The Power Of Email Marketing To Grow Sales

When it comes to digital marketing, there are many options:

• SEO

• Paid Social Ads

• PPC Ads

• Organic Content – Social & Blogs

• Partnerships & Influencers

But there's one method that nearly every marketing expert agrees delivers exceptional results consistently:

Email Marketing.

It boasts an astonishing return on investment (ROI) of 3,600%.

That's right – for every $1 dollar spent, the average return is a whopping $36. It's a huge sales tool capable of driving significant revenue growth for businesses of any size.

Beyond its impressive ROI, email marketing offers additional advantages over other marketing channels.

FACT: Unlike social media, impacted by platform changes or algorithmic limitations, your email list is a valuable asset you own and control. With direct access to your audience's inbox, you can engage and sell to them at any time, unlike connecting through your social accounts, which can be shut down without notice (yup, it happens!)

FACT: While less than 10% of your audience sees a single social media post, the average email open rate hovers between 30-40%. These stats highlight the power of email to capture a greater portion of your audience's attention.

Building Lasting Connections

At its core, email allows you to build and nurture relationships with your audience consistently. Unlike other forms of marketing, email provides a direct connection to your customers, allowing you to engage with them on a more personal level.

TIP:  To maximize the impact of your emails, segment your list into sub-audiences so you can deliver messages specially tailored to their specific needs/pain points.

Take, for example, Jane, a small business owner who operates a micro bakery.

Jane used to manage her clients on her Facebook page but became overwhelmed with an overflowing inbox and frequently missed messages. Understanding the importance of connecting with her customers, Jane switched to email and regularly sends promotions and new product announcements. Through these communications, she stays top-of-mind and builds a loyal following that supports her bakery.

With proper segmentation, she can group her audience by frequency of purchases, product/s purchased, and spending level and deliver special promotions and new product announcements based on their interests.

For example, if a customer only buys cookies and cakes, she can introduce them to her fresh-baked breads through a series of emails and gauge their interest based on the open rate and if they click a link to buy.

Driving Immediate Sales

While relationship-building through email marketing is valuable for long-term success, email can also generate short-term sales opportunities. Email is the easiest and fastest way to inform subscribers of newly created products or services or if you want to extend a special price promotion. We love to drive demand with special incentives (hint: it doesn't always have to be about lower prices) during low-demand periods.

Mike is a talented photographer who wants to book more clients for his portrait sessions outside the already busy holiday season.

He created a targeted email campaign offering a limited-time promotion on family photo shoots a few months before the busy holiday season. The email campaign invited subscribers to take action by focusing on the emotional significance of capturing family photos and using them as gifts for family.

The result? Mike generated a significant increase in leads with his targeted offer, ultimately resulting in more bookings and revenue for his business. With email marketing, Mike can control what he offers and when he offers it, turning slow periods into profitable ones.

Maximizing Customer Lifetime Value

If you want to avoid one-time transactions and instead create repeat customers, email plays a key role in maximizing a customer's lifetime value. Consistently sending emails to your audience encourages repeat purchases, fosters ongoing loyalty, and drives referrals by nurturing those existing relationships while staying top-of-mind.

Email is a great way to stay connected and position yourself as an expert with valuable content that helps your subscribers with some of their biggest problems. By showing up in their inbox regularly with solutions to their problems, subscribers will look forward to your emails because every email will contain helpful information.

FACT: It's cheaper to sell to an existing client than to try to attract, nurture, and convert a new lead, and it can be done much quicker because they already know, like, and trust you.

Sarah owns a subscription-based local meal kit service.

She knows retaining customers is more cost-effective than acquiring new ones, so Sarah created an engagement campaign to keep current subscribers interested in her service and promote new offers.

Through personalized recommendations, helpful cooking tips, and timely reminders to customize their meal selections, Sarah can stay connected and be seen as a valuable resource. As a result, she enjoys a steady stream of recurring revenue and a growing base of enthusiastic advocates for her brand.

Adapting to Changing Needs

Consumer preferences and behaviors are changing faster than ever, and adaptability is key to staying ahead of the curve. Email's flexibility and versatility make it an important tool for responding to your client's needs and market conditions.

As a self-professed data nerd, one of my favorite benefits of email marketing is the access to real-time data to measure performance. As soon as you click send, you can see your subscribers' response; if open rates are lower than usual, you can make adjustments before the next time you hit send.

You can also gauge interest in new offers and test promotions quickly to see if there's enough interest to warrant additional marketing efforts such as paid social media ad campaigns.

There are many ways to market your business that create awareness,  build relationships, and drive sales. However, email marketing is our favorite method because you maintain complete control, and it helps you connect with your subscribers while offering solutions to their problems in a more genuine way. And as small business owners, isn't our ultimate goal to help our clients?