Why Is Email Marketing Important?

Why is email marketing important … especially in 2022?

A Brief History

Perhaps you’re not old enough to remember when email didn’t even exist. Email … electronic mail … was created and grew synonymously with the internet.

Email … as a concept … actually started well before the invention of the internet. A program called “MAILBOX” was used way back in 1965 at MIT. People left messages on university computers which could be seen when the next person logged on.

The US Department of Defense created ARPANET (Advance Research Projects Agency Network) in 1969. This “net” connected computers throughout the department for internal communication.

On October 29, 1969, the first message was sent from one computer to another on ARPANET. A gentleman named Ray Tomlinson created electronic mail on the ARPANET system in 1971.

By 1976, 75% of all ARPANET traffic was electronic mail. ARPANET eventually evolved into the internet on January 1, 1983.

Email back in the 1980’s and 1990’s was extremely clunky as you can imagine if you didn’t experience it. I lived through all of it and worked in corporate culture evolving along with it.

It literally evolved into … in many fields … a situation where employees were forced to sit and stare at their computers hour after hour. Why? Because they were receiving so many emails.

All of which had to be sifted through. Many of them answered and acted upon. Some even ignored. But read nonetheless so as not to miss something important.

In the early 1990’s, “electronic email” became simply “email.” Remember the email hosting sites of that era? AOL, Hotmail and Yahoo.

By the late 1990’s, internet use around the world had grown to 55 million users worldwide. 2 years later, 400 million! The email age had exploded.

So Where Are We At Today?

• As of 2021, there were nearly 4.26 billion email users worldwide.
• That’s expected to grow by at least 3% over the next 3 years. Another 100 million more a year. 4.6 billion by 2025.
• 90% of Americans over the age of 15 use email.
• 93.6% of people between the ages of 25-44 use email.
• There are more than 7.9 billion email accounts worldwide.
• More than 333.2 billion emails are sent each day.
• 96% of consumers check their email every single day.
• More than 50% check their email more than 10 times a day.
• 58% check it as soon as they get up.

With the advent of social media and the evolution of digital technology, many marketers expected email marketing to fade. But that’s not the case.

Research continues to show email marketing will not only be widely used, it’ll actually continue to grow and be even more effective than it is now.

So let’s say you’re an online company … or small business … and you’re considering social media as your main platform for marketing.

What does a spend of $1 get you on social media? A measly $1.17 return. Not very impressive is it? Almost seems like a waste of time.

What about email? For every $1 spent on email marketing, businesses get back an average of $38! Some studies say even more. At least 33 times more effective than using social media.

As one master marketer said, “If you’re not building an email list, then you’re not running a business.”

Why Is Email Marketing Important In 2022 And Beyond?

1. Personalization - Email allows you to customize your content according to your customers. You can personalize your offerings based on any demographic or behavior you choose.

Most of the best ESP’s (email service providers) today allow email marketers to utilize analytics, buying patterns and other factors to segment email lists. You can create email content for your customers based on where they are in the buying cycle.

2. Email Marketing Produces Amazing ROI – As mentioned above, email marketing returns almost $40 for every $1 spent. Some studies put this return at over $40. It is 33 … or more … times more effective than social media marketing.

It is especially effective if you monitor the various aspects of your campaign – opens, click-through rates and conversion rates. Testing headlines, body copy and adding an effective P.S. can all dramatically affect your results.

3. Email Marketing Reduces Costs – Email is one of the most … if not the most …cost-effective marketing strategies there is. You simply have someone write the email. Maybe apply any graphics or HTML you may want. Many high-earning successful email marketers add no graphics or HTML at all.

Get your emails … whether autoresponders or broadcast emails … loaded up in your ESP and start blasting. It’s even more effective now as so many customers … current and potential … use their phones to access their email.

4. Email Marketing Solidifies Your Brand – Email marketing is, in my opinion, the best way to boost your brand awareness. If done right, email campaigns ease your customer into your funnel.

Initial emails should be the result of giving your prospective customer something for free. Something they perceive to be valuable. In exchange for their email address.

It could be an eBook, report, newsletter, etc. Initial emails … usually in the form of autoresponders … educate your readers about who you are and what you do. They also, ideally, will continue to offer your readers information they deem valuable. Starting to build a relationship with them.

Once subscribers understand what your business offers, they begin to connect with you. And look forward to your ongoing broadcast emails.

A well-planned long-term email strategy will actually have people waiting for your next email. Which will contain offers many of them will eventually respond to.

5. Email Marketing Integrates Easily With Other Marketing - You can add social media icons in your emails and ask readers to follow you on the various platforms. You can even link emails back to social media posts to grow your relationship there as well. Whether you use, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.

Your social media accounts can also be used to refer those people back to your free offer. Inducing many of them to give you their email in return. Starting the email marketing process from that angle.

Conclusion

The answer to “why is email marketing important in 2022” and moving forward is that it is more effective than ever before. And it’s growing at a mind-boggling rate.

The ROI continues to blow away anything else out there. As a consequence, more and more businesses are redirecting billions of dollars into their email funnels.

It’s relatively easy to get set up and there are many outstanding ESP’s (email service providers) that’ll walk you through the process.

Use email marketing to develop a relationship with customers. Then build your brand awareness with autoresponders … initially ... and then broadcast emails.

If your emails are written properly, you’ll induce your readers to open your emails. Read your emails. Click on a link. And then buy something on the way to becoming ongoing customers.

And this process never needs to stop. You can constantly be growing your email list. Adding new subscribers faster than others drop off.

It’s a simple concept. The bigger your email list, the more money you’ll make.

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