As the years go by, there are more and more marketing channels emerging for people to use to spread their word about their businesses. Some of them aren’t exactly new, but they’re gaining popularity.
Some examples would be:
Podcasting
Social media influencer marketing
Certain social platforms like TikTok or even matchmaking apps.
Naturally, when people are obsessing over the new things, they tend to forget the old. In the marketing world, email marketing is one of the older marketing channels and I know people who are neglecting that part of their business because social media marketing and SMS marketing are the current trends.
For some people, it even got to the point where they think email marketing is going to be obsolete or is already dead.
Don’t believe me?
Just go to the DuckDuckGo search engine and type in “Email is dead.” You’ll find plenty of articles from people on why they think email is going to die in such-and-such year, or why they think it’s already dead.
To be fair, I can understand why they think email marketing is dead. There are reasons like:
1. A lot of people don’t even bother opening their emails.
2. It’s too saturated.
3. Response time is too long which is why more people are transitioning to instant messaging platforms.
But you know what I think?
Just because you’re impatient to receive a response or you’re inbox management is terrible doesn’t mean it’s dead. And it’s too saturated? Yeah, but so what? It’s still possible for you to stand out in your subscribers’ inboxes.
But that’s not all.
We’re now living in a time where social media is becoming less and less reliable.
With their algorithms changing, the organic traffic you spent months building up will get wiped out overnight.
Privacy policies are getting stricter, which means paid targeted ads are becoming less effective.
There are more and more cases of people getting banned from social media platforms, putting all the hard work of building up their audiences to waste.
In other words, it’s time to start relying less on social media and go towards platforms we have more control over, i.e. email marketing.
So with that being said, let’s jump into…
Why Email Marketing Is Not Dead
Here are some things you should know to show you that email is certainly not dead.
According to a report from a technology market research firm, The Radicati Group, they laid out some statistics that show why email is still one of the most popular forms of digital communication till this day.
You can click on the hyperlink to read the executive summary, but I’m also going to summarize the main points below.
1. In 2019, there were a total of 3.9 billion active email users worldwide, and they expect that number to increase to 4.3 billion by the end of 2023. That is about half the population.
2. In 2019, there were a total of 293 billion emails sent out by both businesses and consumers. And they expect the number of emails sent to increase to 347 billion by the end of 2023.
Also, according to Statista, about 24% of workers in the United States never checked their emails in 2019, but that’s still a large percentage of workers that do check their emails. That statistic alone proves that email is far from dead.
And let me just say this.
If you’re a business owner who’s thinking about using email as the primary way to sell to your audience, and you’re worried, for whatever reason, about how you can sell to the 24% of the people who don’t use email, don’t. It’s not worth trying to turn them into your customers in the first place. If they don’t even read emails in the first place, then they’re going to be nothing but a waste of space on your email list and a waste of money (Because depending on how big your list is, it’s going to cost a pretty penny to maintain it in your email marketing software).
With that said, let’s get into…
5 Reasons Why You Should Still Use Email Marketing
1. Email Marketing Still Gives the Highest Return on Investment
Statistically, for every dollar you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $42. Of course, that return is going to be different from business to business. It depends on how big your email list is (The bigger it is, the more it costs to maintain it), and how much profit you make from selling your products or services. If you’re losing money, then obviously you’re going to have to make some changes.
2. You’re More Likely to Get Your Audience to Take Action
Nowadays, people are very protective of their inboxes. When they see an email that they don’t remember subscribing to, chances are, they’re going to unsubscribe from the mailing list and delete your email on sight. So when people are subscribed to your email list, that most likely means that they already trust you to some degree that you’re not going to send them useless emails. And if they already trust you, chances are, they’re more likely to get involved in whatever you’re selling them.
3. Email Marketing Is a Great Relationship-Building Tool
To expand on the last point, email is a great way to build trust. People have told me that you need to show your face, you need to create videos for people to trust you more. While I do agree with putting your face to your business, creating videos is not necessary. I’ve witnessed business owners create highly profitable businesses solely from email. From my personal knowledge, Ben Settle, Justin Goff, and Chris Orzechowski are one of the few people who have been able to do so.
How did they do it?
They write interesting, engaging, and persuasive sales emails using the same email copywriting methods I teach in How to Become an Email Titan. And when they do that consistently, what happens down the road is that their subscribers are conditioned to open their emails as soon as they see their names because they trust and know their emails won’t be a waste of time to read.
4. It’s Less Time-consuming to Use Than Social Media
Especially if you’re on platforms like Instagram, you’re going to be spending a lot of your time creating content. I talk a little more about it in the cons section of social media in my Email Marketing vs Social Media Marketing article, but basically, you have to spend time posting content multiple times a week (Which can be time-consuming if you need to design images or edit videos), learning how to take advantage of their ever-changing algorithms in order to stay relevant.
But when it comes to email, it’s a different story. You can write and send out a newsletter in as little as 30 minutes. And if you want, you can only send one newsletter per week. Or if you’re like me, send out emails everyday (excluding weekends). It can be as simple as a plain text email too, so you don’t ever need to worry about designing templates. Just write the email on a word document, open up your email marketing software, copy and paste the text, and send away.
5. Email Marketing Is a Platform You Own
Yes, you read that correctly. The moment when someone enters their email address into your opt-in form and it’s added to your email list, you own that piece of data.
To put it in a more simple way, let me share this saying with you.
“If you’re able to export your data, then you own it.”
That’s another downside of building a following on social media. You can’t export the data of your followers on Instagram or Facebook. That’s why it’s important to funnel as many followers as you can into your email list because if, for whatever reason, you lose access to your accounts, then all the work you’ve done to build your audience will be wasted.
When you get those followers to sign up for your email list, you can (And should) export that list and store it as a backup in case you lose access to your current email marketing software. So if you need to switch to another software, you can easily import your list and continue business as if nothing happened.
Hopefully after reading all that, you understand how important email marketing is for your business. Not just from a profitability standpoint, but from a security standpoint too.
So if you want to learn more on getting started, I suggest you pick up the sample chapters of How to Become an Email Titan. I handpicked specific chapters throughout the book to give out for free to help you get started with building your own robust email marketing system.
You can get the chapters using the link below.