Why Email Marketing Still Matters in 2017

For years at this point, we’ve reading articles and listing to people about how email marketing is long gone. I mean, who even uses email to communicate, right? Most marketers, therefore, regard email marketing as an outdated that tactic, which simply doesn’t work anymore.

Well, while this may sound anti-climactic, there’s a number of studies and research that clearly proves one thing – email marketing is alive, well and here to stay for a long, long time.

The Number of Email Users

Just consider this, people send over 269 billion emails every day, according to research from the Radiate Group. This means that 2.4 million are sent every second and that more than 74 trillion emails are sent each year.

And as Internet penetration continues to grow, so will the number of email users. According to statistics compiled and published by Hub Spot, by the end of the decade we’ll have more than 3 million email users worldwide. But what about the users in the United States?

You’re probably thing, while the number of users will grow in the rest of the world, the numbers will probably drop in the United States. But it turns out, according to numbers gathered by Statista, in the us alone, more than 90% of adults use email on a daily basis.

Furthermore, it’s not just the adults that are using it, despite the usage of social media and messaging apps, almost 75% of teens use email, according to Adestra. But if that’s not enough let’s look at some more specific reasons why you should start working more on your email marketing efforts this year…

·         It Allows You to Keep the Customer Up-to-date

When it comes to talking with consumers and responding to their inquiries, most marketers turn to numerous social media platforms they have available. And don’t get us wrong, social media sites still provide a great way to talk to your customers, however, with all the algorithm changes Facebook and Twitter had in the last couple months, your customers aren’t guaranteed to see your latest post.

As a matter of fact, a recent study from Social@Ogilvy has shown that only around 2% of your followers on Facebook have a chance of seeing your posts. On the other hand, according to research from Forrester, staggering 90% of email messages get delivered to the intended receiver’s inbox. All in all, email is still the most effective way of letting people know about new things your company has to offer.

·         Email Marketing Still Drives Conversions

As marketer, what’s the most important task you have? Driving conversions of course. Now, no matter if you’re trying to convince a customer to purchase your product or you’re simply convincing them to sign up for a membership on your site, it’s still the definitive goal of marketers across to board to turn a simple visitor into a loyal customer.

And email is still a powerful platform to drive up your conversion rates. Just consider this – while tweets have a click-through rate of 0.5%, email’s rate is still around 3%, according to statistics provided by Campaign Monitor. Basically, this means that you are six times more likely to get a consumer to click though your site than you are on Twitter and other social medial platforms.

·         It Can Significantly Boost Your Revenue

Just by having a strong email list and sending promotional emails to your subscriber, you’ll ensure that your company will have a strong revenue stream for years to come. While most consumers won’t make a purchase right away, a good percentage will buy something from your site after a while, and you’ll get a strong surge in your bottom line.

Of course, this is also possible through social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but as we mentioned before, stricter news feed algorithms have limited the presence of promotional content, so you can’t really expect any great results from them. On the other hand, if you invest in ecommerce email marketing automation, you’ll start to see results sooner than you probably expect.

·         Email Has Been Useful for Years

Speaking of social media sites, what you need to realize that a number of platforms have come and gone just in the past ten years. Take Myspace for example, between 2005 and 2008, this was the largest social media site in the world. And for a couple of months, it even managed to exceed Google as the most-visited website in the US, according to statistics provided by Startup Bros.

However, Myspace today isn’t even on the list of 2000 most popular websites in the US. On the other hand, according to Smart Insights, since the first promotional campaign was sent almost 40 years ago, email as a marketing tool has grown steadily. And as it seems, it will remain one of the most powerful tools to promote your business for the next couple of decades.

Final Thoughts: Key Trends for 2017

While you realize that email marketing will be a sure bet for the next couple of years, you’re probably wondering what are some of the trends you should pay special attention to in the next couple of months. Basically, you’re thinking what’s coming up in email marketing this year?

Thankfully, Litmus has done some research that can give us some insight into what trends we should pay attention to this year. According to their research, the biggest email marketing trends are:

• Marketers are using and integrating big data in order to have a clear, end-to-end view of their customers and their shopping habits
• The big data integration is also letting marketers create a complete customer experience, where consumers are recognized wherever they connect with the company
• Marketing professionals are also embedding HTML5 videos into their emails I – this is supported by the latest version of Apple’s iOS, where more than 50% of emails are opened and read

The bottom line is – the future looks bright for companies and marketing leaders who are paying attention to these trends.

As you can see, all those articles and reports that are talking about the death of email marketing are greatly exaggerated. Email marketing is in fact a great way to reach new consumers across multiple generations. So do yourself a favor and start concentrating more on your email marketing efforts ASAP.