vision6 are another key benefit for marketers. Email marketing provides a range of in-depth analytical tools. You can see exactly who has opened your email, when they opened it and if they clicked on any links. Tracking your campaigns gives you the opportunity to further target future emails. You can work out what content your customers enjoy most by comparing click through rates.

Email campaigns can be a very interactive experience for your customers. Readers can forward your email to friends, click on your links to view more content or videos, update subscriptions, and follow you on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and all the other social media sites. This can all easily be done from the one email.

And don’t forget lots of people use email. And I mean lots! There are nearly three times the amount of email users than Facebook and Twitter combined. Email marketing will help ensure you don’t miss those that aren’t social media users.
Different ways you can benefit from email marketing.

Email marketing is so much more than newsletters. Here are a few ways that successful businesses use email marketing to engage with customers:

  • Emails about new marketing offers and promotions
  • Automated emails, for example an automatic email whenever someone new subscribes to your site or fills out an enquiry form
  • Product information emails
  • Announcements of new resources such as digital e-books and interactive guides
  • Event invitations, booking confirmations and reminders
  • Competition entries and announcements
  • Integrated email and social media campaigns
  • Shopping cart abandonment and other lifecycle marketing campaigns
  • Special occasion emails such as birthdays or anniversaries

I’d be interested to hear about the key reasons your company uses email marketing. Or for those that don’t, what’s holding you back? Let me know using the comments section below.