While poking around a Facebook group recently, I came across a post from someone who said they were “having a mindset block with believing emails actually work.”
Being a proponent of email marketing, as I am, I read through the comments to see if there was anything I could contribute.
What struck me was how many people originally agreed with the poster but were using email marketing anyway. They’d tried it and discovered how effective it really is at making more sales and growing their businesses.
Which drives home the importance of email marketing in your overall business plan, as well as why you too should be using it if you’re not already.
Why Does Email Marketing Matter to Your Bottom Line?
I write about this regularly. Honestly, I have an entire blog post dedicated to why email marketing should be your primary marketing method.
I’ll rehash a few statistics for you here:
- Email marketing yields an average of 4,300% return on investment (ROI) for businesses in the United States” – Direct Marketing Association
For every $1 you put into your email marketing; you get $43 back. - 99% of consumers check their email every day.
- 66% of consumers have made an online purchase as a direct result of an email marketing message. – Direct Marketing Association
The most interesting, albeit anecdotal statistic I have seen for myself and heard from several business owners lately, including in a few of the comments to the post I mentioned above, is that 30% of their online revenue comes from email marketing.
If you’re not using email marketing, you’re leaving almost one third of your potential revenue on the table.
“My Email List = Freedom”
I found this to be the most poignant statement in all the comments on that original Facebook post.
Because it’s true.
When you have an email list, you have control over:
- What your subscribers see
- When they see it
- Where they go after they’ve seen it.
Social media is great, and you should certainly include it in your marketing plan, but it is full of distractions. It’s easy for your ideal customers to get sidetracked after reading your post and keep scrolling, instead of clicking on your link.
Plus, the social media companies have control over how often your target audience sees your ads. And we all know how fickle they can be. They change their algorithms constantly, which means you may have an ad that’s working like gangbusters one day and totally flops the next, all because a developer pushed a change to the platform.
With email marketing, you send an email with an engaging subject line. Your subscribers open and read the email. They click on your call to action and are transported to a page where they see whatever it is you’re offering.
No distractions, no crazy interference from algorithms, just a direct line between you sending an email and your subscribers hitting your landing or sales page to see your product or service.
Your Subscribers Will Tell You What They Want to Know
“I have no idea what to write” is the most common excuse I hear from business owners regarding why they don’t have an email list.
Once you start writing regularly, you’ll start getting responses to those emails. I see this all the time. When I send out an email on a specific topic I’ll get several responses, thanking me for addressing this topic, because it was a problem for these subscribers.
For those of you who are really into metrics, you’ll also see spikes in activity on your website, which can also indicate that whatever you’ve linked to is of interest to your audience, so you should delve deeper into that topic or idea.
This can be particularly useful for bloggers. One of the many commenters on the aforementioned post said, “I love watching what people are looking at in real time. It often prompts me to go and tweak certain pages.”
Once You Have Their Email Address, They’re Yours
To be fair, they’re yours until they choose to unsubscribe. But otherwise, that statement is true.
This may be the top reason on the “importance of email marketing” list o’ reasons.
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Clubhouse, and all the other marketing channels have the ability and the right to cut you off entirely from your audience for any reason, at any time. Because they can.
Generally, something you have done will trigger the cut off, but that can be any number of things that you may not have known were “no-no’s.” This can be debilitating to your business, short and long-term.
Imagine being in the middle of a new product launch and suddenly, your Facebook ad account is shut down. I know at least 100 business owners this has happened to. Some of them were able to correct the problem quickly. For others, it tanked their entire launch.
Why?
Because they were relying solely on Facebook to sell their product.
If they had an email list, they would have a captive audience they could sell to, at a much lower cost.
By the way, I also know business owners who have lost their social media accounts on several platforms, both for actual violations and “just because.” They had huge followings and suddenly were bereft of their entire customer base because they didn’t have an email list.
Your Email List is the #1 Way to Disaster-Proof Your Business
I am completely serious about this.
Your business could be ripped out from under you, fold completely, have everything taken away or destroyed. But if you have an email list, you can rebuild that business within 1 year, maximum.
Why can I make this claim?
Because I’ve seen it work and I’ve done it.
If you have an email list, you have a group of people who love what you do and appreciate what you’ve done for them. You can go to that list, tell them what happened, and share what you’re doing next. Most of them will be there for you because they respect you, your creativity, and your results.
As you rebuild, you can email regularly to share work in progress reports. You can also ask your subscribers for direct feedback on what you’re doing and let their input shape how your new business develops.
Most importantly, you can run a product or service pre-sale to fund rebuilding your business. Your subscribers are an eager and willing audience who already want what you’re offering and will help you get there faster.
Believe in the Importance of Email Marketing
I hope you now understand the importance of email marketing in your overall business plan and how it can set you up for success.
If you’ve already got an email list and you’re writing to them regularly, good for you! That’s fantastic, keep up the good work.
If you’re staring at these words, wondering where to start, I recommend clicking on the button below to get your copy of The 5 Components You Need to Build Your Email List.
This checklist shows you exactly what you’ll need to set up to start collecting email addresses. It also tells you how to start using email marketing in your business to build a relationship with your subscribers and make more sales.
If you’re already using email marketing, this list will show you whether you’ve got every piece in place to grow your list fast and get the most from it.
Get your copy now and start using email marketing to make your business grow and thrive.