Advantages and disadvantages of email marketing

Advantages and disadvantages of email marketing

Email marketing for your products or services can be a quick, flexible, and cost-effective way to reach new customers and retain existing customers by encouraging repeat website visits. You can use email marketing to send targeted and personalised messages. This can assist you in developing meaningful relationships with your customers. It can also boost the effectiveness of your direct marketing campaigns. It is important, however, not to overuse email marketing. Receiving marketing emails that are irrelevant, too frequent, or unwanted can irritate people.

Advantages of email marketing

The benefits of email marketing include:

• Email marketing can be much more cost-effective than many other forms of marketing. There are no fees for advertising, printing, or media space.

• Permission-based marketing means that your marketing list will consist of people who have actively chosen to receive email communications from you. Customers who are genuinely interested in your products and/or services are more likely to do business with you.

• You can send plain text, graphics, or attach files, depending on what best suits your message. A variety of design options allows you to convey your company's branding.

• Email marketing is scalable in that it can be used to reach large audiences as well as smaller targeted lists.

• Personalization and segmentation - You can personalise messages with email marketing. You can also segment your marketing list so that your customers only receive messages that are relevant to them - this will increase their engagement with you.

• Shareable - It is simple for people to forward and share your email content, allowing you to build your reputation through word-of-mouth or viral marketing. This may persuade new customers to become fans of your brand.

• Conversions and sales increase - if you have a new promotion, people can immediately click on links and follow your call-to-action. Email marketing is also effective at all stages of the purchasing cycle. You can, for example, persuade someone to buy your product, nurture the customer relationship after the transaction, and encourage future purchases.

• Measurable - Using web analytics software, you can assess the success of a campaign. You can easily test different copy, subject lines, and designs to see which ones work best. This enables you to improve future campaigns.

• Benchmarking allows you to compare your results to those of others in your industry. There are numerous free email marketing benchmarking reports available online; simply search for them. Benchmarking data can assist you in evaluating and prioritising opportunities for improvement.

• A/B testing of subject lines, calls-to-action, personalization, email copy, images, or messages is recommended before sending. Before you send an email, make sure the content is as effective as it can be.

• Less intrusive - unlike phone marketing, recipients can read your message when it is convenient for them. Customers can also change their preferences if they want to receive different messages from you, or they can unsubscribe if they no longer want to receive your email communications.

• Environmentally friendly - Because no paper is used, email marketing is better for the environment than direct marketing via postal mail.

• Saving time - with automation, you can send emails to customers based on an action they took on your website, such as sending a welcome email when a user signs up for your website or sending an email offering a discount incentive if a user abandons an online shopping cart. Once you've created a template that you can use again and again,

• Real-time marketing entails communicating with customers in real time via email marketing. You can reach the right audience, at the right time, in the right place, and with the right offer by using automated triggers such as website activity, recent purchase, or shopping cart abandonment.

Disadvantages of email marketing

Some of the potential problems of email marketing include:

• Spam - commercial email, also known as'spam,' irritates customers. If your messages aren't being delivered to the right people, the recipient may delete or unsubscribe. You must ensure that your email marketing is in accordance with privacy and data protection regulations, and that it is properly targeted at people who want to receive it. Untargeted emails are likely to have a very low 'click through rate.'

• Undeliverable emails - Emails that are poorly designed may not be delivered. Emails with specific spam keywords or characters in the subject heading or email content, such as £££s, FREE, click here, are likely to be filtered out by email software and internet service providers. If you do not keep your marketing lists up to date, you will discover that incorrect email addresses mean your messages will not reach the intended recipient.

• Problems with design - your email must be designed so that it appears correctly across multiple devices and email providers. There may be a trade-off between design and functionality. Some people prefer to receive text-only emails; if this is the case, consider how your message will appear.

• Size concerns – files must be small enough to download quickly. Emails with a large number of images may take too long to load, frustrating your recipients and losing their interest.

• Resources and skills - In order to run a successful email campaign, you must have the right copy, design, and marketing list. Consider outsourcing some of these elements if you don't have the time or skills in-house.