Does Email Marketing Work? The Only Right Answer to the Million-Dollar Question

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Have you heard the joke about the marketer who said that email marketing is dead? We’re pretty sure that most of us have by now, but not everyone seems to get the punchline.

The real question is — why would anyone claim that such a powerful marketing method no longer works? 

It’s true that we live in the age of social media and that there’s plenty of marketing techniques that are more modern than email. This doesn’t mean that the effectiveness of email marketing has dwindled — it’s quite the opposite.

The joke is on the marketer because they’ve failed to create a successful email marketing strategy. There is a wide range of mistakes that marketers make and choose to blame it on email. According to HubSpot, some of the reasons why people unsubscribe from mailing lists are that the emails:

• Flood their inboxes

• Breach the expectations set by the opt-in forms

• Carry generic and impersonal messages

• Fail to spark their interest

• Hide too much about who the sender is

• Disregard the recipients’ feedback

• Overlook the necessity to be mobile-friendly

An email marketing campaign cannot work without a well-thought-out strategy. When applied properly, it can benefit your business in many ways.

In this article, we’re going to take a look at some of the primary reasons why email marketing still works. This includes the fact that it:

1. Generates an astounding ROI

2. Enables you to reach mobile users

3. Allows you to measure its effectiveness

4. Provides list segmentation

5. Comes with personalization features

6. Integrates with other marketing methods

7. Equips you with automation features

Email Marketing Generates an Astounding ROI

Even with all the naysayers in the marketing community, one cannot turn their back on the statistics. Email marketing is the perfect solution for businesses because it generates a return on investment that plenty of other marketing channels can only be envious of. According to HubSpot’s review, every $1 that you spend generates $38 in return. This means that, by using email as a marketing method, you can get a 3,800% return on investment on average. 

By looking at how other marketing channels perform, we can conclude that email marketing ROI takes the cake. Consider the fact that Google Adwords marketing generates only $2 for every $1 spent.

Calculating Your ROI

You should calculate your email campaign’s ROI to determine whether it’s close to the average we’ve previously discussed. If it’s significantly lower, you need to figure out how to improve your email marketing strategy.

Before you can calculate your return on investment, you need to determine how much you’ve spent on and how much you’ve earned with your email campaign. Once you’ve got that information, you can insert it into a simple equation. 

Start by subtracting what you’ve gained from what you’ve spent. Then, divide that number by how much you’ve spent. Finally, multiply the number with 100 to get the percentage. The equation should look like this:

ROI = (amount gained - amount spent) / amount spent x 100

Let’s say that you’ve earned $1000 from an email marketing campaign that you’ve spent $100 dollars on. This would mean you’ve generated $9 for every $1 spent, which constitutes a 900% return on investment. 

Email Marketing Enables You To Reach Mobile Users

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Email marketing is an efficient method for catering to the evergrowing mobile community. With over 3.5 billion mobile users across the globe and the fact that 85% of all consumers open emails on their smartphones, it goes without saying that you need to use compelling email campaigns to reach out to them and provide them with the best possible user experience and customer journey.

Companies that create email marketing software are well aware of mobile’s dominance over other communication channels. This is why you can find a wide range of solutions that enable you to design your email campaigns specifically for the mobile audience. You can choose from a vast assortment of responsive templates and preview what each email will look like on almost any mobile device.

Ensuring that your email content is digestible is always a must. Keep in mind that your recipients commonly scan emails for valuable information. You need to pay special attention to make it as comprehensible as possible for mobile users. You can do this by:

• Using a crisp and simple design that looks perfect on mobile devices

• Making your message short and compelling, and breaking it into focused sections

• Choosing an enticing font and making it big enough so that it’s easy on the eye

• Creating prominent CTAs that are both attention-grabbing and easy to click on

It’s important to note that plenty of email service providers disable images and HTML content. Even if you’ve optimized them for your mobile recipients, they might not be able to see them at all. There are two methods for solving this issue. You need to support the content with:

1. Alt text

2. Plain text

Alt Text

Alt text — also known as alt tag and alt description — is a written copy that appears instead of images that cannot be loaded. It’s used to explain what the user is supposed to see, ensuring that their user experience isn’t thwarted by the lack of the intended visual content.

Plain Text

Plain text is, as the name implies, simple text that doesn’t use the support of any code or formatting. When it comes to email, it’s used to replace the HTML that fails to load. With some email software, you can create both HTML and plain text versions of your email and send them to the appropriate recipients.

Email Marketing Helps You Build Relationships

Email marketing is one of the most powerful methods for building relationships with your prospects. It enables you to segment your lists into highly targeted groups and create personalized email sequences for every step along their customer journey. 

Building relationships is crucial because you need to nurture your leads before they’re ready to make a decision. Consider the fact that about 50% of your qualified leads aren’t ready to make a purchase, even though they’ve shown an interest in your business. You need to provide adequate materials for every stage of their customer journey. The stages are:

1. Awareness

2. Consideration

3. Decision

Here’s how you should treat your lead during each stage:

Email Marketing Is Measurable

The success of your email marketing campaigns is easy to measure. There are plenty of tools that enable you to track all relevant metrics, including:

• Open rate

• Click-through rate

• Conversion rate

• Complaint rate

• Unsubscribe rate

• List growth rate

• Bounce rate

You can gain valuable insights by analyzing these metrics. They can be used to determine which aspects of your email campaign you need to improve. 

If your open rate is too low, you can A/B test your preheader or subject line and see if it affects the campaign’s performance. In case you’re not getting enough conversions, you can test different subscription form variants. A high complaint rate could mean that you’re emailing disinterested contacts that you should remove from your mailing list.

Email Marketing Provides List Segmentation

Email marketing is a highly targetable method. You can segment your contact lists into targeted groups that you can craft specific content for. You need to provide your recipients with relevant information based on their needs and preferences. According to Instapage’s report, sending emails based on segmentation results in a 46% higher open rate on average than generic promotional messages.

There are two ways that you can segment your lists. You can do it according to:

1. Segmentation factors

2. User actions

Segmentation Factors

Segmentation factors are unique characteristics that can determine your contacts’ behaviors and preferences. This includes:

• Demographics — age, gender, education, ethnicity, occupation

• Psychographics — values, attitudes, interests, lifestyles, motivations, priorities

• Firmographics — industry, job title, company size, annual revenue

• Behavioral traits — benefits sought, spending habits, brand interactions, purchasing habits

User Actions

You can segment your contact groups based on specific actions that users perform when browsing your website or checking out your emails. This includes:

• Opening your email

• Subscribing to your mailing list

• Spending time on a particular webpage

• Clicking on a CTA or hyperlink

• Watching a video

• Downloading an ebook or whitepaper

• Abstaining from taking action

There are email marketing tools that provide self-segmentation features. Whenever a user performs a particular action, the software adds them to a specific group automatically.

Email Marketing Is Highly Personalized

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List segmentation goes hand in hand with implementing personalization features. Next to providing your contacts with relevant content, you can include various personal details, such as their name, job title, location, company, etc. 

This approach makes users feel like they’re communicating with a human being that cares about their needs and interests. Including personalization elements in your emails is crucial because neglecting to do so results in 52% of customers turning to other businesses for solutions.

You can insert personal information into your emails by using shortcodes or email marketing automation features.

Personalization gives email marketing a distinct advantage over social media channels. Instead of addressing your audience as a whole, you can refer to every contact by their name and use other personal details that they’ll appreciate. This is an efficient way to gain your users’ trust and motivate them to move along the customer journey.

Email Marketing Integrates With Other Marketing Methods

Another strong suit of email marketing is that it can work hand in hand with other marketing strategies. It can help you centralize various marketing efforts and complement other types of campaigns. This includes:

1. Content marketing

2. Social media

3. Real-world events

Content Marketing

Email and content marketing can complement each other perfectly. You can create email campaigns to promote your best content, including:

• Podcasts

• Webinars

• Infographics

• Blog posts

• Tutorials

The reason why this is a fantastic approach is that you need high-quality content to provide your subscribers with valuable resources and establish yourself as an authority in your field. As we’ve previously discussed, such content is crucial for building a relationship with your contacts and moving them down the sales funnel. 

Your emails can contain shorter content pieces and include links to website pages with more extensive materials.

Social Media

You can integrate your email and social media marketing efforts. One of the most common approaches is incorporating social media sharing icons into your emails. If you ask recipients to share your email with their friends, you’ll be able to reach people in other communities. You also have the option to embed user reviews and social media posts. 

The connection between email and social media can also work the other way around. Start a contest or a giveaway on Facebook or Instagram and make subscribing to your mailing list a requirement for participation. 

Real-World Events

Email marketing can be the perfect solution for inviting people to real-world events that you host. This is because you can create onboarding email sequences and spark your contacts’ interest with a few well-crafted emails. Explain what the event is about, provide strong incentives, and allow users to RSVP within the email.

Email Marketing Can Be Automated

One of the most powerful features that email marketing provides is automation. There is a vast assortment of tools that enable you to set up email sequences based on timing and triggers. You can set up automatic responses to any relevant action that your subscribers perform and schedule emails to be sent at opportune times. 

You can set an entire onboarding process on autopilot. It should start with a welcome email that informs new subscribers about what they can look forward to. The second email can come a few days later, providing valuable information to each segmented contact group. Once you’ve got your audience’s attention, the third email can start promoting your best products. The final email should seal the deal, presenting your subscribers with a special offer.

One of the primary benefits of email marketing automation is the ability to streamline the majority of processes and provide enough time for your staff to focus on tasks that require a manual approach.

Why You Should Try Our Email Marketing Solutions

When it comes to email marketing tools, our Sell SaaS software bundle has a few solutions for you. 

You can try our email campaign creator and craft highly targeted email campaigns for each of your contact groups. Use the tool’s handy online editor to design attention-grabbing emails that you can automate with the autoresponder feature. You can set up both drip and trigger campaigns, providing your recipients with a fantastic customer journey. You can also track your emails and determine your campaign’s success in terms of deliverability rates.

Sell SaaS Email Lookup Tools

To build and grow an email list, you should check out some of our email lookup tools, including:

Why Sell Saas?

What makes our offer special is that we provide you with the opportunity to both use and resell our software. You can add your name, logo, and colors, and sell our tools at a price that you get to dictate.

There are no additional fees you should worry about. Partner up with us and get between 60% and 80% of all the revenue, depending on the level of our partnership. We’ve got only one rule — the more products you sell, the more money goes to you.