SHORT ANSWER: Heck yeah!
When the internet first became widely available, everyone loved email. We would get so excited when something popped into our online inbox because, well, it was new and exciting. Today, email users are more wary about trusting unfamiliar emails and are more particular about who they allow in their inbox. Which leads many business owners to ask, “Is email marketing still an effective and appropriate tactic for small businesses?”
The simple answer is yes.
When done correctly, email marketing can be a highly effective way to communicate with customers and should be a staple of almost any small business marketing strategy.
Not convinced? Here are three big reasons why email marketing is still relevant—even in 2021.
Everyone Uses Email
We published a blog recently about how you should “fish where the fish are” when it comes to marketing your business online. That simply means that you should focus your marketing efforts on platforms that your target market already uses. This concept is usually applied to social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. But, what if I told you there is a pond where nearly all the fish reside? All the time, every day.
Yep, I’m talking about email. Around 4 billion people worldwide use email (yes, billion with a b). Let’s put that in perspective. There are more email users than Facebook and Twitter users combined. And the majority of Americans check their email daily. And by “daily,” we mean many, many times per day. With smart phones in every hand, email notifications need not wait until you get back to your desk (so 1998!). Email is seen, read, and interacted with 24/7.
So, no matter who your target audience is, chances are you can reach them through email, making email marketing relevant to nearly all industries.
Email Marketing is Highly Effective (When Done Right)
As we said, most Americans check their email many times every day. And, according to the Content Marketing Institute’s 2020 B2C Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report, content marketers rate email newsletters as their highest performing content type for securing and nurturing leads.
“But don’t people hate getting spam emails?” you ask. Yes, they do. But you should never be sending spam. Instead, the email you send should be helpful content that provides value to your audience. By sending personalized and informative content, you will build trust with your email contacts—and that trust will build relationships, spread the reach of your business, and lead to sales!
If you are sending your audience helpful content targeted to their needs, they will engage with it. If you are sending spam, they will unsubscribe. So, don’t be spammy. Add value—whatever that looks like to your ideal customer.
Email Marketing is Affordable
No, really. It’s super affordable. Email marketing allows you to reach consumers at a rate of pennies per message. Most small business owners are working on a limited budget and they need to find ways to make every dollar count. Marketing via email involves very little upfront cost and it is relatively inexpensive to maintain over time. How’s that for a cherry on top?
Here’s the bottom line: email marketing is more effective in reaching your target market than almost any other form of marketing communication, and it can be done for a fraction of the cost of many other tactics. It just requires a little time and effort, but that work can easily be outsourced (wink, wink).
