Email is one of the most effective and most widely used forms of communication and marketing nowadays. Thanks to the internet, sending letters inside and outside your organization or business is now easier to do. This is also the reason why email marketing is heavily used in almost any industry.         

Email marketing defined

There are many advertising campaigns funnels and types, but if you want to reach your target audience directly, you should seriously consider email marketing.

Marketing through emails is the process of sending promotional messages to a group of people using electronic mail. Emails for marketing can be sent to a list of freshly generated leads or a current customer base, for example. It’s a form of direct marketing used to communicate to a target audience. It also helps enhance the relationship between you as the merchant (or business owner in general) and your existing customers and potential buyers. 

Email marketing pros and cons 

Is email marketing worth your time and money? Can it really help your business?

Knowing the pros and cons of email marketing will help you decide. Let’s dive in! 

PROS

1. It’s cost-effective.

Email marketing is relatively cheaper than most other online marketing strategies. You don’t need to hire a team of digital marketing experts to be able to create impactful emails to send to your audience. You don’t need to pay for expensive advertisements to be posted on other sites. With email marketing, you’ll only need to first invest in building a mailing list, and then in an email marketing software, like Drip, MailChimp, Constant Contact, and GetResponse, to name a few.   

1. It’s easy to track progress. 

Whether you’re using email marketing or other digital advertising platforms (such as Click2sell.co, Taboola, etc.) tracking your marketing metrics is essential for your business because it helps you make informed decisions based on hard data. With email marketing, it’s easy to track your progress if you use the right tools that also allow you to build email campaigns using pre-made templates, automate campaigns, integrate with almost all e-commerce platforms, supports A/B testing, and use an analytics system. 

Some of the most important email marketing metrics to track include the following:      

• Open rate 
• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Conversion rate
• Bounce rate
• Forward/share rate
• Unsubscribe rate
• Campaign ROI (return on investment)  

CONS

1. Emails can get marked as spam. 

A lot of people are bombarded with tons of promotional emails on a daily basis. Using the wrong headline will surely put off potential buyers without even opening your email. This is why it’s essential to know when and how to send effective email marketing content for your campaigns.

For one, you need a killer eye-catching subject line that will make people want to click on the email. The content for each email should describe or expound the subject and should be convincing enough without sounding too commercial or worse, pushy.     

1. It requires time and effort.

All forms of advertising campaigns funnels and types require a lot of time and effort, including email marketing. This is because creating great content on a regular basis requires creativity to ensure that people are going to appreciate your effort in trying to reach out to them. But if you do it right, and provide real value to your existing and potential customers, marketing through email can be an effective and affordable way to increase brand awareness and sales conversion.     

All in all… 

Like many other marketing campaigns, knowing the pros and cons of email marketing will help you plan your strategy better. That way, you can also overcome the disadvantages of this type of marketing to ensure your success.         

Joyce Laroche