It has long been predicted that email marketing was fast approaching its end as a viable marketing channel. Despite these claims, the demise of email marketing has yet to arrive — in fact, email is far from dead.
Not convinced? Consider these statistics:
- The amount of global email users is anticipated to reach 4.6 billion by 2025 — over half of the world’s current population.
- The number of emails sent and received each day is expected to rise to over 376.4 billion daily emails by 2025 — an expected increase of over 22% since 2020.
- By 2023, email marketing revenue is expected to eclipse the $10 billion threshold — an expected increase of over 33% since 2020.
Love it or hate it, email is here to stay. And for good reason — every $1 spent on email marketing, is estimated to generate $36 in revenue — a higher ROI than any other kind of marketing whether it's digital or not.
While most organizations recognize the value of email marketing, their results often fall short of expectations. Optimizing your email marketing programs can be a struggle, but there are things you can do to achieve email marketing success.
1. Executive Buy-In
One very important and often overlooked component of any marketing program is executive buy-in. While this may seem like a minor detail, the support of executives can impact every aspect of an email marketing strategy. Having a good working relationship with the executive in a leadership role can make all the difference when it comes to achieving the goals of your strategy.
That’s because your company’s executives act as the gatekeepers to the resources you need to implement a successful email marketing program. In order to enable the proper tools and team, you’ll need to convince your executive team that email is effective and important.
If you’re struggling to gain support for your email marketing program, here’s our advice:
- Speak to sales and marketing personnel to uncover the pain points within your organization. Are you struggling with lead generation? Is lead quality a problem? Do you have trouble retaining customers? Whatever the challenges may be, explain how an email marketing program can work to resolve it.
- Go into detail about how email marketing success can improve your overall sales and marketing efforts. Will you be able to reach more prospects, or generate higher quality leads? Do you expect to improve your lead routing and scoring? Communicate this to executives in as much detail as possible.
- Ensure that your plan measures key email marketing metrics and benchmarks results. Make sure that you are clearly aligned with executives about expectations around KPIs.
- Explain what it is that you’ll be doing. Do you plan to run nurture campaigns? Are you considering a customer rewards program? Do you see the need to automate a process that’s currently taking up time?
- Provide evidence to support your strategy. Include statistics, case studies, and research from reputable sources.
2. Smart Platform Selection
A successful email marketing strategy is one that sends prospects the right content, at the right time in their buyer journey.
When your organization has an abundance of leads in various stages, handling this process manually becomes nearly impossible. Platforms that allow for this kind of flexibility while minimizing the amount of manual work required are critical.
Luckily, email automation technology is here to help. According to a survey, 30% of professionals said the biggest benefit of marketing automation was the time it saved them.
Like most marketing tactics, email marketing success often depends on the technology you use – and it’s no different for your email marketing platform. While the capabilities of the leading email marketing platforms may seem similar at first, not all email platforms are created equal.
If you want to see the greatest return on your efforts, take time to narrow down the right system for your needs. To do this effectively, first decide what is the ultimate goal of your email program. Then, determine which services are most likely to help fulfill these goals.
Remember, while the cheapest option may look appealing at first, there is probably a reason behind its affordability. Effective organizations recognize that short-term cost savings can undermine long-term results.
3. A Superior Team
One common misconception with email automation tools is the belief that this technology can completely streamline your email marketing program without human involvement. This is simply not true. In reality, technology should be more of a supplement to ingenuity – not a replacement.
Once you’ve determined which email marketing platform will serve your organization best, it is time to assemble a team to bring your email marketing program to life.
To ensure success, the team members in charge should have:
- A deep understanding of your email marketing platform
- Full knowledge of your email marketing strategy
- The ability to utilize one to fully realize the other
Key Takeaways for Email Marketing Success
In short, successful email marketing doesn't happen by accident. It relies on careful planning, analysis, execution, and refinement. To ensure maximum email marketing success, you have to make an investment in the right people and the right technology from top to bottom.
For a more comprehensive look into email marketing success factors, check out the following articles:
- Three High-Impact Benefits of Email Marketing
- Email Marketing Skills
- How To Hire Email Marketers
- Marketing and Logistics: Email Marketing Strategy
- Big Data and Your Email Marketing Campaign
Learn more about how NeverBounce can help your email marketing strategy with real-time email verification and email cleaning services.