Do You Need Proof to Show that Email Marketing is a Worthy Strategy

For the past few years, email marketing is taking a back seat as most marketers find it not effective compared to social media marketing and search marketing strategies. Also, they believe that people who receive emails from marketers do not open it as most people think that they are unimportant and not interesting. It is not a deniable fact that social media gets a lot more attention than email marketing. There are those in the online marketing industry who claim that email marketing is no longer effective in customer conversions. But there are some companies which have proven it is wrong and email marketing does have some potential if it is used in the right way. Here are the three real-time examples from some of the reputed email management firms that have utilized its potential.

When Handled Appropriately Email Newsletters will be Effective

Most people say that email newsletters are junk, nothing new and contain only sales information. There are companies which see email newsletters as another tactic to push sales, even though many people sign up for a newsletter are not looking to actively participate or make a purchase decision. This kind of email marketing tactics can often result in low sign-up volumes, high subscriber abandonment rates, and “newsletters” that are light on content.

Garden & Gun which is a popular Southern lifestyle magazine demonstrated in a case study for Emma, which is an email management service provider that email newsletters can be highly effective if it is handled appropriately. The magazine has a diverse readership and it focuses on everything from a Southern heritage and culture to fine dining and trends in agriculture. Also, Garden & Gun magazine and its website have gained a loyal reader community thanks to its quality journalism. As a print publication, the magazine print only six times a year and they use email to stay in touch with their readers and drive more online traffic to their site.

According to Emma, the Southern lifestyle magazine managed to increase its email newsletter readership by 40 percent since the tie-up with Emma three years ago. Before that, the subscriber base of the average newsletter is shrinking 30 percent every year. For Garden & Gun, Talk of the South is a source of their revenue and they were highly targeted and relevant to the magazine’s readership.

Combination of Email Marketing and Social Media Strategy

Just because an email strategy might not be as “cooler” as social media doesn’t mean that both can’t play nice. In fact, combining email strategy with strong social media tactics can be effective as it did for the popular blog site DIY Natural. The blog site founded by Matt Jabs remembers that even in the website’s early days, it was attracting a great deal of traffic, a fact that forced Matt to seriously consider social media for expanding his reader base, and how email strategy could help him in generating revenue from his blog.

Matt said that he combined social media with email marketing, and thereby allowed him to make a transition from a passion project into full time business enterprise. As the site’s traffic and  an email list grew, their social media list grows consistently and organically. Their Facebook page has acquired about 80,000 likes and still counting. Matt says that the major factor for the website’s success is their commitment to quality content.

Perfect for Small Business Entities

According to many experts, another stubborn misconception about email marketing is that a business organization needs an entire marketing section for handling effective email campaigns. Those who utterly believe that fact will find it wrong when they look into the success made by a small and family-owned business enterprise Goat Milk Stuff, which make products from goat milk. According Goat Milk Stuff co-founder P J Jonas, email marketing has given a huge boost to their business and the company has grown beyond trade shows and small craft fairs, and their commitment in offering customized and outstanding service to customers.

Jonas along with her husband Jim diligently collected emails during trade shows and they wanted to expand without compromising their company’s approach and family-friendly values. And it seems that email marketing allowed them to do both. Jonas and her husband sent some newsletters where they gave customers an option of which special they wanted, either free shipping or a 20 percent discount. They discovered that some customers always select the discount. So, they utilized this information and altered their specials. Jonas and Jim managed to operate a highly successful email campaigns that offer their customers genuine value while keeping things simple.

If you are a small business owner and want some email marketing ideas to increase your customer base, then you can approach professionals who are good at this and devise a campaign based on your valuable inputs.