Here is a cursory glance at the email marketing response rate for various industries, referenced from MailChimp, one of the biggest email marketing services on the Internet.
Industry |
Open Rate |
Click Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Agriculture and Food Services | 24.71% | 2.98% |
| Architecture and Construction | 24.78% | 2.90% |
| Arts and Artists | 27.23% | 2.85% |
| Beauty and Personal Care | 18.48% | 1.96% |
| Business and Finance | 20.97% | 2.73% |
| Computers and Electronics | 20.87% | 2.16% |
| Consulting | 19.54% | 2.26% |
| Health and Fitness | 21.93% | 2.57% |
This in no way is a complete list, but when you compare these numbers to click-through rate on Facebook and Twitter, you will easily understand why I have mentioned some stats on email marketing above. The average click through rate in emails is 3.7%. Average CTR for Facebook is 0.07%. Twitter: 0.03%.
There are 2.6 billion email users in the world and 58% email users check their email first thing in the morning compared to 11% Facebook and 2% Twitter.
WHY EMAIL MARKETING WORKS FOR MOST BUSINESSES?
Email marketing, despite the spam problem and despite a deluge of social networking platforms and mobile apps, is still one of the most potent digital marketing tools.
Why is it so?
One reason is that people have gotten used to checking their emails. Just like everybody these days has a mobile phone, most of the people who can read and write and use PCs, laptops and mobile phones (more than just making and receiving calls) have an email ID.
Even those who don’t write and send emails often end up creating an email ID because they want to use various mobile apps that can only be downloaded if you have an email ID.
Banks ask for an email ID. If you want to shop online, you often have to submit an email ID. If you use an online service, you ought to be using an email ID.
So, basically, every literate person has an email ID.
Also, unlike social media websites, email is very personal. When a person checks his or her inbox, it is a very confidential engagement. No one knows what sort of emails you are getting unless you share the information with someone.
CAN EMAIL MARKETING WORK FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
If your target audience uses email, then of course, email marketing can work for your business. Listed below are a few reasons why email marketing works for your business:
- People opt to receive your messages themselves: If you are not using a purchased database of emails (which, you shouldn’t) you should be building your own mailing list and when you build your own mailing list, people opt to receive messages from you on their own. When they subscribe to get your updates, they are more eager to receive messages from you and they are more receptive to your communication.
- Most email services these days are better organized than Facebook and Twitter: There is lots of noise on social media and social networking websites and important messages tend to get lost. But if you regularly use something like Gmail, you must have noticed that you can arrange your incoming messages under various tabs. For example, you can automatically redirect all promotional messages to the “Promotions” section, all messages from forums, to the “Forums” section and so on. This way, the messages that you don’t want to miss, will appear under your “Primary” section.
- People can access their email from their mobile phones: If you have been using email for more than 25 years, you may relate email with your desktop or laptop, but many new generation customers and clients have started using emails only through their mobile phones. They are comfortable sending and receiving emails on the go, on their mobile phones and hence, they find it very convenient to use emails, and even buy stuff from within their emails.
- Highly advanced statistics: Email marketing is no longer like throwing darts in darkness these days. All decent email marketing service providers give you insightful statistics such as how many people opened your emails, how many people clicked the links within your emails, and if you send your emails regularly, they will also tell you mostly on which days of the week people open your emails so that you can customize your email messages accordingly.
- Email segmentation: It means sending customized messages according to the way people react to your email messages. For example, you can create a segment for people who opened your email but didn’t click any link. You can also create a segment of people who clicked the link within your email, but didn’t buy anything from you. In a similar manner, you can go on creating multiple segments to better target your email recipients.
As mentioned above, if your target audience uses email, email marketing is one of the best digital marketing tools available to you.
