This blog could also be called ‘Email Marketing vs Social Media’ as it does quite often come down to that comparison!

Email often gets overshadowed by social media. We are all addicted to social and checking our emails perhaps doesn’t deliver that same dopamine hit but despite not being quite so compulsive, email DOES still work in 2020 and it’s not going anywhere.

Remember: not everyone is on all the social media channels but everyone has an email address. You have to have an email address to sign up to any social media platform!

Ubiquitous use aside (although that’s a MASSIVE plus for any marketer), here’s why I love email marketing:

1. You own your email subscribers

When someone signs up to your email list - they are giving you permission to market to them. Whether or not people are explicitly opting in to receive sales messages or they are signing up to the softer ask of receiving some value from you - the outcome of this opt-in is you can start the communication directly in the inbox.

There’s a caveat here that people are only going to opt in if you can communicate the value in signing up. This does mean that when you get your opt-in message right, you are on to a winner.

You don’t own your social media followers - the platform does. They control how and when they see your messages and you can lose your following overnight if you are hacked, the platform is shut down or you get locked out - it happens!

On email, unlike social media, YOU can control when you reach out to your audience. There’s no algorithm to please or money to pay to boost your reach.

2. Email is actually very cheap to do!

There are several great Email Service Providers that offer free accounts which enable you to email your list for no cost.

Even when you choose a paid provider or you reach the limit of the free account features and need to upgrade, monthly costs are usually very small.

When you look at ad spend needed to reach the equivalent number of people on social media - email wins the cost competition every time. Email’s ROI is also huge - an average f £40 for every £1 spent. Amazing.

3. Your email messages are direct

Your emails are landing direct in someone’s inbox. The stats are around 90% deliverability for email with an average open rate around 20% vs 6% of reach with an organic Facebook post.

The better you get at creating strong email subject lines and calls-to-action, the more results you’ll get from your email marketing. If your content is high quality, subscribers will actively look forward to hearing from you and your engagement sky rockets.

4. You can segment your audience

If you know that some of your subscribers need certain products or services from you, you can segment them and only send them emails they are interested in. It’s a way more targeted approach than an organic social media post.

You can target one part of your audience with an offer specific to them without turning off the rest of your subscribers. You can of course do that on Facebook with ad spend. On email, you can do this for no extra cost other than whatever you pay to your email service provider as a monthly fee. Nothing close to ad spend needed to reach new people on social.

5. You can test your content

You can A/B test email subject lines or the content of emails itself. Want to know what call-to-action performs best? Test it! Then you can act on it and make your emails even more powerful.

6. You can track results

Email analytics are pretty powerful. You can see who opened and crucially, who clicked which links in your emails. This will give you a pool of warm to hot leads to follow up with further. You can even auto-schedule follow up content to your most engaged subscribers.

7. You can nurture your audience

By using automated sequences AKA drip campaigns, you can help grow the know, like and trust factor with your subscribers and nudge them towards a specific goal. You can have a two-way conversation by asking people to reply to your emails. It’s so powerful to have those chats in the inbox!

If someone downloads your freebie or lead magnet - you can help them to get the most out of it and demonstrate your expertise during an email sequence. You can even sell them a low cost offer at the end to warm them up to purchasing from you in the future.

8. Email is a powerful market research tool

You can easily reach out to your list to ask them what they need help with or what content they’d like to see more of.

Have I convinced you that email marketing warrants more of your attention than you perhaps thought? Let me know in the comments.