Introduction

Email was invented in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson to allow better and faster communication within a group. In 1978, Gary Thuerk sent out the first email marketing broadcast that made about $13 million. With the invention of social media and other technologies in later years, it was predicted that emails would become redundant and fade away, but even in the present day, what can you do online without an email? You need emails to sign up on social media, to login to sites, for online registration, etc. Emails are still very functional and essential. In fact, millions of people have multiple emails, and they use them daily.

Email marketing

This is the process of building a one-on-one relationship with your audience through personalised email content to boost conversion. Email marketing is marketing through emails. It’s making your brand known through emails. It involves one-on-one interactions with your audience. Email content is usually educational, less formal, interesting, relatable, and friendly. Marketing emails may be sent to encourage sales through discounts or special offers, remind people to purchase a product, increase engagement, and establish rapport with the audience. The things needed for a profitable email marketing campaign are an email list, an email service provider, an email automation platform, and marketing goals.

Importance of email marketing

1. It is lucrative.
2. It increases sales.
3. It promotes organic traffic to a website.
4. Increase brand awareness.
5. A lot of people have email addresses, even those not on social media.
6. You own your list. It allows you to reach out to your audience at any time.
7. Progress is easily measurable.
8. It allows for categorised marketing depending on the type of audience.
9. It is a good communication channel. People’s engagement with emails is independent of other people’s opinions or replies.

• It is lucrative

Email marketing is affordable, and it has high profit returns. It is believed that for every 500 naira spent on an email marketing campaign, 15,000 naira is made in return. That’s about 3000% in returns!

• It increases sales

Email marketing is one of the most effective strategies for lead generation. Generation of quality leads leads to increased sales.

• Promotion of organic traffic to the website

Links to a webpage that provides more information about an email can be included to add more value to your audience and increase your organic traffic.

• Increase brand awareness

Regular newsletter emails remind the audience about the brand and help people connect to it. Email marketing is not only about selling.

• Almost everyone uses email

A lot of people use email, even those who avoid social media. Your target audience may not see your posts on social media and other online and offline platforms, but you can reach them through their email address.

• Own your list

The access to emails of people is not affected or dependent on algorithms unlike social media. This allows you to communicate with your audience whenever you want—just not ten times per day; instead, communicate with them in a manageable number of emails per week to avoid annoying them.Even if there’s a social media ban (remember the last Twitter ban in Nigeria?) you’ll still have the opportunity to communicate with your audience.

• Category marketing is possible

Email automation platforms make it possible to send messages based on a target audience’s demographic differences, engagement rate, or stage on a sales funnel.

• Progress is easily measurable

The open rate and click through rate (CTR, or the percentage of recipients who click on the links you want them to) of an email serve as indicators of how engaging it is. Through these rates, you can find out who is engaging with your email contents and tweak some things if necessary.

• It’s a good communication channel.

Email marketing provides an excellent communication channel because it allows one-on-one interaction with customers, and their reply or engagement is not influenced by other people, as might be the case on social media.

As a small and medium-sized enterprise, or even as a big enterprise, if email marketing is not one of the marketing types you practice, you are missing out. Click on the button at the bottom right of your screen and let’s help you get started.