The number of people using email will grow from 3.8 billion in 2018 to 4.4 billion in 2023. That means more than half the world's population will use email by 2023.
Google, Facebook, and other platforms have a lot of users but it's hard to compete with the reach of email. There's a reason the online marketing industry coined the phrase "the money is in the list."
Let's look at 7 ways business email lists can help your business thrive.
1. You Own Your List
One of the most important reasons you should start building an email list is that you control the list.
When you have a following on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social network, you have no way of contacting your followers directly. All your communication goes through the social network to get to your customers.
That leaves you at their mercy. If they change their algorithm or suddenly decide that they don't "like" your type of business, they can cut you off from your customers. You may not even know it happened, your followers could just start seeing fewer (or none) of your posts.
With email, you control the list. If your email service provider (ESP) does something you don't like, you can move to another ESP, import your list, and you're back where you left off.
2. Segmentation and Targeting
Email marketing gives you a huge amount of control over who gets what messages. You can segment your lists based on various factors, such as:
- People who clicked on a particular link
- People who didn't click a link
- People who opened or didn't open a message
- Buyers or non-buyers
- Hyper-engaged customers who buy repeatedly
You can build separate lists based on actions people did or didn't take. And many ESPs let you send email to subsets of your list based on whatever criteria you choose.
This lets you send targeted messages to the people who are most likely to be interested but avoid over-communicating with the ones who aren't as likely to be.
3. Email Works Everywhere
Email has been around for nearly 50 years and works on every device and platform. It doesn't matter if your customers use macOS, Windows, iPhones, tablets, or any other type of device. They can all receive and read email.
Even 20- or 30-year-old systems can read an email that you send today.
This is just as important for building a B2B email list as it is for a B2C email list. Many companies limit access to social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter and may even block it completely.
Your marketing campaigns on those sites may not reach the decision-makers in your target market but email will get to them.
4. You Can Build Personal Relationships
Email is a one-to-one communication channel. When someone opens an email you sent them, you're having a direct conversation with that person.
Most email services let you personalise your messages based on things like the recipient's name, location, and other information collected when they signed up. Combined with the power of segmentation and targeting, you can send messages that are so personalised, they seem as if you only sent it to that one person.
5. Drive Traffic to Your Website or Other Properties
Another powerful benefit of email list building is that it gives you the power to drive traffic to your website, your social media pages, or any other page on the web.
You can publish a new blog post or add a new product to your catalogue and have traffic headed to that page within a few minutes of sending an email to your list with a link. And it won't cost you anything to generate that traffic bump.
Compare this growth strategy to search engine optimisation (SEO) or paid traffic campaigns. SEO can take weeks or months to get traction and start driving traffic to those pages. And there's no guarantee it will ever generate a meaningful amount of traffic.
Paid traffic options like pay-per-click (PPC) advertising are much faster but every click will cost you something. Those advertising costs come straight out of your bottom line, eating into your profit on sales pages and maybe not generating any ROI at all on content like blog posts.
6. People Buy From Email
There's no doubt that people buy from offers they receive by email. According to the Data and Marketing Association, targeted emails generate 40 times as many customers as Twitter or Facebook.
You'll often hear people complain about all the sales pitches they get by email but what they're really complaining about are spam and untargeted messages.
If you build a relationship with your list so they want to read your emails, they'll be much more likely to buy when you send them an offer. Combine that relationship with effective segmentation and your email list can provide a fantastic ROI.
7. Email is Easy to Track
Email lets you track the actions your list takes much more easily than many other marketing methods. You can identify who opened an email, who didn't read a message, who clicked on a link, the path someone took through your site after clicking a link, and many other factors.
This lets you paint a detailed picture of how your email campaign worked and where the roadblocks are that are causing friction for your audience.
Get rid of those roadblocks and your conversion rates and ROI will go up immediately.
Where to Turn for Help Building Business Email Lists
It's clear that building business email lists is a powerful marketing strategy but how do you get started? If you haven't been building a list, it can be challenging to put all the pieces together.
Lift Strategies can help. We offer a full range of digital marketing services, including email marketing, and can help you get your email campaign up and running.
Get in touch with us today to set up a free discovery session. We'll discuss your business, figure out where you are today, and help you create a strategy to reach your goals.
