As marketers, we’re always trying to keep up with the latest trends and be aware of what the marketing world is talking about. But one question that’s circulated over the years (and is still a hot debate) stood out to us:

Is email marketing dead?

More small businesses are reevaluating their marketing strategy and making tough decisions based on a channel’s impact, return on investment, and relevance to their strategy. Email marketing, in particular, is the tactic that often gets pushed to the side or forgotten, as business owners are more likely to invest in SEO or web design, which have a seemingly “instant” impact (spoiler alert — they don’t).

We put our heads together to talk through the pros and cons of email marketing to help equip you with the best data possible. Every marketing strategy is different and it’s likely that email marketing might not be a good fit for your brand, or that your email marketing execution will be unique. That’s perfectly fine — we’re here to simply share our thoughts!

The Challenges Of Email Marketing

Cluttered Inboxes

How many times have you opened your inbox and recoiled in horror at the number of unread emails? One of the biggest challenges with email marketing is competition. The sheer number of emails sent, often sporadically and without rhyme or reason, can deter email recipients from actually checking their inbox, since there are just so many emails to wade through.

Low Chance of Touchpoint

When you send an email, there is no guarantee that the recipient ever opens it. In fact, most probably won’t! That can be off putting to some marketers, who want to know they are making an impact on their desired targets. For some, the risk of an email being unopened is too large, so they opt for display, SEO or SEM instead.

Active Engagement Can Be Hard To Measure

Even an opened email is no guarantee. A recipient still needs to actually read the content, let alone take the desired action, like call or buy a product. Some marketers instead prefer more passive marketing mediums, like Youtube ads or broadcast TV, which require little action on the viewer’s part.

The Benefits of Email Marketing

While there are definitely challenges with email marketing, it is worth remembering that these can be overcome with the right strategy. Targeting the right people, writing good email copy, and incorporating a compelling call to action all will improve the odds that you see success with email marketing.

However, it is also worth remembering that email marketing offers a ton of benefits, benefits that other mediums do not.

Email Marketing Is Automated

One of the key benefits of email marketing is that it’s a completely automated outreach strategy, if done correctly. The number of touchpoints your brand can establish with customers and potential customers with email marketing is many times what you could do with manual outreach from sales. Other mediums, like social media and pay-per-click advertising, can be automated, but the potential reach is just typically so much higher with email marketing, at least for the typical small business.

Email Marketing Is Conversational

The biggest brands in the world pay top dollar to perfect their brand message when reaching out to potential clients. A natural, low-pressure, and informative brand message can help entice your clients to learn more and can often lead to gleaning bits of insight from your clients. Remember, the whole point of marketing isn’t just to advertise; you also should be encouraging real and authentic two-way exchanges of information with your clients and potential client. Email marketing is a great medium to do just that.

Email Marketing Is Cost Effective

They are better ways to reach more people than email marketing, but none are as cost-effective as email marketing. Pay-per-click advertising, paid social media campaigns, and broadcast advertising can reach more people, but these mediums do come with a hefty price tag. Email marketing typically requires no ad spend budget, fewer hours of maintenance, and less manual setup versus other marketing channels, making it a lower-cost medium. But that’s not all! Because email marketing allows you to reach specific people at specific times and is used to nurture existing clients to purchase again, it also drives more sales than other low-cost mediums. Email marketing punches above its weight!

Email Marketing Is Tailored

Marketers are always thinking through how to create marketing funnels, or paths to draw their potential clients from awareness to consideration to purchase. There are ways this can be done with web design, SEO or social media, but none have the versatility that email marketing does. If done correctly, marketers can use their email marketing campaigns to “build their own adventures” for potential clients and clients, depending on user quality or actions. Maybe a different follow up email should be sent to those who didn’t open the previous email. Maybe you are putting leads down an automated email campaign and realize that there really need to be two campaigns, depending on the industry of the lead. Never fear; with the right CRM and email strategy, you can segment your campaigns to be tailored to each unique lead.

Email Marketing Strategies

When we view email marketing holistically, acknowledging its weaknesses and noting its strengths, we see that there are a few rules to keep in mind when using email marketing.

Don’t Rely on Email Marketing To Grow Your Business; Use It To Grow Clients

Email marketing, at least for small businesses, doesn’t tend to be a great vehicle for net-new growth. Few people will open emails from a sender they don’t recognize, so using email marketing to reach new clients doesn’t pan out for a lot of small businesses. However, that doesn’t mean that we don’t encourage email marketing to existing clients or leads. The medium is a great way to continually nurture existing clients or leads and sporadic email communication, such as through a product recall campaign or an existing client recall campaign, can keep you top of mind with your existing clients. Remember, an existing client is 60% likelier to convert, so this approach tends to work well!

Use In Tandem With Other Channels

Email marketing has its benefits, but it needs to be used in tandem with other marketing methods. As mentioned previously, email marketing works well as a remarketing tool. We recommend using other channels, like SEO, paid search, and paid social to reach new clients. There are multiple ways of doing this, but we recommend an approach where each individual piece of the campaign complements the other tactics. For instance, use paid social media to redirect to a contact page, where users can request a piece of content by filling in their name and email address. Now that you have email addresses, utilize a well-planned and informational email marketing campaign to educate and inform your lead about your brand!

Follow Best Practices, As Always

Email marketing isn’t a cheat code. You won’t see results if you don’t follow industry best practices for best results. Make sure…

Your email bodies are short and digestible
Your emails have concise and enticing subject lines
Your emails come from a trusted email address
Your emails don’t make pushy sales plays, but mainly offer informational content and news.
You comply with all relevant privacy and can spam regulations.

Consider Your Main Objective And Plan Accordingly

We will always recommend using email marketing as a part of your overall strategy, but it might not be the crux of your marketing strategy at any given point. If you’re a new business with hardly any customers, you need to focus on the essentials. Local SEO, branding, and logo design are much more important than email marketing at this stage. If you’re a company with a broader customer base, but an old, less-responsive website, we’d recommend putting more effort into a website redesign or a brand new site before email marketing. Now, if you’re a brand with a large customer base, but most of these customers haven’t purchased lately, then email marketing might be the perfect way to reengage them!

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