Have you ever wondered if the costs of your email marketing campaigns are worth the clicks or leads you generate? If so, then you’ve come to the right place.
As most marketers know, email is among the most effective marketing channels with the highest return on investment (4,000%, on average). This means that for every dollar you invest in your email marketing campaign, you receive about $40.
There’s no denying that email is a great marketing channel for all types of businesses. But, since everyone’s cost of doing business is different, what might be a successful campaign for one company may not be worth it for another.
Read on to discover more about email marketing and whether it’s worth investing in for your business.
First, we’ll cover the basics.
What is an Email Marketing Campaign?
Email marketing is a highly effective marketing strategy that involves sending emails to customers and prospects in an effort to convert prospects, nurture existing customers, and transform one-time buyers into loyal fans.
An email campaign refers to the coordinated set of emails that are sent in a specific period of time. These emails have one specific purpose or call to action, which can include:
- Signing up for a webinar
- Downloading a white paper
- Making a purchase
- Link building
…and so on.
Great email marketing campaigns typically include one compelling CTA, and possibly a secondary one. The emails should have a strong subject line that is informative and intriguing so as to entice people to read the email.
In addition to a well-written subject line, the content in each email should be focused on the main message or concept of the campaign.
Why Email Campaigns Are Crucial to Your Business’s Success
Below are 3 of the most important reasons to use email marketing as a powerful tool in growing your business.
1. Effective Customer Acquisition
Email marketing campaigns are more effective for acquiring customers than all other channels, including PPC and social media.
Marketing channels like social media can be great for interacting with your customers and prospects, as well as strengthening personal relationships with the people in your audience. However, email marketing is the best channel when it comes to achieving the ultimate goal: converting people into customers, supporters, members, etc.
The image below shows that email has an impressively high engagement rate compared to social media.
2. Cost-Effective
Email marketing is relatively easy and inexpensive, allowing you you to reach a alrge audience for a minuscule rate per message. This makes it the best choice for marketers and small business owners on a budget.
According to research, over 85% of retailers in the US consider email marketing to be the most effective tactic for acquiring new customers.
Even with the advent of new technology and the explosion in popularity of social networks, marketers always turn to email to get the best results at the lowest cost and it works for all business models.
As an example, let’s say that you’ve started a local coffee shop. Given that the startup cost for something like this would be an average of around $200,000, anything you can do to inexpensively grow your audience is going to be incredibly helpful. This is where email marketing can play a big role.
Consider this – you can offer customers 20% off their order if they sign up for your email list. Once they’ve signed up, you can use email marketing to continually bring them back to the location at an extremely low cost while nurturing a personal relationship.
3. Personal and Customizable
Email marketing allows you to segment your audience into different lists so you can send them tailored and more relevant messages. This will help you provide a tailored and pleasant customer experience.
With email, you can be more personal and provide each subscriber on your list with content that is more likely to resonate with them. In contrast, when you write a post on social media, you are addressing your entire audience as a whole.
Neal Taparia, who runs cribbage-online.net, explains, “When we started sending emails that included personalized game stats and records, we immediately saw improved engagement, making it a worthwhile investment.”
What Goes into Creating a Campaign?
There are many different factors (and people) that can go into making an email campaign.
Listed below are some of the most important elements that every great email marketing campaign needs in order to stand out and be effective.
Evaluate the Audience
First, you need to examine how you’ve acquired most of the people that you have on your email list. The reason for this is that you want to better understand how they started following you and the content channel that they found you on.
For instance, if you’re a prolific blogger, it’s easy to simply write and send an email and connect to your audience as that’s how they found you.
But, if you’re expanded into a platform like YouTube to acquire an audience, and to make extra money for your business, it may make more sense to write an email and link to a video you’ve created within the text as your audience will usually resonate better with that than written content.
Marketing Strategy
You need to determine the type of strategy you want to create. For instance:
- Will it involve sending newsletters to your subscriber list?
- Or maybe you want to create a nurturing campaign for your existing customers?
- Do you want to sell directly to your audience through email?
Once you’ve outlined the objectives of your email, you then need to decide on the email content, messaging, and design.
Design
You need to determine the style of your email to ensure that it is appealing to your target audience. You must decide whether or not you will use images, embed video, email signature, etc.
If so, will you need to hire graphic design or video editing services to craft eye-catching imagery and captivating videos?
Copywriting
Yet another element that goes into creating an email marketing campaign is copywriting. As previously mentioned, your emails require well-written subject lines and focused content. They also need to have specific primary and/or secondary CTAs.
With multiple messages, the content needs to stay consistent with the overall concept (although CTAs can differ in each of the messages). You can either invest the time necessary to create high-quality email copy in-house, or you can outsource all your email copywriting needs.
Now that you have an idea of what goes into creating an email marketing campaign, it’s time to understand that impact your ROI.
Factors That Affect the ROI of Email Marketing Campaigns
Any email marketing campaign needs funds, and you must be prepared and create a strategy that achieves all your growth targets while staying within budget and increasing your ROI.
However, it’s not easy to determine exactly how much an email campaign costs beyond the cost of the software. The reason for this is that it’s virtually impossible to directly attribute a single person’s time or the percentage of a team’s time spent on email marketing – let alone a single campaign.
But, in general, the cost of your campaign will vary widely depending on a number of factors, such as the ones listed below.
Each of these elements can make breaking down the actual cost of an email marketing campaign tricky. But with a firm understanding of all the moving parts of an effective campaign, you will be better equipped to understand how much campaigns cost and where your break even point is.
Automation Tools
To manage an email campaign you need an email marketing platform that will provide you with automation tools to allow you to send emails on autopilot.
You will be able to send customized emails to customers and prospects based on specific triggers. You can integrate your email marketing platform with your online store and a variety of other marketing software.
Furthermore, your email software will provide you with reporting, data visualization, and analysis on your campaign’s success.
While automation tools will help you streamline workflow, increase productivity, and boost your ROI, all of this costs money and the amount you pay will depend on the types of features you need for your email campaigns.
Generally speaking, the larger your email list is, the higher the cost will be so you’ll need to make sure you tailor your messages in a way that bring in revenue directly.
Internal Marketing Team or Outsourcing
Depending on your team, you may have to outsource some or all of your email marketing initiatives.
When doing so, you can obviously expect costs to be significantly more than when creating the content, designing, and sending your emails yourself.
If you outsource the entire campaign, you won’t need to worry about finding writers and experienced coders, or even a dedicated email marketing person. However, costs can run into the thousands for a single campaign, depending on its complexity. In general, running your own email marketing in-house is typically more cost-effective.
Post Campaign Analytics and Support
The investment that goes into creating the initial email marketing campaign is not the only cost you need to consider.
You must also factor in the cost of maintenance, support, and launching new initiatives with all the data you collect. If you aren’t careful, this can more than double the overall cost of your campaign.
But, with the right email service provider, you will have all the tools you need to measure your campaign’s success, which means you won’t need to pay extra to keep track of your emails and all of their metrics.
If you pay close attention to these numbers, you’ll be able to achieve a positive ROI while growing your list.
So, Is Email Marketing Still Worth It In 2023?
Considering the impressive ROI of email marketing, it’s safe to say that the cost is absolutely worth it.
A well-made campaign will pay off spectacularly. For each dollar that you invest in your campaign, you will get a return of over $40, on average.
As an example, if you built online courses and sold them for $300 each to an email list of 1,000 engaged followers, it’s not uncommon to sell thousands of dollars worth of courses with a single email. In fact, with a list that size, if you only have a 1% conversion rate, you’d be able to make a quick $3,000 with a single email.
As evidenced by the graph below, the majority of marketers state that email marketing is the marketing tactic with the highest ROI for their company.
Email marketing is more measurable and profitable than most other marketing channels, but that doesn’t mean you cannot reduce any extra or unnecessary costs that may cut into your total revenue.
The good news is that with the right ESP, email marketing can be extremely affordable and you’ll never have to pay a lot to launch any of your campaigns.
By choosing the right tool, you will never have to pay more than you have to, or be saddled with features that you don’t need.
You will be able to launch full functioning, cost-effective email campaigns that bring you an optimal return on your investments of money and time.
With an average ROI of 4,000%, email marketing is an excellent channel for acquiring customers, nurturing relationships, and driving revenue.
By understanding your audience, tailoring your messages, and using automation tools, you can maximize the effectiveness of your email campaigns. However, it is essential to consider the unique circumstances of your business and evaluate whether the costs associated with email marketing align with your goals and budget.
Ron Stefanski is an entrepreneur and professor who has a passion for helping people create and market their own online business.
You can learn more about Ron by visiting OneHourProfessor.com
