Email Marketing Continues to Lead in Effectiveness

Almost every business we talk to has had really good results with email marketing.  And this is no surprise since almost every survey on the subject has found that business of every size and in almost every niche have found email marketing to be one of the most effective digital marketing strategies in their arsenal, delivering consistent ROI time and again.

In a recent Gigaom survey, 86% of marketers surveyed said that email marketing is the most reliable “workhorse” digital marketing tool for lead acquisition and re-engagement and conversion, and that email marketing continues to lead in effectiveness.  In second place was social media marketing and effective search engine optimization for organic search results.

Email marketing has been consistently rated as the least difficult to do and one of the most effective. According to another study conducted by Forrester Research, 42% of adults don’t open email advertising and just delete it.  This is actually down from 44% in 2012 and 59% in 2010. There was also a strong sentiment that most email ads didn’t offer the recipient anything of interest (38%).

The takeaway here, of course, is that you need to be thoughtful and use email marketing wisely.  Email marketing is most effective when you specifically target your audience with a message that customized specifically to them.  This can be especially easy when you have a list of cold sales leads that you want to re-engage.  There is nothing like email (and direct mail) for lead re-engagement and conversion.