There's a good, old business saying that goes like this—if you don't own your audience, it could be taken away from you in seconds! So let us begin this article by saying that this is the top reason why building and growing your email list can be the key to success for your business.
In this day and age, for many companies, the very idea of utilizing the potential of email marketing is a bit old school. After all, in today's world of social media dominance, TikTok influencers, and the manifold platforms for messaging, it's kind of easy to comprehend the traditional email approach as an age-old technique of connecting with your customers.
Nevertheless, whether you acknowledge it or not, email remains one of the most effective forms of customer communication to date, not to mention that email marketing is one of the highest ROI generators that ever came into existence. In fact, according to a Hubspot article, email generates $36 for each $1 spent, equaling a staggering 3,800% ROI.
In addition to being a good business practice, email marketing brings another invaluable asset to organizations: the opt-in email list. Of course, you may already have an impressive audience on social media platforms like Instagram, but remember that you don't own those names—Instagram does. And when it comes to marketing, your audience is always your biggest asset, and to protect that asset; you need to own the rights to it.
Enter email lists. But before we get to the part where we explain why extending your email list should be your utmost priority for 2023, let's first define email lists and their importance.
In a nutshell, an email list is a collection of email addresses owned and voluntarily provided by real people, either in person or online, so that your company can send them email correspondence. In most cases, people who select to “opt-in” to your email listing, can freely choose the types of email content they would like to receive, like getting notified when there’s a sale, or when a new blog post has been published.
Put differently, your email list is a straightforward reflection of the general interest and trust that your contacts have in your brand, which is precisely why you should focus to increase your email list growth in 2023 and get in touch with both existing and prospective customers more often in your efforts to turn them into loyal customers of your business.
If you want to become great at sales and increase your company’s bottom line, first, you need to build trust with your clients. And sending emails to your existing customers does that, it builds more trust between your company and them.
When customers read an email from your company, they do it in the privacy of their inbox. Email messages are not displayed publicly on social media timelines or a billboard, which makes email the most intimate way to communicate with your clients. In that regard, since email lists let clients feel like they’re part of a private communication, they can ask you questions in full confidence by replying to one of your messages. All this helps build unparalleled trust and connection.
All search engines are ever-evolving machines, meaning that they continuously update their search algorithms. In some cases, you can be blindsided by a given penalty without ever realizing that you were working outside the rules.
And when something like that occurs, your email list can prove to be the only crash pad you have. Put differently, even if your SEO rankings happen to take a hard hit, you would still have the possibility to promote your products and services to thousands of people thanks to your email list.
Furthermore, email list segmentation is the process of categorizing your email subscribers, grouping them together, and then tailoring the content you send them based on interest. In fact, knowing the type of content that your email list subscribers want to receive allows you to send them highly relevant and impactful information only.
According to a study, email list segmentation accounts for 77% of all email marketing ROI, as it allows for more conversion opportunities, effective sales efforts, and the ability to offer the right incentives to the right group of people.
Even though email marketing is one of the first tried-and-true marketing techniques, it is definitely still far from antiquated. For that reason, growing a robust email list remains to be the primary driver of genuine audience engagement and making informed marketing decisions.
In the end, if there’s one common thing that most successful companies share, it’s the value that they place on keeping and safeguarding their contacts. In that context, always protect your company from sudden algorithm alterations, and don’t leave your biggest asset to be managed by a social media platform that may not be around forever. Grow and keep your email list to yourself—you’ve earned it!