Top 10 Benefits of Email Marketing

By Kelly Forst August 6, 2021

Looking to accomplish more with your marketing budget? It may be time to throw an email marketing campaign into the mix. Email marketing has tons of benefits and offers an impressive return on investment (ROI) while being quick and easy to deploy—even if you don’t have a lot of experience.

Still not convinced? Explore some key benefits of email marketing and consider how these could elevate your next marketing campaign.

1. Build relationships with customers

Your existing email list presents an amazing opportunity to build relationships with people who are already interested in your business. After all, these subscribers signed up for your email list because they are either customers or clients. Or they are interested in the products and services you have to offer. 

A great email marketing campaign allows you to take full advantage of that by communicating with members of your email list and building relationships with them.

And the more your audience sees that you are making an effort to reach out, provide you value and deliver on your promises, the more likely they will be to stay loyal.

2. Stretch your marketing dollars

From a cost standpoint, email marketing is one of the most affordable means of digital marketing—making it a great option for smaller and growing businesses that may not have large marketing budgets. Compared to print marketing (which comes with its own design, printing, and postage costs), email marketing offers an excellent value for your dollar.

And unlike some other forms of digital marketing (such as paid ads), there are very few costs involved.

3. Increase sales and profits

Another one of the key benefits of email marketing is the return your business can see on its investment. When it comes to ROI for email marketing, it is not uncommon for businesses of all sizes to see a return of about $38 for every dollar spent on a marketing campaign. 

Whether you use an email marketing campaign to introduce a new product or service or to alert your audience to a special promotion, like the email below, your emails can drive sales and boost your company’s revenue significantly.

4. Personalize with segmentation

If you’re looking for a marketing strategy that allows you to really hone in on a specific audience, email marketing has you covered. Specifically, email list segmentation allows you to “filter” your email list based on a number of factors and then send out custom-tailored messages to each segment of your list. 

You can use segmentation, for example, to reach potential customers in a specific geographical area. You can also use email segmentation to market to people who have shown interest in a specific product or service.

The possibilities here are endless—and when your audience receives messages that are tailored to them, they’ll be more likely to make a purchase.

5. Own your list

Here’s a benefit of email marketing that a lot of business owners fail to realize: you actually own your company’s email list.

It’s something you’ve grown organically over time and does not rely on computer algorithms. The same cannot be said with other forms of marketing—such as social media marketing and paid ads, where people will only see your message based on the platform’s algorithm (which is out of your control).

With an email marketing list, you ultimately have total control over what your subscribers see. And because there are more than four billion email users across the globe, email marketing lets you reach a global audience; there is perhaps no other form of marketing that has a greater reach than email. That’s an important distinction that really sets email marketing apart.

6. Gather valuable insights

Having an email list is also valuable when it comes to gathering insights and feedback from your audience. You can use your email list to send out surveys—like the one below—about your products and services. 

You can also use your email service provider to generate reports and analyses on the success of each marketing campaign. Check out what kind of click-through and conversion rates each campaign has reached—as well as your return on investment for each campaign.

Many marketers even use split testing, which involves sending two different emails and evaluating how each email performed. This lets you gather valuable insights on which message is most effective for a particular audience, which can then inform future marketing decisions.

7. Drive website traffic

Another one of the top benefits of email marketing: driving more traffic to your company’s website.

Include a strong call-to-action at the end of each of your emails, along with a direct link to your website. Linking to blog posts or other relevant content can also be an effective way to bring people to your website.

Driving traffic directly to your site from an email can increase your sales and conversions. An added bonus? You may get a boost from your search engine rankings. It’s a win-win.

8. Automate tasks and save time

More than likely, you’ve got enough on your plate as it is. Writing and sending one-off emails can be time-consuming.

That’s why automation is one of the top benefits of email marketing. And, it’s where an email service provider can really be worth the investment.

Specifically, an email marketing platform can be used to automate some of your marketing tasks. Write your emails ahead of time and then schedule for the best day and time to send an email.

Or use automation to set up a welcome email (or welcome email campaign) that people receive when they sign up for a discount.

For instance, this is the automated email I received seconds after signing up to win a month of free cereal from Magic Spoon:

The testimonials in the welcome email served as social proof that people love this cereal. They calmed my worries about spending a bit more on healthier cereal.

So, yea, I bought the cereal.

9. Encourage spreading the word

Email marketing is also unique in the sense that your message can be easily shared with others. This can quickly and effortlessly expand your brand’s potential reach.

Consider, for example, that you send an email highlighting a special promotion or limited time sale. Several members of your email list forward the email to friends or family to take advantage of the sale. From there, you gain a few new customers (and possibly new email subscribers, too!).

There’s no harm in asking people to share the email with others who could benefit from it. In fact, we encourage sharing in every single blog newsletter we send out.

Sign up to get our weekly tips and a dash of email inspiration every Thursday.

This is just one more example of the importance of email marketing when it comes to spreading the word and growing awareness of your brand.

10. See instant results

Is there anything better than getting instant gratification?

Email marketing is one of the few channels where you can see results right away.

As soon as you send out a marketing email, you can have subscribers making purchases. The same cannot always be said with other forms of marketing (such as print marketing), where you may have to wait days or even weeks to gauge the success of the campaign.

Why email marketing? The bottom line

These are just some of the countless benefits of email marketing for businesses of all sizes. Plus, you can take advantage of all these benefits without having extensive marketing knowledge or experience.

The key is to find the right email marketing platform to make your life easier and automate many of these tasks. From there, you can spend more time growing and managing your business while knowing that your email marketing is taken care of.

Ready to get started? Start growing your list with AWeber for free today.