Correction: it’s hotter than ever. It’s sizzling. It’s like Scarlett Johansson, it only gets hotter as time goes by.
So, you believe email marketing is done for, huh? In this case, I’ll guess you also believe SEO won’t last long, or that Avril Lavigne was replaced. None of those things are true.
I don’t blame you, though. It’s fair to think a channel as old as email could be nearing its final days after so many years. If thinking back to the 1990s makes you feel like email was already dinosauric, this is a friendly reminder that email was already around a good 20-ish years prior.
Yet, just like the mighty internet itself, email has come a long way. It’s given room for increased personalization, interaction, and design.
It has gone from looking something like this…
To something like this.
Before iMessage, WhatsApp, Slack, or any other tool you may use to communicate weren’t around, email was the go-to. It still is, in some work-related and #InstagramDown instances.
Although email has long ceased to be a laid-back communication channel, it has grown into a powerful platform for brand-to-consumer exchange. Not only is it the place where businesses get to nurture closer relationships with both potential and loyal customers, but it’s also the way to go if you want to see your conversion rates go up.
Here’s why you should ditch the email hate and embrace the most lucrative channel out there.
A great combination, if you ask me.
But, here’s the thing. Despite being insanely popular and hot, email has a bad reputation for a number of reasons. Just like Taylor Swift.
Fresh data from HubSpot Blog shows us that email marketing stood just behind websites and social media in a roundup of the top digital marketing channels in 2024. How come? It should’ve been #1.
Believe me, emails have their obvious downsides. Whether it’s due to spam complaints or often receiving irrelevant messages, we’ve all had our fair share of unsubscribes.
Controversies aside, serious business owners must come to terms with this fact: without email marketing, your lead conversion rates won’t be nearly as high as they could be.
Yes, email can be annoying, but so can social media. It’s like trying to convince that one friend of yours that just because their ex used to be pushy and annoying, that doesn’t mean all of them will be.
The middle-of-funnel (also known as MOFU) bridges the gap between the top-of-funnel (TOFU) and bottom-of-funnel (BOFU). It’s supposed to seductively carry your leads from one stage to another.
A few paragraphs above, I was talking about how email marketing should’ve been the top marketing channel in 2024. Even if it had been, it wouldn’t have been able to work its magic without some help. Here’s what I mean.
Although it’s powerful and popular, email needs a boost from its less-hot (but not any less important) friends: social media and websites.
Social media and websites are the places where potential customers will first find you. These are the places where you’ll “shoot your shot” by allowing them to opt into your email list. Then, if it’s interesting enough, they’ll grab your lead magnet without thinking twice. And there they go, sliding down to the middle.
(By the way…if you wanna learn how to create gorgeous opt-in forms and magnets your leads can’t ignore, read this. And then, this.)
When a lead signs up to your email list, you’d ideally fit them into a segment that matches their current place in the funnel. This way, it’ll be easier for you to nurture them with targeted emails based on what’s more likely to grab their attention, build on it, and convert it.
Doing this effectively will also help you establish brand awareness, meaning your leads will be increasingly familiar with what you offer. Not to mention, they’ll be more likely to remember your brand when considering their options.
Once brand awareness has been established, it’s time for emails to take the reins. If well-executed and automated, your emails will be the “messenger” your leads look forward to. the one that tells them when they’ve signed up successfully. The one that tells them when their product has been shipped, when it’s arrived, and everything else they might want to know.
The greatest quality of well-personalized email marketing is this: it knows your leads like the back of a hand. This is the beginning of an exciting, healthy brand-customer relationship.
I sound biased, I know. Some of us can count on one hand the number of emails we were excited about.
Typically, these coveted emails tell us something we want to read. But sometimes, like an unexpected flower bouquet at work, we’re pleasantly surprised.
The following is one of my favorite email examples in the world.
The above is the Spotify Wrapped of tea-drinking. Not sure about you, but if I drank tea, I’d be opening my wallet very widely for David’s Tea.
Yet, you don’t always need to turn to robust personalization to make a subscriber’s day. A thoughtful email is like a breath of fresh air among so many promotional emails with pushy subject lines.
Remember in Amazing Spider-Man 2 when Max Dillon was literally shocked and genetically modified? That’s what happens when you don’t remember people’s birthdays. They may not turn into supervillains, but they’ll sure be sad.
Sometimes, a cheery email and a coupon is all someone needs to get on with their day, smiling. Besides, an email birthday wish sounds a lot more genuine than those phony Facebook wishes, if you ask me.
There’s a reason why users go nuts when Instagram goes down. Some people’s careers depend on that app (ahem, models). The uncertainty over whether your work platform will be down for hours or days can be overwhelming.
There even was a fake post going around, in which Mark Zuckerberg allegedly said Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook would be shut down for a whole week.
Not gonna lie, it did sound convincing.
People were scared out of their wits. Imagine if one day, for whatever reason, those apps are gone forever. Marketers who rely on them to build an audience will lose the leads they’ve worked all these years for.
Not if they have an email list, though. If they ever lose their access to their accounts, their leads will still be in contact with them, and vice versa. Their brand won’t be incommunicado, as it would be in the unfortunate event of several social channels shutting down at the same time.
If you focus your efforts into driving leads from social media into becoming subscribers, then you’re using social media not as a crutch to your marketing strategy, but as an ally. If one strategy fails temporarily, there’s no need to panic.
What’s more: unlike social media, you won’t have to wrestle with algorithms. You won’t have to fight to stay on top. The only major thing you should worry about is whether your emails aren’t falling into the spam trap. If you know for a fact that your emails aren’t hard-bouncing or being marked as spam, there’s no need to worry over algorithms.
Email will never abandon you.
Some marketers swear by Google Ads when it comes to lead generation and conversion.
Still, you shouldn’t focus your lead generation on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and call it a day. Not everyone glides smoothly down a funnel, you know. There has to be effective connection and nurturing down the road.
Now, let’s compare the return on investment (ROI) of email marketing to that of paid ads alone. Let’s say a business relies on Google Ads, solo, in order to generate and potentially convert their leads. They’d get an average ROI of 200%, which means they’d make $2 for every $1 invested in paid advertising.
Switching it up to email, the ROI of email marketing is a surprising 4400%. For every $1 spent, marketers would make an average of $44. That is, if their email campaigns are well-executed.
That’s not all. Hubspot has stated that segmented email campaigns graced marketers with a 760% revenue uptick. Yet, there will be marketers who choose not to segment their list. Unfortunately, their results won’t be the same.
I won’t lie to you: creating well-targeted and segmented email campaigns is hard work. That’s because even with automation, you’ll require extra effort to write, say, 5 different emails for 5 different segments. If you create single emails for a diverse subscriber list, your efforts won’t pay off as much.
You know something people hate? Website hopping, which more recently has become app hopping. Something as harmless as switching from one app to another is capable of wasting an hour of 73% of companies’ precious workdays. What’s the point of automation saving employees at least 2 hours a day if those hours are going to be wasted, anyway?
The above example is just for reference. You’re the only person who knows how often you app-hop throughout the day, and how much time that wastes you. But I’ll bet it’s a lot.
That is to say: the less effort and time an experience requires of your potential customers, the better. No one wants to go a million different places to find out about one thing.
Email is where it all comes together. Here’s an example: if a visitor ever uses your website’s contact form to make a request, they’ll be pinged directly in their inbox when their request is answered. Then, they’ll seamlessly carry on the conversation via email.
Now, just imagine if that wasn’t possible. Having to stop whatever you’re doing to check a website every five minutes would be annoying and time-consuming.
With email marketing, subscribers can get notified about their favorite things in one place. The one thing brands need to get started is their email address.
Email is the place where brands can:
Brands and customers alike would struggle so much if they had to use different apps or channels to do all of those things. Thanks to email, they don’t.
Email marketing will reign for years to come. The fact that it’s gotten more sophisticated and lucrative in the past years is a sign that it could keep aging like fine wine.
I have one last chance to convince you, so here’s your roundup of why email is hotter than ever:
Don’t take it for granted! It’s a thing of beauty.
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