Why Email Is Still Smart Marketing for Solopreneurs
Email has always been one of the most powerful tools in a business’s marketing toolkit. Yes, it’s been around for what seems like forever (I got my first email address in 1992) and there are newer, shinier marketing tools. But it’s still going strong. Email marketing can be personal, direct and one-to-one, cost effective, has a high ROI, and your email list is an actual business asset. If you only build your online community via social media, it’s like you’re building your house on shifting sand. Email is a more stable platform – even today when our inboxes are indeed getting more crowded. Let me show you the objective numbers behind why email is still smart marketing and also why I’ve personally embraced it as part of my marketing mojo.
The Stats Behind the Continued Power of Email Marketing
But what about chatbots, Instagram, influencer marketing, live video and all those other shiny neat marketing tactics we hear about all the time? They have their place. And let’s face it, some of that advice to grab shiny new things is by people selling you … shiny new things!
But did you know …
- 73% of millennials prefer communications from businesses to come from email?!
- Or that 99% of consumers check their email every day! (Psst – I don’t check Instagram every day. But maybe that’s because I’m Gen X 😄)
- If you aren’t using email, you’re being beaten out by your competitors – 93% of B2B organizations use email to send content.
- A majority of consumer respondents say email influences their purchases (which is why we still get a ton of them!).
- This Forrester study says people are 2x more likely to sign up for your email list than to interact with your business on Facebook!
Email is alive and kicking. Stop believing the myths of its death (which seem to show up every year)!
Sure, there are more digital marketing tools than ever before and they are in the reach of small business and solopreneurs in all niches. I love that we have so many affordable tools! But not all tools are necessarily equal or easy or great at building relationships.
Don’t discount email as a key tool in your marketing toolkit. Far from disappearing, recent statistics show email is evolving and even growing. According to one of my fave sources of research and stats, Statista, email usage is predicted to grow by 2-3% each year from 2018 to 2023. Businesses are spending more money, not less, on email marketing.
Even given that email is still a reliable, proven, winning marketing tactic for all sizes of business – online + offline, solopreneur + big brands – it’s not so easy to have email marketing that is consistent or brings steady results. But it’s possible! And consistency is indeed a key to email success.
I’ve put together some templates to help you get started with targeted email follow-up –
get them for free here
Why am I enthusiastic about email?
I’ve seen it work!
I’ve bought loads of things personally and professionally via email marketing.
I’ve grown my own business and community via email.
I can share more stories, more tips, more links via email than I can a social media post. It's more targeted than a blog post.
I see it’s power to share the right messages to the right folks, easily, quickly, and cost-effectively.
Businesses Sell Things – Email Marketing Helps Sell the Right Things to Right People at the Right Time
Let’s start with an assumption. You are a smart, savvy solopreneur who is in business to be profitable, not run a charity. To make money and be profitable you need two basic ‘things’. First, a product or service to sell. Could be a course, monthly coaching, writing services, low-content journals and planners, homemade Christmas cookies, or amazing social media graphics. Second, you need an audience, a niche market of interested people who want and need what you offer, who will benefit from your expertise and knowledge. And who will pay you for your knowledge, services, and goodies.
There’s a lot of ways today to find potential buyers and to sell your awesome stuff. In some way or another, you’re going to make use of digital or online marketing tools, even if your business lives mostly offline. But you can’t treat your business like Field of Dreams – if you merely build it, they won’t just come. You need promotion, traffic, offers, targeted marketing and getting in front of the right people with your stuff. And even then your conversions and sales not be so high. People need to know, like and trust you before they pull out their wallet.
Email gets you in front of the cookie buyers at holiday time, the parents of a toddler who need some new bedtime tips, the folks starting up new exercise routines in January (and again in March after they fell off the wagon), and those who need your service, but maybe not right now. Email helps you stay in touch so they remember you, and trust you, when all of a sudden they DO need you.
The power of email is in the follow-up and nurture
I’ve written about the power of a planned, consistent follow-up with prospects, current and past customers. Don’t wing it or leave it to chance. You need a consistent way to stay in touch with the targeted audience who needs you, but is still getting to know and trust you. Enter email marketing.
From this eMarketer study, 80% of professionals say email marketing drives customer acquisition and retention. Email is what helps them get known and to stay liked and trusted.
The newer, more powerful, more personalized email of today allows businesses – even us solopreneurs – to personalize and to offer targeted nurturing and follow up via email. The yearly studies done by the Content Marketing Institute show that 87% of marketers are using email campaigns to nurture their audiences.
These businesses use email to build and boost that Know-Like-Trust factor that’s key to business success. Yes, it takes more strategy and work than it used to – but email nurture campaigns are vital, practical, and do-able.
Be Useful, Be Helpful and Be Proud of What You Send
Don’t apologize for sending emails and making offers! You’re in business, remember?
You’re out there helping people – whether as a wellness coach, a career coach, a parenting coach, a resume writer, a technical writer, a content marketing ghost writer, a website builder, or a graphic designer (whew – just some of my biz pals and clients). You can’t help more people with your coaching or writing if they don’t know you, trust you, and see the value in what you do. And you can't keep helping people if you do all that work for free!
Please don’t treat your emails, tips, and offers like something you need to apologize for sending. You are sending valuable info as well as ways to work with you get even more valuable results. Go share your mighty self! Give tons of value but don’t de-value any of what you sell in the process.
I hope you see that keeping email marketing in your toolkit will lead to some marketing mojo for you. There’s lots to learn and work on – and we can work on it together! If you’re stuck at any stage of the email process, let’s get you unstuck and list building and sending those nurturing follow-up emails. Build your Know-Like-Trust factors with prospects with smart and mighty email marketing.
Naturally, this is where I ask if you'd like to get my stories and marketing tips via email. 😉 I'll send you a pack of templates for faster email follow-up if you join my Mighty Marketing Mojo community here.
Need to see even more email marketing stats? ‘Research’ is my middle name and I got you covered:
