Data-Backed Insights on Whether Email Marketing is Still Relevant

The last time I checked, £38 is the average ROI for every £1 invested in email marketing (source).

The figure is a telltale sign of how powerful email marketing is. It’s data like this that compels the marketers and business owners to allocate a big portion of their marketing budget in their email marketing campaigns.

The figure above, however, was for 2015.

The last time I checked, £38 is the average ROI for every £1 invested in email marketing (source).

The figure is a telltale sign of how powerful email marketing is. It’s data like this that compels the marketers and business owners to allocate a big portion of their marketing budget in their email marketing campaigns.

The figure above, however, was for 2015.

Now that we’re about to cap off the year, the looming question that we business owners and marketers are asking ourselves is whether or not we can we still expect email marketing to generate good ROI?

Is it still relevant?

Or, has its usefulness fizzled out because of the new marketing methods that are gaining a good bit of traction this year?

#Chatbots #FacebookLive #PersonalizedMarketing

Let’s check out what the numbers say about the current state of email marketing.

1. “On average, 21% of marketers across all industries stated that email marketing delivers an excellent return on investment…”  – Getresponse.com

The comprehensive report put together by Getresponse has truckloads of golden nuggets about the health of email marketing this year.

When consultant marketers were asked to rate nine digital marketing channels based on the ROI they generate, email marketing had a stunning rating of 69% (45% rated email marketing as “Good”, while 24% rated it as “Excellent”).

Content marketing came second with only 59% (36% “Good” and 23% “Excellent”).

(Source: GetResonse.com)

When it comes to consumer goods (FMCG, Consumer, Durables, etc.), email marketing had a rating of 69% (49% “Good” and 20% “Excellent”), while social media marketing came second with only 54% (36% “Good” and 18% “Excellent”).

(Source: GetResonse.com)

It’s also worth pointing out how email marketing is getting some of the lowest scores when you add up both the “Very Poor” and “Poor” ratings.

GetResponse also manages to collect data on how email marketing is performing across various industries.

(Source: GetResonse.com)

Looking at the high CTORs (Click-to-Open-Ratio) alone will tell us how much value email marketing can still bring to businesses.

Not only does it show how the email account owners are still opening the email messages sent to them, but they’re also consuming/reading the content to the point where they are convinced enough to click the link inserted in the email.

In short, if you want to reach out to your customers to compel/influence them to take a look at your products and services, email marketing can certainly do the job for you.

While the data that GetResponse shared is a dead giveaway of how email marketing is still thriving like a rockstar, let’s check out a couple more data about email marketing.

2. Email account growth worldwide continues to skyrocket.

Here’s what Realtime.email’s data revealed about the growth of email accounts worldwide.

(Source: Realtime.email)

In case you missed it, I’m trying to point out how in the year 2017, the estimated number of email accounts worldwide will balloon to about 4.9 billion — about 3.7 billion email accounts belong to consumers while the remaining 1.1 billion are business email accounts.

3.7 billion email accounts belonging to the consumers… Isn’t the thought of it amazing?

With how massive this drool-worthy figure is, it will surely be enough to convince even the staunchest of offline marketers to consider using email marketing to grow their business.

3. Professionals (still) love email marketing.

Demandwave.com surveyed nearly 300 professionals about the marketing strategies they use in their digital marketing arsenal, 95% of them answered “Email Marketing”, while “Social Media Marketing” was a close second at 93%.

(Source: Demandwave)

Demandwave’s data yet again solidifies the point of how email marketing isn’t just alive and kicking, but it’s also dominating the digital marketing scene.

At this point, I hope there isn’t a shred of doubt in your minds on whether or not you should continue to nurture your email marketing campaigns, or you should pull the plug. Based on the data that we’ve seen so far, the latter would clearly be the wrong choice.

Now that we know how powerful email marketing still is, let’s talk about some of the strategies that you can use to get better results out of your campaigns.

Email marketing strategies:

1. Insert videos in your emails.

Some marketers report a whopping 50% increase (or more)  on their click-through-rates when they insert videos in their email messages.

Quick and friendly reminder: Do not let the thought of creating videos overwhelm you. Remember that your audience isn’t expecting Hollywood-level videos from you. Most people are content with videos that have a clear audio, and a decent background or copy. The important point is your content should provide TONS of value to your audience.

2. Use compelling copy.

Add psychological elements in your copy so your chances of being able to influence your readers will drastically increase. You can talk about your readers’ problems, leverage on social proof by adding testimonials, or you can add scarcity elements in your copy (among other things).

3. Split test.

You will never know if your email marketing campaigns are performing well unless you take the time to split test.

That being said, take the time to create variations of your subject lines, your call-to-actions, your choice of words, etc.

Of course, you also need to track your results. That way, you will know which among the variations are giving you the best results.

4. Segment your list.

Segmenting your email lists will allow you to create copy that’s laser focused on each segment or group.

In the marketing space, we have a saying that goes along the lines of, “If you market to everyone, you’re marketing to no one.”

The same principle applies when you do not segment your list.

While your email list is already targeted to some extent, you’ll be able to niche them down even more if you segment them.

When you’ve managed to categorize your list, you’ll be able to write compelling copy that’s laser focused on each group — which can easily result in you getting better conversion rate.

5. Add a clear CTA (Call-to-action).

Avoid adding two or more call-to-actions to your email list. Adopting the one-CTA-per-email rule is almost always a good idea because it keeps your readers from getting confused or distracted.

To solidify my point, imagine running an email marketing campaign to sell your new marketing software.

You did such a swell job at creating compelling content that your readers immediately became hooked. However, at the end of your email message, you then asked your readers to share the software, click, the link, reply with their comments, and buy your software (finally).

I’m sure you can imagine how some of your readers will end up getting distracted by doing one or two of the other CTAs that you added. Or worse, they might just click away because they ended up feeling confused about what to do.

Whichever the case may be, it could only mean one thing for you — no sales.

Conclusion

Have you been using email marketing to grow your business? What recent developments have you seen on how your email lists are responding towards your newsletters this year?

Has there been a significant difference between the results you’ve been getting from your campaigns this year compared to the previous one?

We’d love to read your insights about email marketing. Please share them in the comments section below.