Every now and then those of us in the marketing community hear about the imminent demise of email as a marketing tool. It’s not terribly surprising, given some of the “by-products” that email has produced, including spam-jammed inboxes, viruses, and the like.
Nonetheless, to say that email is dead may be a tad premature, as HubSpot reported after they stumbled upon some great data in a post from Mark Brownlow of Email Marketing Reports that showed the following:
- Bank of America reports that event-based trigger emails are 250% more effective than broadcast promotional emails.
- People who purchase after getting cart abandonment emails spend 55% more than those who buy straightaway.
- “Happy Birthday” emails from Epson produce 840% more revenue per email than the overall email program.
- S&S Worldwide drove 40% of email revenue through trigger/transactional emails that account for just 4% of email volume.
Used properly (and that includes integration with other inbound media strategies), and selectively (that is, not as broadcast spam), email is still a formidable force. But if you use it incorrectly it can be a killer.
Email is a great tool for staying in touch with customers and prospects that know and trust you. All of the examples above are from companies that had existing relationships with the people they sent emails to. If, however, you bombard people you don’t know—or people who have told you they are not interested—with unwanted messages, you’re not going to change their mind. In fact, it will have the opposite effect. They will regard you as someone they don’t want to do business with.
Marketing today is about building relationships. Actually, good marketing has always been about good relationships. Good marketing isn’t really about the tools—whether you use email or Twitter, or Facebook, or blogs, or Pinterest. It’s not about seeing how many people you can reach for the lowest cost. It’s about understanding your audience and offering them something that will make their life better. Email is still a very powerful tool to deepen that relationship and make clients and prospects aware of helpful information, but it’s a lousy tool for trying to build a relationship.
There are some great email tools available to help you reach out to your customer and prospect base, but don’t let unsolicited emails blow up in your face. Make sure your marketing efforts are part of an integrated campaign that includes inbound marketing and sales integration.
Have you had email marketing success lately? Tell us how you did it!
Blog Post Written by Spencer Powell
Spencer is the Inbound Marketing Director at TMR Direct. Spencer specializes in helping clients create and execute effective inbound marketing campaigns.