Is Email Dead? The Timeless Benefits of Email Marketing

With each new year, there are a number of advances and launches in the social media and the online platform space that continue to keep the digital world fresh and exciting. The catch is that with each new launch comes a question that many businesses and entrepreneurs continue to ask, “Is email still relevant?”

This, of course, is a valid question. After all, why should we continue using email when there are platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok that can reach thousands (if not millions) more people?

The answer is more complicated than one might initially think.

While social media and other types of socially-driven platforms continue to be tremendous sources of traffic, there’s still nothing quite like email and email marketing. In fact, despite all these social platforms present today, they simply don’t hold a candle to the timeless and tremendous benefits of email marketing.

And here’s why…

The Problem with Interruption Marketing and Paid Advertising

A couple of decades back we saw the rising and flourishing of the TV industrial complex, where businesses would market to audiences through the form of commercials that were strategically placed during and in between the many different shows airing.

The way that ads worked back then (and still sometimes work today) is that they literally interrupted your regular programing to serve you ads about cereals, cars, cleaning supplies, and whatever else paid for placement in the studio’s schedule that week. This is what Seth Godin called “interruption marketing”, where the goal was to get an ad in front of people while you had their attention, and hope that this translated into sales.

Fast forward to today, this method is still one of the main ways that ads are served, whether through search engines, YouTube, or social media.

Sometimes this works, and people are grateful to have been served an ad that really caters to their specific interests. Many times, though, it doesn’t work, and people simply get annoyed every time they see an ad that they just keep on scrolling through.

It’s one of the reasons why you’ll receive thousands of impressions for your ads, but turn only a fraction of those impressions into leads or sales.

Despite this, many companies continue to just pour in the cash to pay for more ads, hoping that eventually they’ll stick.

The problem is, if you’re a small business, or a startup, you can’t possibly put up that much cash upfront, let alone compete with all these big companies that are putting up high bids just so that they can saturate the market with their ads.

So what’s a small business owner to do?

Enter Permission Marketing

So just what, exactly, is permission marketing?

Seth Godin, who authored a book with the term itself as the title, defines permission marketing as “…the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.”

It’s those last six words that make all the difference.

The biggest difference, and one of the greatest benefits of email marketing, is the ability to be able to communicate with an audience that actually wants to hear from you.

Why does this matter?

1. Your Audience is More Likely to Listen

When someone willingly subscribes to your newsletter, knowing full well that they’re going to be receiving updates on either your content, products, or services then they’re ten times more likely to make the effort to notice, open, and review whatever it is you have to offer them.

Think about how magazine subscriptions worked back in the day.

More often than not, you would subscribe to a magazine because you either loved their content or you were highly invested and interested in the topic. As a result, you pay a monthly a fee just so that you can receive their latest issue in the mail at the beginning or end of every month.

And because you’re looking forward to that latest issue once it comes in the mail, you can’t help but open it up and devour the book in a matter of hours.

2. They’re More Eager to Support You (the Case of Kevin Hart)

Would you believe me if I told you that one of the things that helped stand-up comedian, Kevin Hart (known for his roles in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, The Upside, and The Secret Life of Pets) become successful is email?

There’s a reason why Kevin Hart continued to sell out shows early on in his career: he built a mailing list.

The reason he was able to accomplish this is that for four years, as he did the comedy club circuit, he would leave cards on the tables at each club asking for people’s email addresses. The cards read, “Kevin Hart needs to know who you are”. And so people would scribble in their email addresses and Kevin would move to collect the cards after the show.

His assistant would then type in each email into a spreadsheet and organize everything by city. That way, the next time Kevin Hart would be performing at that city, he’d reach out to each one of his “subscribers” and invite them to the show.

As a result, his fans were more than eager to show him their support.

It’s this personal touch that makes permission marketing (and, specifically, email marketing) an important, if not the most important, form of marketing.

3. You Have Control Over Your Email List

Twitter has undergone some major changes in recent months, prompting some longtime and avid users to switch over to other social platforms despite their invested interest in the platform. What does this mean for businesses, creators, and influencers on the platform? A loss of engagement and followers.

On the other hand, another one of the biggest benefits of email marketing is that this is something you never have to worry about.

If Twitter one day shuts down, there’s no need to worry. You’ve got your mailing list.

If Facebook decides to lower organic reach and impressions even further, don’t sweat it. You’ve got your mailing list.

If YouTube suddenly decides to change the rules on what types of video content are permitted on their platform, and you’re on the chopping block, rest easy. You’ve got your mailing list.

Think of building an audience on social media like building a home on rented land. You feel secure sleeping there and willingly call it home. You invite guests over and entertain them. In a way, it feels like the property belongs to you.

The reality, though, is that it doesn’t.

Better, then, to build your house on a plot of land that you yourself own. That’s what your mailing list is. That’s what email marketing can give you.

When all other online platforms fail, and we somehow find that social media has come and gone. Rest easy. You’ll still have your mailing list.

4. Email Marketing is the Ultimate Gold Mine

When we say that email marketing is a gold mine, we mean this in terms of both finance and potential. In fact, would you believe that, on average, email has an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent? What’s more, according to HubSpot, four out of five marketers would rather give up social media rather than email.

More than just the numbers, though, the gold mines of email marketing are two-fold.

First, they’re a direct connection between you and your audience. This means that you can easily tap into them for feedback regarding your products and services. That way, you’ll know almost instantly what’s up and how you can further improve.

Email marketing can also help you connect with your audience at a deeper level. There’s no better way, after all, to know what it is your ideal customer is thinking than to ask them directly with a question or survey.

One question you should definitely ask your audience, for example, is: “What is your biggest struggle right now when it comes to (your industry-related problem or pain point)?”

This question can spark all sorts of conversations, from what products your customers have used, what works for them, what doesn’t work for them, all the way down to what’s missing in yours and others’ existing products.

As a result, your audience’s answers make up the second golden factor of email marketing: ideas.

Mining your brain for product ideas and innovations often requires a lot of effort, especially if you’re just brainstorming ideas with your team. So why not ask the customers themselves?

Surveying your mailing list could spark fresh new ideas for products and services that you can create and deliver to your audience, creating more sales, more revenue, and even more engagement. Because what customer wouldn’t love to support a company that helps them better solve their problem?

The benefits of email marketing are both numerous and enormous! And email marketing continues to be one of the top ways to reach your audience. It’s not just a means that can drive traffic, but it’s also a powerful means to improve your leads and sales. It’s no surprise, then, that ever since the beginning of the internet email marketing has been and continues to be the perfect gold mine to build and scale a business on.