Recent studies have shown that email marketing is still the primary method used by marketers to promote brands and products, especially in B2B marketing. This is not to say that the pursuit of other efforts as part of the marketing mix are gone, ineffective, or should not be employed – to the contrary – but email marketing continues to lead the pack.
And there are good reasons for it.
The reasons marketers are putting so much effort into email marketing are varied. Some have to do with the virtues of email marketing itself, while others have to do with the shortcomings of other common outreach tactics. The bottom line is this: Email marketing provides great ROI.
Here are some of the main reasons marketers invest considerable time, efforts, and other resources in email marketing:
- Inexpensive and scalable compared to other methods of outbound marketing and advertising
- Less intrusive than phone calls, pop-up ads, etc.
- Preferred communication method by most
- Makes two-way interaction as easy as pushing ‘Reply’
- Allows for personalized and targeted messaging
- Can be deployed quickly with a very short lead-time, and even in real-time when needed
- Abundance of email marketing service providers
- Large reach – practically everyone has an email address
- Can be read on desktops and mobile devices
- Relatively easy to create and deliver campaigns
- Response and interaction can be measured, tracked, and analyzed
- Marketing automation has gone mainstream
- Versatile: text, images, videos, links, files, collateral, and calls to action (CTA) can be included
- Generates traffic to website and helps with SEO
Marketers know that email marketing is great for brand awareness and customer acquisition, with virtually the lowest customer acquisition cost (CAC) of any other methods. However, because of that, almost everyone uses it. One must know how to stand out, how to rise above the noise, and how to leverage email marketing to get the most out of it.
By Duke Merhavy, MBA, PhD, President & Chief Marketing Officer at Fractional CMO & Marketing
