Email marketing is one of the traditional forms of digital marketing that has been around since the world woke up to the phenomenon called the internet. You want to reach out to your audience and customers digitally and you do it by sending them an email.

From sending generic emails to everyone in your mailing list, email marketing has come a very long way. We have gone past grouping customers based on common features or demographics. We now have abundant customer data which enables a business to know its customers – not as a group of people that will fit into a demographic profile, but as individuals. Knowing each customer personally makes it possible for all kinds of specific communication to be sent to each of them addressing their particular needs.

Email marketing is one of the best ways of engaging with your customers because this is one channel where the audience actually opts to hear from you! You are not just talking to them, hoping they want to hear from you! So it is no small wonder that according to a report from Econsultancy, 73% of marketers report a high ROI from marketing!

And why is that?

Because sophisticated tools now place enormous power in the hands of the marketer, giving him the opportunity to send the right message to the right customer at the right time.

They can

• enable personalization in a great way
• increase open rates
• improve productivity

And so much more!

Let’s take a look at some of the advantages of using email to market to your customers.

1. Email marketing is one of the less expensive ways of marketing. This is one of its greatest advantages.
2. And the fact that email marketing is sending messages to people who opt to be contacted by you! Which means that the conversion rates are high!
3. Email marketing is targeted marketing at its best. You get to control who sees your email and what they see!
4. It is possible to segment all these willing and wanting to be contacted customers based on various criteria and engaging with them based on that!
5. And the audience gets the emails immediately. So the impact is quick!
6. Emails are easy to create (great tools available for this)
7. They are easy to track and measure. Both in terms of sales and user engagement. So you know how many people viewed your message. You will know what works. And what doesn’t.
8. Emails are easy to share – if a customer so chooses to! All you do is hit “forward”
9. By sharing emails with your customers, you increase brand awareness. Which is a great thing.
10. It helps you engage with your customers better by including an interactive element in it.
11. It is possible to personalize your messages to your customers – you don’t need to use a “one size fits all” kind of method.
12. You can communicate more frequently with your customers – since emails are easy to create quickly.
13. Great way to save trees and the planet

Yes – there are tools. And yes – they do place enormous power in the hands of the marketer, giving him the opportunity to send the right message to the right customer at the right time. But that is not the end – in this current digital age of multichannel engagement and evolved customers, there are a few things a marketer must factor into his email marketing strategy.

Also, read

• Shoppable Media Ads – The next big thing in Digital Advertising
• 10 Indicators of Campaign management transformation. Part 1 of 2
• Sharpen Targeting with Micro-Segmentation to Achieve Higher Response and Conversion
• What is Keyword Research And Why Its Important?
• What is Keyword Cannibalization and How to Solve it?