It wasn’t that long ago that everyone loved email. It helped us stay in touch with loved ones and collaborate with colleagues.
But after a couple decades of Lucky Winner scams, Nigerian prince proposals, and way too many ads for male enlargement pills, we finally had enough. AOL’s iconic “You’ve Got Mail” became “You’ve Got Spam,” and opening our inboxes was more often met with trepidation than excitement.
Fast forward to 2016, and the pendulum has swung back. With the development of robust spam filters and smart categorization tools, email has returned as strong as ever—much to the good fortune of bloggers, entrepreneurs, and anyone who appreciates a well-crafted piece of correspondence.
With that, here are our five great reasons why your site needs an email newsletter—stat.
Email is everywhere, all the time
Yes, the uptake of social media networks like Facebook and Twitter is crazy, but the uptake of email is even crazier. According to a report by the Radicati Group, by 2019, 2.9 billion people (over one-third of the world’s population) will be using email.
People access their email from work, home, desktops, laptops, and increasingly from mobile devices. And unlike social media feeds, people actually read their emails instead of skimming activity from the past hour or so and ignoring the rest. Even if someone goes on holiday and doesn’t check their messages for a week (keep in mind that the average email user checks in 15 times a day), your email will be waiting upon their return.
It strengthens relationships with your readers and customers
Say what you will about the antisocial nature of the web, keeping users engaged with your website, blog or online store is personal. By emailing regularly, you can both keep your readers and customers informed, as well as take your relationships to a level that would never have been possible with tweets.
It boosts traffic to your site
No matter what kind of site you’re running, there’s a good chance one of your primary goals is attracting more eyes. Building an audience or customer base is an art form that varies depending on your target demographic, but frequent, relevant emailing has consistently been shown to result in a significant uptick in site traffic.
It gives you access to rich, actionable data
As American businessman and pioneer marketer John Wanamaker famously remarked, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” If only he’d lived to see the tricked-out dashboards of MailChimp and Constant Contact.
These services and others take the guesswork out of marketing analysis, shining light on important information like who’s opening your emails and what content they’re interested in. You can track things like opens, clicks, subscribe and unsubscribe rates, social media shares, and more. Every dollar, every subscriber, and every email is accounted for.
It’s cheap
Of all of the ways you can market your business, email is one of the most cost-effective.
For small businesses and bloggers on a budget, email is a great way to reach a large number of subscribers for pennies per message. MailChimp even offers its services free for up to 2,000 subscribers with its Free Forever Plan. You won’t find a better deal than that.
An oldie and a goodie
Email remains an easy, inexpensive, and above-all effective marketing tactic. Whether you’ve published a new blog post, launched a new product or listing, or just want to share your thoughts with the world, email is a great way to keep your audience informed and drive traffic back to your site.
Ready to get started? Contact us to create a top-notch email newsletter, start to finish!