Email Marketing Is Still Alive!
Most companies are worried that email marketing is dead with the craze of social media marketing. However, email marketing is still alive and well with the help of smartphones. According to Pew Internet, as of February 2012, 46% of American adults own cell phones; an 11% increase from last May. Email access comes along with smartphones making it easier and convenient to access. Smartphones allow you to connect multiple email addresses to your phone so you can check as many as you need. I personally have my regular email and my school email accessible through my phone. In this article I will explain why email marketing is still alive through the mobile world.
Is There a ROI?
Assuming that you understand what email marketing is, do you want to know if it actually works? In a survey taken place in May 2011 from Nex Sales, "72% of respondents answered that Return-of-Investment (ROI) of their email marketing campaigns was better than most other means". Today that means a lot considering how many different marketing means there are nowadays. Also "39.4% of marketing industry executives called Email Marketing the most powerful advertising channel for their business". I don't know about you but I'm sold on it.
Why Consumers Respond To Email Marketing
Easy & Convenient
As I mentioned before, smartphones make it easier and convenient to access your email. No matter
where you are (as long as you have service) you can check your email along with everything else on your mobile device. Multiple times throughout the day I check all of my social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as well as checking my email. I find it very important to check my email, especially once I started school. It has become such a habit now and I'm sure it is for others also. Especially for businesses, it is very important to check your email multiple times a day because you may have a lead, customer concern, or employee question. I have had experience in the past where I emailed a professor or supervisor and they emailed me back right away because of their smartphones. It makes it much easier for them and for me. I hardly checked my email before I got my iPhone and now I check it constantly.
Mobile Friendly
In order to get customers to look at emails they need to be "mobile friendly". It is much harder to read an email that is formated for a desktop computer on your smartphone. If there is a newsletter being sent out, customers may end up deleting it or letting it sit in their old mail if they can't read it on their phones. If the email is formated to fit the mobile device customers are more likely to read it. Most emails will also link to their website letting customers check out their page through their phones. If their website is formatted for their phones they will most likely visit it.
Why Businesses Continue To Use Email Marketing
Promotions
Many businesses use email marketing for promotional purposes. Once they receive an email address they will send emails when they are running a deal or have a sale coming up. Personally I like this because otherwise I wouldn't know about their sales. Stores will send out emails saying how everything online is 40% for the weekend. This definitely gets them more business because first of all they are letting you know about their sale and second of all it is much easier to just go right on the computer or mobile device and start shopping rather than having to go into the store. Trust me, they get me all the time. If it were not for this kind of email marketing, I as a consumer, would not know much about promotions that I could participate in. Here at SEM Zen, we are holding a Summer Sweepstakes for those that "Like" our Facebook page and we sent our clients an email informing them about it. I'm sure that many of our clients checked it out on their cell phones. They could be waiting in the doctors office and have a few minutes to spare so they just take out their phones and check everything there is to check, including their email.
Updates On The Company
Email marketing also helps businesses inform their customers of current events. Most businesses will do so by sending a monthly newsletter through their email. They use this as a way to let everyone know what they have been doing in the past month, what has changed, and sometimes what they plan on doing for the next month. Since it is a monthly newsletter they are not bombarding their customers with emails every day but they are giving them an overview of what they want to say. This is in an effort to keep the company on the forefront of their audiences minds. Since they don't hear from them every week, this is a way to catch their attention and relay what they have been up to.
Overall Email Marketing is still around because of smartphones. Businesses want to share promotions and updates on the company and in order for customers to hear about it right away email marketing needs to be put into effect. Owning a smartphone keeps email marketing alive by making email updates easy and convenient.
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