For some businesses, the idea of email marketing may seem a little old school. In today’s world of social media, Instagram influencers, and various platforms for messaging, it’s easy to view the traditional email approach as an archaic method of connecting with your contacts.
But the fact of the matter is, email continues to be one of the most effective forms of communication to date, not to mention one of the highest ROI generators out there. According to HubSpot, email generates $38 for every $1 spent, equating to a whopping 3,800 percent ROI.
In addition to it making good business sense, email marketing yields another invaluable asset, and that is your opt-in email list. Sure, you may have an impressive audience on platforms like Facebook, but it’s important to remember that you don’t own those names – Facebook does. When it comes to marketing, your audience is your biggest asset, and in order to protect your asset, you need to own the rights to it.
So, what exactly is an email list and what makes it so important to your business? Let’s take a look.
An email list is a compilation of email addresses that have been voluntarily provided by people, either online or in person, so you can send them email correspondence. In some cases, people who choose to “opt in” to your email list can choose the types of email content they’d like to receive, like getting notified via email when new blog posts have been published. Your email list is a direct reflection of the interest and trust that your contacts have in you, specifically because they place value on what you have to say.
Google is an ever-evolving machine, and it constantly updates its search algorithm. In some instances, you can be blindsided by a penalty without ever knowing you were operating outside the rules. When something like that happens, your email list may be the only crash pad you have. Even if all of your SEO rankings plummeted, you would still have the ability to promote your business to thousands of people via email.
Building an email list is critical because it offers opportunities for more personal communication with prospects, leads, and current and past customers. When compared to social media, where your audience may or may not glance at your status update before moving on, emails are delivered directly to your audience’s inbox, where they also receive correspondence from friends, family, and colleagues. Once in their inbox, people have the option to read your emails more than once, and even search for them again down the line.
On social media, you are only able to reach a very small percentage of your audience via communication and status updates. According to Francisco Rosales, the founder of Social Mouth, although 22 percent of emails tend to end up blocked or in junk folders, 78 percent of them are successfully delivered, which vastly expands your reach and overall audience.
Email list segmentation is the process of categorizing your subscribers, grouping them together, and then tailoring the information you send to them based on interest. Understanding the type of content your subscribers prefer to receive allows you to send them impactful and highly relevant information. List segmentation accounts for 77 percent of all email marketing ROI, as it allows for more effective sales efforts, conversion opportunities, and the ability to provide the right people with the right incentives.
One of the most impactful reasons to build and maintain email lists is the insight you get into the success of your marketing efforts via email analytics. You can see key metrics like who opened your emails, how many people clicked on the links that you provided within your emails, what devices are being used by your audience (mobile, tablets, computers, etc.), who unsubscribed from your list, and in some instances, the reasons why they unsubscribed.
This level of data can enhance and inform future efforts like guiding the content you create, finding the best times to send your emails, writing more impactful calls-to-action and subject lines, and influencing overall list segmentation.
Analyzing data is the best way to measure the return on your email marketing investment and help you make strategic and informed marketing decisions.
Although email marketing is one of the original tried-and-true marketing methods, it is far from antiquated. Building a robust email list continues to be the main driver of audience engagement, new and continued business, and informed marketing decisions. If there is one thing that most successful businesses have in common, it’s the value that they place on maintaining and safeguarding their contacts. Protect yourself from algorithm changes and don’t leave your biggest asset to be managed by a social media platform that may or may not be around forever. Keep your list to yourself – you earned it.