The very existence of mankind depends on the fact that we cannot survive without communicating with one another. Over time, hundreds of ways of communication have been invented.
During times of war, we saw pigeons and ravens being used as messengers, carrying news back and forth over enemy lines. It was only later that “the internet” popped up, and we gave up the old ways of information exchange.
The history of email goes back to the early 1970s.
The first email ever sent dates back to 1971! The original means of social media, email is considered to have died a slow death while other social media networks have grown rapidly in its place. With Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn and other tech-savvy networks, why would anybody look to email today?
With content marketing in place, email has actually become more powerful a medium than ever before.
You can’t depend on a Facebook campaign to boost business. Successful businesses make sure they have an email list to spread their word across the world in a more direct manner.
Smart marketers trust in the value that is added by other platforms, but these platforms just add worth to what email marketing already does.
No wonder you see those little sign-up boxes when you visit a website asking you to subscribe to their email list.
Why is email marketing still ruling? And why don’t Facebook or Twitter take it completely over?
There are a few fundamental reasons why email marketing is still the best tactic of outreach for your business.
It’s Personal
Emails are the most personal way you can directly get in touch with your customers. You might run ad campaigns and advertise on other social media networks, but email gives you a chance to be seen by your prospects directly. The personal feel of an email never gets old.
You Can Speak Up
Once you’ve decided to enter a person’s inbox, you have a chance to speak up for yourself. It’s time to give away all the information that your customer can relate to. Make your reader feel worthy of having opened your email! You can blurt out all the information you have while making the message personalized as well.
Cost Effective
Email marketing usually pays for itself. It is a tested fact that email marketing is one of the cheapest and most effective marketing methods. Successful email campaigns have proven to give out an ROI of over 4300%. That’s quite a return! Printed mail costs much more and is not as eco-friendly. In awe of the latest and the most popular technologies available, marketers fail to recognize the importance of the easiest and the most cost-effective media, one of which is email marketing.
Most Preferred by Prospects
Email still happens to be the most preferred medium of exchanging information by users worldwide than any other media. Research shows that 77% of people permit marketers to share information via email, followed by direct mail at 9%, followed by text messaging at 5% and Facebook at a mere 4%. These facts show email marketing has not died; in fact, it is booming like never before.
Builds Loyalty
Loyalty will never be built in a day. But when a person lets you into their inbox, they show a degree of trust in you, which is enough for a start. Beyond this, it depends completely on how valuable the information that you share with them is, and what is the quality of the emails that you send them. By sharing valuable information over regular intervals, you penetrate the minds of your readers and this develops what we call loyalty.
Most Successful Campaigns Began with Emails
As I mentioned before, most successful marketers have realized the worth of email marketing and haven’t ignored it, ever. Most successful marketing campaigns began with email marketing. Take Barack Obama who, in the year 2012, ran one of the strongest email campaigns ever. He knew his target audience, he knew he had to get personally attached to each of them and give them a value they were looking for. And what better way than emails?
The fact that social media has boomed and a variety of fancy and widely used channels have come up should not be ignored. However, the belief that email marketing has aged and died is a myth. Email marketing is surely the oldest form of social media, but no, it hasn’t died. It has become more powerful and preferred with time. There are some things that only an email does and, boy, email marketing is here to stay.