Email marketing has become a loyalty cheat code.
Like all marketing channels over the last decade, email marketing has become more complex. Personalized emails are table stakes now. CRMs require deep segmentation and workflow analysis. Then, of course, there’s list hygiene and email deliverability.
This is all on top of rapidly changing global data privacy policies, a growing SMS marketing industry, and an increase in the value of an owned and engaged email marketing list. This is not a marketing area to ignore.
Below, we’ve gathered additional information to help you and your team understand this discipline as holistically as possible.
When social media and content marketing were having their moment a few years ago, people started saying that email was dead. They couldn’t have been more wrong.
Even with the development of multi-channel marketing, email is still one of the most effective ways to engage with prospects and customers. For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average ROI of $40. With email marketing, you can build 1:1 relationships with leads, nurture them further into your funnel, tell your brand story and build emotional connections that ultimately help persuade someone to buy your product or service.
That’s why every successful company has their own email list because growing your addressable audience (i.e. your subscribers) builds your brand. This brand building strategy is what Web Smith, the analyst behind 2PM, calls “linear commerce.”
The law of linear commerce states that the most efficient way to grow a business (media, e-commerce, tech or otherwise) is to build an engaged audience and maximize conversion. To do so, Web Smith suggests all companies will become more like publishers, working to educate and engage their audiences as they move away from a dependence on paid digital.
“Audience-driven businesses have figured out how to monetize their visitors by providing value that captures attention. The alternative is paying the audience to show up at your party – a cost that is rising by the year,” writes Smith.
This move toward linear commerce is why email marketing continues to be a crucial aspect of any marketing organization. Email marketing builds loyalty, and over time, it can turn casual openers into brand evangelists.
Why is it so powerful? It’s the best way to consistently keep in touch with your customer base.
Whether you want to let your email subscribers know about a new product, event, or promotion, or if you simply nurture your relationship with valuable content, it’s a great way to let your customers know what’s going on in your business.
The trouble is that finding the right email marketing expert can be tricky. The right hire will depend on your goals, industry, the stage of your business, and the email marketing software you’re currently using.
Every company needs a different email marketing strategy, and every company has different non-negotiables when it comes to an email marketer. Luckily, that’s where Marketers Finder comes in. As veteran marketers ourselves, we vet for the latest and greatest skills before admitting a freelance email marketing expert to our network.