With social media only continuing to rise in popularity, many believe that the art of email is dead and gone forever. Marketing heralds attempt to proclaim the death of email on a regular basis.
That couldn’t be further from the truth.
With 92% of online adults using email, at least 61% of them are using it daily.
This remarkable fact clearly shows that email isn’t dead, rather that email marketing is well worth the time and effort. In fact, when polled by Smart Insights on the effectiveness of a variety of digital channels, email marketing ranked as the most effective.
Marketers found that email marketing was a “good” method 35% of the time, while respondents stated that it was an “excellent” method 18% of the time.
Source: Smart Insights
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is a form of digital marketing that makes use of email to deliver messages to a given list of subscribers.
Email marketing involves creating and maintaining a list of subscribers that have given you their permission to send them marketing materials.
These marketing materials can include promotions, newsletters, or other gated content that’s made available only to subscribers, not to the general public. It also involves having a strategic plan that takes a variety of different factors into consideration, including:
- Message personalization
- Well-designed content
- Having high-quality, relevant content to share
- Monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs)
How to measure the overall success of your email marketing efforts
Once you’ve taken the time to create your approved email list of subscribers and you’ve designed dynamic content that’s sure to draw the readers in, it’s time to measure the success of your email marketing efforts. This is done by carefully monitoring your email campaign’s KPIs.
There are several vital KPIs that your marketing team will want to keep a close eye on because they’ll help guide you as to what’s working well with your audience and what isn’t.
Open rate
Your open rate is likely one of the most vital KPIs you’ll want to monitor because it’ll tell you just how many people are opening the emails you’re sending. Having a higher open rate means that your subject line and preheader text are compelling, that your past content is continuing to spark interest with your audience, and your email cadence is solid.
Click-through rate
The click-through rate is another vital KPI, helping you determine whether or not your content is compelling enough to get your subscribers to take action by selecting a CTA.
Deliverability rate
Your deliverability rate will tell you how often your emails are making it to your intended inboxes. There are several reasons that your material may not make it to the subscriber’s inboxes, so if you’re noticing that your deliverability rate is low, you’ll want to reconsider the overall health of your email list and whether or not you’re following the best email marketing practices.
Does email marketing really matter?
Email marketing is well worth the effort, if done correctly.
Fifty-nine percent of marketers agree that not only was email marketing the highest ROI-producing marketing method for their organization, but another 25% have also stated that they plan on increasing their overall budget on email marketing over the next year.
What now?
Now that you understand just how important email marketing truly is, it’s time to start working on your email marketing strategy. Your marketing efforts will mean nothing if you don’t have a detailed plan. Be sure to check out our article on the most effective email marketing strategy to help you start your planning process.