Is email marketing still effective?

For 40 years, marketers have used email as an effective tool in their arsenal to reach and communicate with potential customer, but is email marketing still effective in today’s post-GDPR landscape?

The first email campaign was sent back in 1978 by Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager for Digital Equipment Corp. The email was promoting the company’s machines and, although it was the first of its kind, it produced $13 million worth of sales.

Since then, email marketing has gone from strength to strength. But, with the introduction of newer marketing practices, more advertising targeting options, and changes to privacy and data protection regulation, is email marketing still effective today?

In this post we will answer this question as well as some of some of our top email marketing best practices.

Is email marketing still effective in 2021?

The simple answer to this question is yes, it is still an effective marketing tool and we will show you why.

According to Statista over 306.4 billion emails were sent each day worldwide in 2020. It is predicted to rise even further to a staggering 361.6 billion per day by 2024. This shows that emails are still being sent and received in large quantities. But what does this mean for your business?

According to the Data and Marketing Association (DM), the ROI on email marketing is still very profitable. For every £1 spent there is still an estimated return of £35.41 which means an impressive 3441% turnover, who wouldn’t want that?

In fact, 81% of B2B marketers state that email marketing is their most used form of content marketing and an impressive 87% state that this is their top free organic distribution channel. This highlights that email marketing is still effective today and not only that, but it is very much relevant and used regularly.

Top email marketing practices

Although email marketing is still a commonly used tool today, you need to know what to do and what to avoid, in order to encourage your consumers to invest. Here are our top email marketing practices:

• Be clear and concise – don’t use jargon to alienate your reader or over share content, unless that’s how your target audience like to be spoken to.
• Use a trustworthy email platform – shop around and make sure you have the best and most suitable email marketing platform – you want one where you can keep track of and report on clicks, opens and views.
• Make your email attention grabbing – use colour and images to make the email stand out and eye catching.
• Don’t be too wordy – keep it to short, snappy paragraphs.
• Make sure your “unsubscribe” button is accessible – you don’t want consumers on your list who are flat-out not interested in your products or services.
• Don’t bombard your list with too many emails – the more emails you send the more likely that email providers and users will view your emails as spam. Be conscious of how many emails you are sending out, and how regularly you are doing it.
• Consider your CTA carefully – Your call to action is an important part of your email marketing campaign. For many it could be as simple as a link to your ecommerce site, but for others it could be a specially made asset. Think carefully about what your CTA will be in order to make your campaign as successful as possible.

How we can help

If you are looking for advice on how to make the most of your email marketing campaigns or if you need support or guidance in any other marketing practice, we can help.

With over 12 years’ worth of experience, we can help you get more from your email marketing activities to boost enquiries and sales.

To find out how we can help you generate growth through marketing, contact us today.