What are the key components of your marketing strategy that lead to conversions for your business? Let’s take a moment to think about your sales funnel. For a simplified overview: Networking, paid advertising, and SEO help you gain an audience. Your audience engages with you via your online presence (i.e. your website, social media, and email list). Engagement with your content via your online presence leads to conversions and sales. You head up your website, social media, and your email list, so you “own” your audience on all of these platforms, right?
Wrong. Your website traffic is impacted directly by your site’s optimization, and we’re all-too familiar with the ever-changing algorithms on social platforms (and even the rare occasion where our social channels go down – yikes!) Of all the places you engage with your audience online, your email list is the only audience you own. Keep reading for 5 reasons why email marketing should be a non-negotiable element in your digital marketing strategy.
1. You can stay in front of your audience who either isn’t on social media or isn’t being reached via social media
While social media certainly has a place in your digital marketing strategy, it definitely should not be your entire digital marketing strategy. According to marketingdive.com, 34% of Gen Zers are leaving social media. And according to statista.com, 45% of Facebook users have considered leaving the social network. On top of that, social media marketing can feel like a constant struggle to “beat the algorithm” – posts are seen on average by 35% of your Facebook followers (businessinsider.com), 10% of your Instagram followers (shortstack.com), and 10-15% of your following on LinkedIn (linkedin.com). Email marketing allows you to reach a much larger portion of your audience, and to reach the portion of your audience that may not be on social media at all.
2. It takes less volume of content to be effective compared to social media
This one is pretty simple! Back to the algorithm: social media platforms want to keep you on their apps, and that means that most reward daily posting with more visibility for your brand. Thinking about your own email subscriptions, imagine how overwhelmed you’d be by receiving a newsletter from a company every single day. Most experts agree they get the best experience from their email marketing when they send one or two emails per week (fabrikbrands.com).
3. You can create “set it and forget it”-style automation to keep your brand consistently in front of leads
Once you do the up-front work to set up your drip series content, you can automate different actions to act as triggers for delivering a series of emails to your audience. As long as the content stays relevant, you can sit back and focus on other areas of your business while your automations continue to work for you in the background. Compare this with posting on social media which requires constant attention from you to stay in front of your audience, and setting up an automated drip series is a no-brainer
4. You can customize the messaging in your emails for a more personalized experience
Depending on your user’s engagement with your brand, you can segment your lists into different groups and selectively cater to each one with deliverables that are specific to them. Running a promotion for new clients to your business? Only message your audience who hasn’t booked with you yet. Have a core group of customers who repeatedly send new business your way? Send segmented emails with targeted loyalty offerings like discounts or product trials.
5. You market to (and can re-market to) your existing client base.
Did you know that the success rate of selling to existing customers is significantly higher than converting new ones? According to outboundengine.com, the success rate of selling to a customer you already have is 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is 5-20%. Further, one customer experience agency found loyal customers are 5 times as likely to repurchase, 5 times as likely to forgive, 4 times as likely to refer, and 7 times as likely to try a new offering (outboundengine.com). Your current clients are an essential part of your business growth, and reaching them via email is an essential part of reminding them how much they love your brand.
Email marketing is amazing, but the customization can be overwhelming. Book a discovery call to explore how our team can help! Also, be sure to download our free guide on crafting the perfect email subject line.
Hi, I'm Jaime.
I'm the CEO of Weatherby Media and LOVE working with incredible entrepreneurs like you every single day to build the business of their dreams. The key to success is an effective digital marketing strategy. Schedule a call to discuss your business goals and how we can help.