Virtually every company in the world these days engages in some form of email marketing.

It has been around for many years, yet even with the development of mutli-channel marketing (with widespread social media marketing, viral video marketing, and other forms of publicity), it remains as of yet unsurpassed in its effectiveness.

But why is this?

Everybody has at least one email account. Literally. Everybody you know.

And I know that for sure because you cannot create a social media account, or basically sign up for anything on the Internet, without providing an email address and verifying it. Therefore, even though nobody seems to send emails to each other anymore, the fact remains that email is something we all deal with on a regular basis, for updates, account management, and other similar things.

This is where email marketing comes in. It’s a consistently great way of reaching potential customers and retaining faithful repeat clients by keeping in touch on a regular basis via email.

They will always end up seeing the messages, and it has such a rate of success that nothing comes even close. Pretty much every company has their own mailing list of subscribers, and for a very good reason.

PS: If you haven’t signed up to an ESP yet, I recommend going with Aweber.

1. It helps you keep in contact with your audience and core customers

They allow you to keep both existing customers and potential new clients informed about what’s going on with your business, new promotions, etc. Also, most people on your list will already have done some business with you in the past, so they’re already predisposed to have some interest in your updates. And it helps with customers engagement overall.

2. You can reach customers in real time since most people nowadays open their email on a mobile device

Plus, well-designed marketing emails have been proven to convert very well on mobile devices.

3. Emails feel more personal and engaging than other internet messages

It’s almost hard to believe that we’ve actually had email around for about four decades. It’s really in our DNA by now. People tend to respond to emails in some way (with some action on their part), and this is the big chance for companies to seek new subscribers, customers and repeat customers as well.

4. Email marketing is one of the easiest types of online marketing to measure in terms of its performance and results

This provides the e-commerce operator an enormously valuable tool for obtaining nearly real-time data on their conversion rates, click-through rates, subscribe and unsubscribe rates, etc.

That means getting a better vision of what’s working well, what needs some tweaking and where you should be focusing your marketing efforts to best leverage your campaigns.

5. It’s actually very affordable

Even though some people may intuitively feel like social media (by virtue of being free of charge for users) must likely be the cheapest marketing avenue on the Internet, it’s actually not true.

Marketing on Facebook, for example, can cost rather surprisingly much, especially for a beginning company with a tight marketing budget. Not to mention Google Adsense and similar services, valuable as they may be otherwise.

However, with email marketing, the cost per conversion is literally only pennies on the dollar, depending of course on your marketing plan of choice. But overall it’s one of the most affordable ways of reaching as many people in a short period of time, and most importantly, keeping that list growing steadily. Which is what marketers should focus on, anyway.

6. You can use targeted campaigns to reach for different types of people, in regards to their relationship with your company or service

For instance, some subscribers on your email list might already have purchased from you, and thus you would aim a specific kind of message to those people, in order to get as many of them as possible to become repeat customers. On the other hand, other subscribers might still be considering whether to buy or not or whatever the case may be.

To address this diversity, and to take maximum advantage of your marketing efforts, you can create what’s known as buyer personas, through your email marketing service, in order to target with specific campaigns certain type of customers among the others. This can prove very beneficial in the long run.

7. Email marketing is a better way (than social media, for example) to generate brand awareness on a more sustained level

Since it takes a certain degree of commitment for somebody to sign up for your email updates, as opposed to simply clicking “like” on something, that gives you a better sense of how much people are becoming aware of your brand. After that, you can leverage that initial interest by providing exactly the type of content, updates, and info that specific profile or segment within your customer base may be looking for. More often than not, that is what ultimately gets conversions.

In conclusion

These are just a few of the main reasons why you absolutely must use email marketing as one of your main online promotion strategies. Certainly, there is a place for social media, Google, YouTube, blogs, articles and other venues, but never underestimate the tremendous staying power email marketing has proven to have.