Email marketing revisited: Is it still worth it in 2020?

From the very origins of email, marketers have seen the potential of using the medium of email to spread their messages across and convert general audiences from mass consumers to specific customers of the company's products and services without any need to even leave their seats. 

Fast forward to the turn of the millennium with the development of faster internet speeds and 3G mobile communications heralding a 'golden age' for tech companies from San Francisco to Shanghai, companies found like never before how powerful email marketing could potentially be. An explosion of new companies emerged harnessing email along with ancillary support companies like internet marketing, search engine optimization and online consultancies. 

We previously discussed in an earlier post regarding the merits of email marketing (The Power of Email Marketing) and how it can be used to convert leads to actual customers in order to 'close' the sales funnel.

A few telling statistics from GetResponse recently reveals that despite what many think, email marketing is definitely not dead - rather, still as crucial as it was years ago.

Every day, 294 billion emails are sent daily - with Gmail by far being the dominator - with more than 425 million ACTIVE users. 

As for marketing products and services through email, an amazing 82% of respondents mentioned they opened mails from companies and spend 138% more than those who do not receive any promotional mails. Out of the same group, 44% mentioned that they purchased at least once from a promotional mail. 

The infographic mentions a few important pointers for companies and internet marketers to be cognizant of. Namely, you need to make your emails more engaging by limiting the word counts, 'spicing up' the subject line, personalizing the mails (ideally by actually mentioning the respondent's name!), and using the correct keywords and time slots for email sending.

You should also be aware of applying certain psychological devices like using odd numbers, question numbers, personal pronouns (you, your), percentages and scarcity.

Lastly, your aim should be to get your mailing list to actually read and respond to your messages by making your messages as short and to the point as possible, compatible with smartphone/tab screen viewing and always aim for a personal touch to your emails to be as "human" as possible!

The bottom line is that email marketing remains a staple of most online (and even offline) companies' budgets despite the prominence of more "softer" methods of inbound marketing which leverage the power of pull marketing attracting customers towards the company rather than the other way around.