Almost every growing business has tried using an email marketing campaign at some point. Email advertising has always been instrumental in marketing strategies for decades. Social networking platforms came along and garnered popularity more recently in the early 2000s, becoming one of the easiest ways to distribute content to a massive global audience. While it may feel like its popularity has overpowered email advertising, this blog will show how emails are still thriving. Here are five reasons why email advertising is probably the better choice to help grow your business!
- Email marketing is much more cost-effective
Social media marketing can be expensive if you want to get the most out of it. Advertising on platforms like Facebook and Instagram averages at a CPM (Cost for 1000 ad impressions) of $4.33 according to recent statistics. It seems like an inexpensive value until you realize that 1000 impressions are often not nearly enough to get your brand name well-recognized. Particularly aggressive brands send out several ads per day for most days in a week. It quickly adds up and sometimes comes out to thousands of dollars spent every month! An effective email marketing campaign can be much cheaper if implemented correctly. Email advertising service providers report on spending ranging between $9 and $1000 per month for mid-size companies, depending on their budget and the nature of their planned campaigns.
- Email marketing has a much higher ROI
Effective email campaigns continue to deliver the highest ROI out of all forms of marketing ever. A 2016 survey of marketers in the US found that email advertising had a 122% ROI compared to social media’s 28%, a stark difference that has only gone up over the years. For small businesses, this is good news because this statistic holds true no matter the size of your subscriber list. Small businesses advertising on social media with modest budgets cannot say the same, especially if they require thousands or tens of thousands of impressions per month to start seeing resuts.
- Emails receive more engagement than social media ad posts
Another advantage of email advertising is that it has a better time engaging with the audience when compared to a social media post. A recent report by social media analytics company Socialinsider found that in 2020, the engagement rates ranged from 0.07% on Twitter to 1.16% on Instagram. Compare this to the 2020-2021 data from the online learning platform Smart Insights, showing an average open rate of 16.97% and a click through rate of 10.29% for emails across the various industries. Why is there such a big difference? On social media, the amount of engagement your posts get depends on your following size and how often you post, along with how much money you spend to promote these posts. On top of this, it is much easier for people to scroll by a post without engaging on social media, but emails are slightly different in this regard. Emails do better because their recipients are expecting them. They opt to join your email list for this reason and will likely be looking forward to hearing from you directly. An email makes the connection more personal, as recipients interact with you as a brand on a one-to-one basis rather than through a sea of many other brand’s ads.
- Emails are much easier to personalize
When trying to market your content on social media, it can be hard to create a post that feels personal to each person reading it. Social networks don’t give the option to include personalization elements, such as addressing each member of your audience by name or by their previous purchase and activity history. Attempts to do this could leave you with a post that feels awkwardly directed, which may fail to achieve the intended result. Email marketing services make personalization possible with plenty of tools and support that social media platforms lack. Email marketing software offers settings and data that allow you to directly establish that one-to-one connection with your subscribers, such as segmentation, using activity history, and more! Statistics indicate that personalized emails enjoy increased engagement rates since more recipients prefer them. So email advertising delivers another advantage here as well.
- People prefer email advertising for promotional content
A notable 2015 survey by marketing research publisher MarketingSherpa sought to establish how customers wanted to receive promotional messages from companies. Over 70% of respondents preferred emails as their medium of choice, while only less than 20% preferred social media. What this means is that content which markets your business will likely enjoy better reception as an email. That post could have really been an email.
Regardless of the specific industry, effective email campaigns fare better than social media ads. They have a more personal reach to an audience, and it is impossible to overlook their high ROI and engagement rates. The fact that people prefer this type of communication for promotional content also means you’re likely to see increased engagement rates. The influence of social media can’t be denied, but email advertising is simply more effective for businesses hoping to increase conversions and sales.
