“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

― Maya Angelou

Email marketing is one of our favorite digital marketing channels. We’ve written about email marketing and how to build an email marketing list before, but we haven’t addressed the benefits of email marketing in a while, so we felt it was time to check in on the subject and see how email marketing can be useful in 2019. Email marketing still has the highest ROI of any major marketing channel, and it’s absolutely worth pursuing as a strong digital marketing practice for any business.

Here are five benefits of email marketing that you should be thinking about

1. Strengthen Relationships

One of the most important benefits of email marketing is its ability to strengthen personal relationships with your clients and audience. Email is more personal than a blog post or an article, since it’s directly addressed to a particular recipient. It’s cost-inefficient to send a completely unique message to each subscriber, but efforts to personally tailor the content will go a long way. You want your emails to feel like letters.

Besides that, since it’s directed to a particular person, an email becomes an opportunity to invite specific engagement and to start a real conversation about a topic. It’s bad business these days to be generic, when influencers and creators are telling real stories. Email marketing is a foot in the door to that kind of personal interaction, which intensifies your brand’s bond with your clients, and helps you to better connect with your audience. As those personal conversations develop, they often spill over into other kinds of engagement, too.

2. Sell Products or Services

Your email marketing list is stocked with people who have invited you to reach out to them. They’ve visited your site or engaged with your brand in some way, and they’ve liked what they see enough that they have asked to see more, or to be kept informed. They’ve already made it clear that they are interested, and by following up on those leads you can drive meaningful conversions in a very direct way.

Your emails can be targeted to communicate the benefits of your products or services, maybe showcasing examples of happy customers using your products out in the field, or featuring testimonials from other clients you’ve personally connected with. By leveraging that direct, personal connection an email can provide, you add a sense of integrity and ownership over your products that you are able to share with your readership. It transcends a sales pitch and becomes something of a shared experience of genuine engagement.

3. Build Your Brand

With email marketing, you can strengthen brand recognition with new and potential clients, extending your reach when people forward or share your message with friends. Your emails are personal, written in your brand’s own voice, for your specific audience. By and large, that audience will have a network of like-minded friends and industry colleagues who should also be receptive to your messaging and your values.

4. Solve Problems + Become a “Go-To”

You know you’ve had a win if one of your readers lets you know that you solved a problem they’ve been having. Try to connect with your readers so that you are meeting their honest to God, everyday needs. One way to find out is to use tools like Moz.com to research questions people are having. High volume search questions tell you it’s a problem or an issue a lot of people are having. You can also keep a list of client questions that come up over and over again. If you an FAQ on your website, repurpose the responses and use them for your email, linking to either the FAQ or a dedicated blog. People will come to think of you as a resource.

5. Stay Top of Mind

Especially if you are selling a product, it’s great to hit people’s inboxes when they are running out or when it’s a relevant gift season (chocolates at Valentines Day, flowers at Mother’s Day, pearls at graduation). If you’re a service, you may just be that divorce attorney who hits the inbox when a friend of a friend is getting divorced and needs some support.

The best benefit of email marketing is the platform it gives for your brand to grow, and to develop meaningful connections with an increasingly broad audience. Email marketing is the perfect way to show your own voice, share authentic stories, and relate to your customers in a personal way.

We’ve been leveraging email marketing for our own brand, and for our customers for years now, and we’ve seen a great deal of success. We’ve refined our automation practice to make our email marketing initiatives more efficient, and we’ve found a voice that lets us build on relationships and connections to help our business grow. If email marketing sounds right for your brand, now’s the time to reach out! Find us on Facebook or Twitter, or click here to book a free digital marketing strategy session.