As social media takes the world by storm, giving businesses and organization yet another internet marketing tool, you might ask yourself, “Do I really need email marketing anymore?” This question, among others, is coming up more often as all of these marketing strategies take up valuable resources --namely time and money.
While you may not need email marketing – just like you don’t need social media – you may find it still has an important role in your marketing strategy. Following are eight questions to ask yourself to help determine if email should be part of your marketing mix.
1. Do your prospects or customers actually want to hear from you? Believe it or not, there are many businesses and organizations that have clients and members that want to be kept updated. If you send occasional email postcards or have a monthly email newsletter informing your subscribers about something they’re interested in, email marketing should be considered.
2. Do you have something of value to share with your prospects and customers on a regular basis? Really? Just telling your subscribers about your new products doesn’t (usually) cut it. You need to give them something that informs, educates or entertains. If you do, email marketing is an efficient way to do it.
3. Do you have time for email marketing? A quality email newsletter can be put together and sent out to your list in just a few hours, and with some services, less than 10 minutes; postcards are even quicker. Compare that with social media, which most users spend on average two hours a day. If you don’t have the time to surf, write and reply about something interesting and pertinent to your organization every day, email marketing is probably a better fit.
4. How big is your marketing budget? Email marketing can be a powerful marketing tool that costs pennies compared to print, radio, TV and pay-per-click campaigns. If money is tight, email marketing should be considered. Costs are as low as $15 per 1,000 emails from very reputable email marketing companies, and there are services available that offer ready-to-email newsletters for less than $35. So, money should not be a deterrent.
5. Do you have the resources? If you or someone on staff can write an interesting article or two, download an image from a stock photo source, and copy and paste the content into a pre-made template from an email marketing service, you have the resources. Basically, if you can use a computer, you can send out a good email newsletter or postcard.
6. Do you have an email subscriber list or a way to build one? Obviously, if you don’t have subscribers, there’s not much point to it. Similarly, there’s no point in blogging if nobody reads your blog. If you have a website, building an email subscriber list is easy to do and the first step toward implementing an email marketing channel.
7. Do you have time constraints? Most organizations do. If you want to invite past clients to your “Customer Appreciation Night” or offer them an incentive to buy in the next 24 hours, you’re going to see better results with email marketing versus other channels. With email, you can “put” your message in your front of your audience rather than wait for them to come to you.
8. Do your customers prefer email marketing to other media? If you don’t know, ask. Some will never visit your blog, read your tweets or check out your Facebook profile, but they will open and read your email communications (so make it good). In short, you want to deliver your communications in the medium your customers or members want to receive it. If email is elected, give the people what they want.
Just as print advertising didn’t disappear when the radio was announced, and radio advertising didn’t disappear when the television entered the scene, and television advertising didn’t disappear when the internet wove its web, email marketing won’t disappear because the social bug has bit. Most experienced marketers realize it takes more than one channel to successfully accomplish their marketing goals, and in many cases, email marketing is the best tool for the job.
To learn more about email newsletter marketing – and how to use it to promote your organization – download my free Email Marketing Package.
Paul C. Stokes is the founder of www.eNewsletterSolutions.com, an email newsletter service provider that has been successfully helping thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations incorporate email newsletters into their internet marketing strategy since 2004.
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