Does email marketing work? This is possibly one of the hottest questions in marketing today. Some believe email marketing is equivalent to using a physical map for directions, to which most would respond, “People still use those?” You can, but why?
This is the 21st century. We have GPS in our cars and in our palms. You don’t need to find your bearings on a map.
But email marketing isn’t a map. Sure, it may feel like the first email was sent out while riding on a dinosaur. Sure, there are new, “shiny” ways to market, but the numbers don’t lie. Email marketing is not only a consideration; it is still an essential part to any marketing campaign. We love email marketing. Below are our reasons, supported by some fun statistics.
Email is Still Relevant
People still use email. It is still an integral part of day to day life for almost all of internet users. You may hear that people are “quitting Twitter” or “quitting Facebook” but you never hear anyone talking about quitting email. It’s too much of a necessity in today’s world. Below are a few statistics that show how relevant email still is.
- More than 3.2 billion email accounts exist today (Socialmouths)
- 95 percent of online consumers use email and 91 percent check their email at least once a day (Socialmouths)
- The total number of worldwide email accounts is expected to increase to over 4.3 billion accounts by year-end 2016 (Campaign Monitor)
- 92 percent of online adults use email, with 61 percent using it daily (Campaign Monitor)
Email Has Made a Successful Conversion to Mobile
Email has fully converted to the mobile platform, which is probably the biggest reason why it’s as relevant as it is today. It’s just as convenient, if not more convenient, to view emails on a mobile device, which has led to some surprising statistics.
- 66 percent of Gmail messages are opened in mobile devices (Socialmouths)
- 50 percent of all “Unique Opens” and 40 percent of all “Unique Clicks” happen on mobile (Socialmouths)
- Data for over 1.8 billion opens from campaigns sent in 2013 shows that mobile is the most popular environment for a subscriber’s first interaction with an email (Campaign Monitor)
- Though the number of new Internet users is growing at less than 10 percent per year, the number of new smartphone subscribers is growing at a 20% percent+ rate (Campaign Monitor)
Email Marketing is Still Effective
There are plenty of cooler ways to market your company, but in the end, numbers are what matter. If your strategy and executions aren’t going to help you reach your goal as a marketer, then it’s not worth it. Email marketing is one of, if not the most effective marketing medium, and here are some statistics to back that up:
- 60 percent of marketers say email marketing produces ROI and 32 percent believe it eventually will (Socialmouths)
- For every $1 spent on an email marketing investment, there’s an average return of $44.25 (Socialmouths)
- When it comes to purchases made as a result of receiving a marketing message, email has the highest conversion rate of 66 percent (compared to social and direct mail),(Campaign Monitor)
- Nearly one in five companies (18 percent) reported an ROI of more than $76 in 2014, which is three times more than 2013 figures (5 percent) (Campaign Monitor)
Email Marketing Competes with Social Media Marketing
Contrary to popular belief, social media is not leagues above email marketing. In fact, email marketing competes well with social media marketing. Here are a couple of statistics that show email marketing should be looked at above social media marketing:
- A message is five times more likely to be seen in email than via Facebook (Campaign Monitor)
- Email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter (Campaign Monitor)
- Email has 2.9 billion user accounts, which is three times as many as Facebook and Twitter combined (Kissmetrics)
- You are six times more likely to get a click-through from an email campaign than you are from a tweet (Campaign Monitor)
People Don’t Mind Email Marketing
One of the biggest keys to marketing is listening to consumers and giving them what they want. Truth is the majority of people prefer to get promotional content through email; they even look for it. Below are a few statistics that show consumers don’t mind email marketing:
- 77 percent prefer email to receive promotional content (Socialmouths)
- 57 percent of email subscribers spend 10-60 minutes browsing marketing emails during the week (Campaign Monitor)
- 76 percent of marketers see active growth in their number of email subscribers (Campaign Monitor)
- 70 percent of recipients said they’ve used coupons and discounts from promotional email (Socialmouths)
Email marketing may not boast the glitz and glamour of the new technology and media outlets that marketers use today, but it gets the job done more effectively than most other platforms and continues to be relevant. So open up that glove box and dust off the old map; email marketing is still a reliable tool to guide your marketing campaign.
Topics: marketing