4 Reasons Why Email Marketing is More Important than Ever

You’ve heard it. Email marketing is dead. Nobody reads email newsletters anymore. Don’t waste your time on an email list. It’s just as easy to use social media or texting.

Email Marketing is More Important than Ever

Email marketing is not only NOT dead, it is an effective and valuable way to communicate with prospects and customers to build your business. With the uncertainties of social media, and all the many places you may have to post to find your ideal customers, email marketing is more important than ever. With all the online media and resources vying for our attention, how likely is it that your customers will remember to visit your website, Facebook page, Instagram or Twitter account weekly or more often?

With email marketing, however, your customers are inviting you into their inboxes on a regular basis. When they opt in to your list, they give you permission to share information about your business with them, in a place where they have the opportunity to see it on a regular basis. When you’re invited to the inbox, you don’t have to hope your customer will remember you, you won’t have to hope they think to visit your page or wonder if your latest posts will show up in their social media feeds at the right time. Your message is right there in front of them, sitting in their inbox, just waiting to be read.

Of course, this isn’t a guarantee that they’ll read every email you send. It’s up to you to provide compelling quality content on a regular basis so your followers will WANT to read your newsletter.  Email marketing is more important than ever–as long as you are providing value to your readers.

In addition, email marketing can be one of the most cost-effective ways to reach your customers. On average, email marketing offers the highest ROI of all forms of marketing, averaging about $36 in return for every $1 spent.

Now if that doesn’t convince you that email marketing is more important than ever, I’m not sure what will.

Use Email Marketing to Help Your Readers Get to Know You

First, your email marketing should allow your readers to get to know you and your business. You definitely should include information about your products and services. But do more than just list products for sale. Let them get to know you, as people prefer to buy from people, not from “faceless” businesses. You don’t have to get too personal, but give them a peek inside your business.

How does your business operate? How did you get started? Why do you do what you do? Answering questions like these will help not only build a relationship with current and future customers, but also make your email marketing more interesting and help your customers engaged.

Listing your products and services should not be the primary focus of your email unless you are having a sale. And if you are always having a “sale” you probably need to rethink your email marketing strategy.

Provide Your Readers with Exclusive Content

Your newsletter can provide your readers with valuable exclusive content not available to those who just stop by and read your website. Give your readers a reason to invite you to their inboxes—and a reason to look forward to reading your newsletters. Valuable exclusive content varies by your type of business. For a service business, it may be information or tips your readers can use to improve their businesses or their lives.

Help Your Customers Get the Most out of Your Products

For a business that sells products, you can offer information on how to use those products, perhaps in new or innovative ways your customers may not know about. Teach them how to get the most from your product or tips on how to care for it. Occasionally, your business might hold a sale or “limited buy” just for newsletter readers or offer some kind of “customer appreciation” special. If your customers learn that you do special things for your regular readers, they’ll want to open every newsletter to make sure they don’t miss something.

Don’t try to include everything you offer in every email. That gets old; overt and blatant sales pitches are boring and a turnoff to your readers, and will get you uninvited from many inboxes.

Answer Your Customers’ Questions

Answer customer questions in your emails. Make sure your customers know you send emails to serve them, not just to make your cash register ring. Invite your readers to ask questions that you can then answer in your emails—and then convert those email answers to future blog posts, live streams, and other content to help build your business.

The simplest newsletters send out the most recent blog post. There’s nothing wrong with that, but add a personal message to it and make it more than just a glorified RSS feed. Give your readers added value such as an offer, an invitation to meet or speak with you or additional content related to your blog post. They trust you enough to invite you to their inbox. Make sure that you are letting them know how much you appreciate that trust and that it is a wise decision on their part.

For the investment, there is no marketing today that is more targeted and more likely to be impactful than an email newsletter. For only pennies per issue, your newsletter is delivered directly to clients and prospects who have already indicated they have an interest in your business.

Help them to build that interest and become loyal customers by communicating with them on a regular basis with valuable information and content that establishes you as their authority and go-to person for your specific niche.

Don’t believe it when someone tells you that email marketing is dead. Email marketing is more important than ever–and it is alive and well.

---

Want to get business information and exclusive success tips in your inbox? Use the form below to receive help for your business and my periodic emails.

Have questions about email marketing? Have any experiences you’d like to share? Please use the comment box below.