You’ve probably heard the rumor that email marketing is dead. Social media is the new kid on the block, everyone’s on TikTok or Instagram, and nobody opens any of the emails that clutter their inboxes.
Well, the truth is rather different from the myth.
Email marketing is still one of the best marketing tools available to small businesses. And the figures don’t lie. For every pound spent on email marketing, the average return is £35. Which is more than can be said for social media advertising. But don’t take my word for it – think about your own email inbox. You’re probably a subscriber to several different businesses, and you likely make several purchasing decisions based on the emails that land in your inbox.
But why is email marketing dead?
One of the main reasons is that many businesses are doing it very badly. They’re sending out generic newsletters that nobody asked to receive, or they’re flooding people’s inboxes with daily sales emails. This doesn’t work, and never really has. What does work is recognizing that your email subscribers are a valuable asset.
The people on your email list have opted to hear from you. This is very different from social media, where you’re fighting for the attention of the person whose social media profile they’re browsing. The email is delivered directly to their inbox. They may not open it immediately, but it’s there, waiting for them.
The practical side for small businesses
This is where email marketing comes in handy. You own your email list. If Facebook changes its algorithm tomorrow or Instagram shuts down, you lose all your followers. But your email list? That’s yours. You can take it with you wherever you go.
And you don’t need a huge budget to implement email marketing. There are plenty of email platforms out there where you can send emails to a few hundred, or a few thousand, people for free or very cheap. This is compared to Facebook and other social media advertising, which can get very expensive very quickly.
And you can be very direct with your emails. Want to run a sale? Got a new product coming out? Want to send your customers some useful information? Email lets you do all of these things without worrying about whether or not your email is getting through to the person on the other end because of an algorithm.
What actually works
The companies making email marketing work are the ones putting thought into it. They’re segmenting their email lists, so they can send the right content to the right customers. They’re crafting email subject lines that sound like they’re coming from a person, not a corporation. They’re providing value, not selling.
So, if you’re a small business wondering whether you should bother putting the time into building up an email list, the answer is, yes, you should, but you should also do it right, meaning you should get people to sign up to the list only if they want to hear from you, you should only send them things you think they will find useful or interesting, and you shouldn’t spam them.
Email marketing isn’t dead, it’s just that the companies who are doing it right are seeing the benefits, while others who are sending out generic emails are wondering why nobody is opening their emails.