In the digital marketing world, email marketing and social media marketing have an interesting dynamic. Both are important but one is viewed more favorably than the other.
Think of it like sibling rivalry.
Social media marketing is the more popular one. It has the looks, style, and feel that makes people from all walks of life easily gravitate toward it.
Social media marketing is the “cool” sibling.
Email marketing is the “nerdy”, “unhip” one. It is plain, simple, frumpy and not fashionable, yet quietly gets things done right away.
People check on it multiple times a day, yes, but no one really wants to “hang out at the inbox”. Just get things done already so we can go on social media.
However, when it comes to delivering results and desired outcomes, the nerd beats the cool sibling hands down.
According to a study by Retriever Digital, posting in social media marketing results in a 2% to 5% open rate. In comparison, email marketing has an open rate of 21.73%.
In other words, if you have a total of 2,000 email subscribers and 2,000 followers of Facebook, 435 people will read your email while only 100 social media followers will read your post.
Here are other interesting statistics that favor email over social media marketing:
- Email marketing has a 3.57% click-through rate; Facebook has 0.07% and Twitter 0.03%.
- Email marketing at 66%, generates higher conversions than social media marketing.
- Email marketing results in 40 times higher ROI than social media marketing.
These statistics show that you should not overlook email marketing in your digital marketing strategy. It should be part of a holistic campaign together with social media marketing and other key online processes such as content marketing.
Email Marketing Tools: What Are They And How They Can Help Your Business Grow
Whether your business is among the Top 500 corporations in the world or a fledgling startup, it will benefit from email marketing. Small to medium scale businesses should definitely include email marketing as part of their online marketing campaign. It is inexpensive and thanks to the availability of email marketing tools, can be done by a handful of people.
There are over 5.2 Billion email accounts worldwide. This number is expected to hit 5.5 Billion in 2019. What is more astonishing than the fact that this number represents 68% of the world’s population is that there are 269 Billion emails sent every day.
That is how active email is as a medium of communication. People receive tons of email per day. How about you? How much email do you receive per day? Chances are you may not have enough time in the morning to go through every one of them.
Now put yourself on the side of the sender. How can you send out your content to the right people so they can read it at the most opportune time of the day?
Email marketing software takes away the guesswork from your campaign. It will help you manage your contacts list, lets you categorize subscribers via demographic qualities or by levels of engagement.
Email marketing software can also be a valuable research tool. It can extract key information about your subscribers so you will have a better idea on the types of content you should create and whom to send them to.
Creating a campaign is one thing, managing it is another. Email marketing software allows you to do both.
These tools can help you organize, create, and schedule a campaign. Once you have categorized your audience, you can firm up your email schedule.
There may be subscribers who only want to receive a single email every month, while others may expect multiple content on a weekly basis.
The same goes for your type of content.
There are email marketing tools that can schedule daily newsletters to support a single weekly campaign. You may also want to distribute email releases on special product or service discounts on certain months of the year.
Most importantly, the use of email marketing tools professionalizes your business. Not only do you get to send your content via professionally-designed and elegant templates but it shows you respect the time and privacy of your subscriber.
5 Most Effective Tools For Email Marketing
There are many good email marketing tools that you can consider. However, we have listed down 5 of the most effective tools that we have used for some of our email marketing campaigns.
- ActiveCampaign
If you’re a startup or a business that is planning to get its feet wet in email marketing, ActiveCampaign should be your online tool of choice.
First of all, it is very easy to use.
Second, it has many amazing features to automate email marketing. Lastly, it is one of the most reasonably priced platforms with a monthly subscription of $9 per month.
ActiveCampaign makes email marketing automation processes so easy even a neophyte can handle it.
Email marketing automation is the process of creating customized email sequences or schedules that are sent out to those in your contacts list provided certain parameters are met.
In short, it gives you the ability to fine-tune your email marketing campaign. You can create content that is specifically targeted to a group of people in your contacts list. This way you can be more assured that the people who receive your emails will open it and appreciate the content.
- GetResponse
If you are planning to do email marketing for the first time, don’t take its term literally and just send any ordinary email with an attachment.
You have to take a professional approach and keep in mind that this is a business-related communication. Therefore, in addition to substance, you have to consider its form.
GetResponse will give you more than 500 professionally-designed and aesthetically pleasing email templates to choose from. Each one has been optimized to conform to mobile-responsive design. The templates can be used for newsletters or as autoresponders.
Experienced email marketers also love the ability of GetResponse to run A/B testing. You can set the parameters of the test according to your objectives. It is easy to do a split test on the time of day, subject heading, content, or name of sender.
- MailChimp
You’ll be hard-pressed to find any digital marketer worth his/her salt who has not used MailChimp. It is one of the most popular email marketing tools because it delivers good results on a consistent basis.
First, it is very easy to use. First-timers will not have a hard time using its campaign builder feature. You will not have any difficulty importing and exporting contacts from your list.
Second, MailChimp is probably the only email marketing platform that still offers a free account.
The tradeoff is, the free account does not have many features. For example, you won’t get an autoresponder which is a big deal. You will have to avail of a paid subscription package to get an autoresponder.
However, if you want to be familiar with the rudiments of email marketing, you could earn your stripes with MailChimp. The free account will still allow you to email content to a few hundred people in your contacts list.
- ConvertKit
If you’re an avid blogger, sign up for Convertkit. This email marketing tool is designed specifically for bloggers. For one thing, ConvertKit will allow you to create your own list and promote your best blogs.
ConvertKit gives access to data that shows how your blog posts are performing.
You will know right away which types of content are driving traffic to your business. Are you an information marketer? You will love ConvertKit. It has a feature that enables you to create campaigns on your online modules.
Like ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit also has an email marketing automation feature. This is also very easy and simple to use. If you want to build experience on building email drip campaigns, ConvertKit is one of the best email marketing tools to use.
- AWeber
AWeber is one of the oldest email marketing platforms in the market. Although some marketers may tell you the features are a bit outdated, AWeber still delivers the goods.
This could be a good email marketing tool for beginners to work with.
For one thing, AWeber has a reporting feature that gives you updates on which campaigns are working and which ones are not. It will take you through the entire campaign design process including setting up newsletters and email forms.
Other valuable features are the ability to run split tests, availability of autoresponders, and the fact that you integrate it with your WordPress website.
AWeber has a WordPress plugin which allows you to integrate a signup form to your website.
Conclusion
Using email marketing tools makes your email marketing campaign run more efficiently and effectively. You can segment your content and have it delivered to your audience at the best possible time.
Keep in mind that people open their inbox every day; not just once, but several times. Some studies have shown that on average, people check their emails five times in one day.
Email marketing makes your content more accessible to your subscribers and followers. Over time and with consistency, a successful email marketing campaign will bring you closer to realizing your business goals. Having the right email marketing tool at your disposal will make the process easier, cost effective, and convenient.