Why Email Marketing is King of the Conversions Castle

Reports of email’s death were greatly exaggerated and right now inboxes are where it’s at for driving your conversion rates. Although paid advertising on social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter offer respectable conversion rates when used properly, they pale in comparison to what can be achieved through email marketing.

Selling on social media is a bit like selling from a stall in a busy market – you’re shouting to get people’s attention and while the atmosphere is friendly, it’s a constant struggle to be louder than the person selling their e-apples and e-pears next to you. However, when somebody opens one of your email campaigns you’re transformed into a respectable door-to-door salesman who’s been invited in to calmly discuss business over a cup of tea.

Below are three key reasons why this is the case, and why email marketing rules to roost when it comes to driving e-commerce sales.

It sells more than Social Media

Some sources say that the ROI for email marketing is 4300% and others that 66% of consumers have bought something because of an email marketing campaign they found in their inbox. Suffice to say, if you’re not taking advantage of email marketing then you’re losing out on sales. While social media marketing has plenty of advantages (and it’s important to do both, it’s not an either/or situation), there’s no question that it lacks the converting power of email.

A study by Custora showed that between 2009 and 2013 the number of e-commerce customers acquired through email marketing increased from 0 – 7%, for social media the increase was less than 1%.

While social media channels are an essential way of getting customers to engage with a brand, email is the king when it comes to making sales.

SEO is getting harder

SEO is as essential as it always has been, but it isn’t getting any easier and more and more business owners are having to invest in professional SEO services to stake their claim in the SERPs. The beauty of email marketing is that it doesn’t need to be at the top of a list of search results to be effective, it just needs to land in someone’s inbox and have a title (and pre-header) that makes its recipient want to see inside. Email campaigns also don’t have to be SEO’d, they just need to contain compelling content in order to work.

With the success of email marketing continuing to grow, and popular SEO tactics such as guest blogging coming under close scrutiny from Google (following a trend of popular practices becoming abused by spammers and subsequently penalised) email marketing is definitely the way ahead for e-commerce success.

It’s permission-based and personal

Because people have given you their permission to send them emails when your campaign arrives in their inbox, it’s like a salesman being invited in someone’s home (and not putting his foot in the door and forcing his way in). This permission-based approach to digitmarketing means that unless you really go out of your way to annoy people, all your messages will be gratefully received, or at the very least they won’t be seen as a nuisance.

Email is also the most personal way of connecting with people – it’s on their computers at work and at home, and it’s on their smartphones and tablets while commuting, in the office, or lying in bed. If you’ve been willingly let into your subscribers’ personal space there’s a built-in level of trust which makes it easier to sell to them. Not only this but because email is a constant presence, and relatively low traffic compared to social media with their floods of feeds, if a message goes into someone’s inbox there’s a very good chance they’ll see it and it won’t get lost in the deluge.

Although email is often seen as being old-fashioned and uncool, it’s only becoming more effective and reliable as a marketing tool and an indispensable one for e-commerce.

If you’re not sure how to get started with email marketing, or are looking for new ways of growing your existing list of subscribers give us a call on 01803 866430 to speak to one of our marketing experts.

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