Ragged Riches

If there is one form of marketing that has the potential to withstand the test of time, it’s email marketing. Email is the new snail mail, and I mean that in the best way possible. Back in the 1990s, people would receive ads in the mail for everything from homes for sale to grocery specials.

Today, mailers are still occasionally used—mostly for new business openings, new restaurant specials, and local construction companies. Most other businesses, sadly, don’t use them anymore, though they still offer some kind of return on investment.

Lately, people have been buzzing about email being dead.

It’s hard to figure out why this belief keeps coming back online. It’s a murmur that keeps coming and going through the internet. It was a popular saying in the early 2010s (“No one checks their ads anymore!”) and it’s making its rounds now with the rise of TikTok.

Many budding marketers made the mistake of believing this 10 years ago. I was one of them. I’m a convert now. Here’s why I realized email is here to stay and why advertising has to have this form of marketing as its backbone.

Why is email so popular?

Let’s do this with a list, because it is worth pointing out the very obvious basics:

1. It’s the new form of mailer, and it still works because people still check their mail. Email does the exact same thing as mailers, except more efficiently, faster, and for a lower price. You literally don’t need a dime to start mailing clients: just a way to snag emails on sites like Substack or even Medium!
2. People have to opt-in and opt-out of your emails, giving you a general interest level. If people opt-in, it shows that you have a viable product.
3. Your site might get shuttered, but your email list will remain yours. Those opt-ins? Those email lists? Those are yours, and they don’t vanish just because your site is down or because you got booted from a service. That gives you a backbone for your business that others can’t take away.
4. It keeps your brand on peoples’ minds. Have you ever gone to a store that you adored, only to forget about it until you find out it was closed? I have. It’s an awful feeling and it makes you think about how that business owner probably wished they could have reached out for support.
5. People generally react well to hype. Let’s be real. Email has a strange way of hyping up products and programs. You might as well use that as a way to get people buying next time you have a sale.
6. You can segment and customize email lists, giving it a personal touch. That personal touch is a huge deal for people who want to feel a connection to a company. It also can help make your offers more effective.
7. Unlike other forms of advertising, you can also get feedback from your clients through email marketing. And let’s face it, the customer is always right.

All things considered, it’s not surprising to hear that email marketing has the highest ROI of any modern form of internet marketing. It’s the easiest to control, and literally everyone checks their emails.

If you’re curious about how well email marketing works, you might be shocked. Litmus explains that you can expect an average of $36 return for every dollar you spend on email marketing, making it a jaw-droppingly smart way to get a good return on marketing.

One of the reasons email marketing still works is because it evolves.

Email marketing might seem stationary from the early 2000s, but it’s not. It’s not just the graphics and fonts that changed, nor is it the ease of use of chic newsletter layouts. The truth is that email marketing has a lot going on behind the scenes.

Major email marketing platforms allow you to test out new marketing methods, add polls, get insight from customer opens, segment your audience and more. That drives up conversion rates and also makes it easier for you to get more out of your campaigns.

If you want to make your business blossom and keep your business up to date, you need email marketing.

Email marketing is thankfully cheap or even free of charge. If you use an email/newsletter platform like Substack, you can get subscribers for free. Even WordPress has its own newsletter platform.

Of course, most marketers tend to use a “classic” platform like Mailchimp to get their marketing newsletters on. Regardless of what you use, you should always try to make sure your emails are easy to sign up for.

This has been a PSA from Ossiana Tepfenhart. Please, get your email on. (And don’t worry, I’ll be putting together email marketing tips from research I do, too.)