In 1978, the first email blast was sent by Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager at a major computer company. This marketing email generated $13 million in sales — a huge amount even to this day.
That first electronic sales letter kicked off what has become one of the most effective marketing channels of today. It’s so effective that according to Statista, the use of email marketing for businesses can result to as much as a $45 return for every ad dollar spent. Few platforms can compare with this, so it’s no wonder why this channel has remained at the top of the marketing game for decades.
How Does Email Marketing For Businesses Work?
Email marketing is a type of direct marketing that lets businesses share updates, sales, promotions, and other information about the company and its services/products with customers on their contact lists.
So how does it work, exactly? Well, there are many ways that business use this powerful marketing tool, but the key objectives are for raising brand awareness, building relationships with customers, and the most important one — conversion.
The Key Objectives of Marketing by Email
As mentioned above, email marketing helps businesses achieve three objectives. Let’s dive deeper into those.
1. Brand Awareness
Email marketing is a great way to develop your brand because it gives you a direct line to the inboxes of your target audience. It’s one-to-one communication at its finest and is far more impactful than a social media post that you aren’t even sure your audience has seen or not.
It keeps your company at the top of the mind of your subscribers. Let’s say that your customer is in between purchases. They’re not currently looking for the product or services you offer, but they might — or will — in the future. Showing up in their inbox helps them remember you when they’re ready to buy, and your email might even generate enough interest that they will buy sooner than they intend.
2. Building Relationships
People want to be appreciated and remembered, and that’s true for all relationships, including business-based ones. Your customers want to know about what’s happening in your business, and it’s your job to update them.
Email lets you quickly reach out to all the subscribers on your list about your latest promotional offers, a product launch, unique content, and any other news about your business that your customers might find interesting. These constant email updates drive customer loyalty from lead nurturing to conversion and retention.
3. Conversion
When it comes to driving sales, nothing touches email marketing for businesses. According to Hubspot, 59% of respondents say that their purchase was influenced by marketing emails. Now consider that against the mere 12.5% of consumers who say that they may consider using the ‘buy’ button on social media and you know that there isn’t much of a contest between the two.
Here is an additional stat about the power of email in sales conversion: 44% of email users will check their email for a deal from a brand that they’ve subscribed to, but only 4% of them will go to a social media account of that same brand to look for promotional offers.
Email Marketing Benefits
Email has an unusually high inbox placement rate. What this means is that your email campaigns will reach a majority of the people you send them to. To be specific, the rate is about 85%.
And if we follow Statista’s numbers of $45 back for every dollar spent, that would be an ROI of 4500%. (Net investment/cost of investment * 100.)
So in terms of the best return on investment, email marketing is at the very top.
Your customers are waiting to hear from you!
Go above and beyond your target business growth by employing a successful email marketing strategy. And that’s where we come in. Give us a call at (888) 498-5361 or drop us a message here to learn how EPIC can turn those leads into sales.
