Emails have been around for an extremely long time, and back in the day when you set up your first email address, getting something in your inbox was the most exciting thing to ever happen to you.
Nowadays when you get an email, you mostly feel kind of 'meh' about it … unless it contains something that you've been expecting or piques your interest.
Read on as media update's Saads Abrahams gives you the pros and cons of email marketing.There are many aspects when running a marketing campaign — and one of the
main questions you ask yourself as a marketer is: What platforms are we going to use?
While emails might be outdated to some, to others they are the very source of their
daily information.
Let's take a look at some of the pros of marketing via email:
It is cost-effective
Using email marketing is probably one of the
most cost-effective ways to market your brand. With emails, you don't have to pay for
any printing, media space, or advertising fees. You would just need a
great copywriter and probably a client management system to enhance the outcomes.
You reach interested clientele
When it comes to email marketing, the people who receive your emails are people who have signed up to receive it. This means that the people receiving your emails
genuinely want to see what you have to offer. Because of this, you have a
higher chance of them interacting with your brand.
It's an effective medium for call-to-actions
Possibly the
most enticing part of email marketing is this: When you have a promotion or sale on, you can give a
direct link on your email to get more people
engaging with your brand.
Email marketing is, therefore, a very effective tool that can directly help you with increasing your sales.
They allow for personalisation
The beauty of email marketing is the ability to
personalise each email to the receiver. By personalising emails, you have a chance of gaining
boosted engagement as the receiver won't feel like this is a mass-produced email for the greater public. Rather, they will see it as a
direct message just for them.
It's an overall time saver
You are able to set out
different emails for different purposes. If someone has signed up to your website, they can receive an automated email welcoming them.
If they looked at a product or service and then left your website, you can have an automated email going through
enticing them to come back and even possibly offer them a promotion.
Now that we have looked at the pros of email marketing, let's look at some of the cons.
It can be spammy
People receive a truckload of emails daily. If you send too many emails, or if they are not
targeted or personalised emails, they have a high chance of being marked as spam.
Also, many people have
spam filters on their emails and if they are constantly deleting your emails without reading them, they can get flagged as spam as well.
There is fierce competition
The email marketing game has a
plethora of competition. Most small businesses rely on email marketing, but you are also
fighting for attention with bigger companies such as:
- One Day Only
- Starbucks, and
- Takealot.
'Undelivered' and 'unread' are a thing
Technology is
never fool-proof and sometimes things happen that are out of our control. And with this, sometimes emails do not get delivered. This means that you are losing money by
not getting the ROI on your email marketing.
It's easy to unsubscribe
A major con about email marketing is that it is so
easy for people to
unsubscribe from your mailing list. And if your email marketing is not up to par, you have a higher risk of people unsubscribing.
There may be design issues
You need to remember that, when you are designing an email, it is going to be viewed on phones, computers
and tablets —
as well as different brands of devices.
What you design might look good on an Android phone, but it may not look that great on an Apple device. This can lead to uninterest from audiences that happen to receive the bad end of the design.
What are your thoughts on email marketing? Let us know in the comments section below.
*Image courtesy of Canva