Advantages and Disadvantages of Email Marketing
Email marketing is an effective way to build relationships with potential customers, sell your offers, and encourage regular website visits. However, it can also annoy recipients, be tricky to avoid the spam folder, and take more time than you might think.
In this article, we’ll review the pros and cons of email marketing to help you decide if it’s right for your business. For those who already have an email marketing plan, or want to start one, we’ll also include some tips for success.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is the process of selling to, and building relationships with, your target audience through email. First, you obtain email addresses through the following ways:
A sign-up form on your website
An offer in exchange for their email, like a free guide or coupon code
A quiz or game
A landing page
Through social media
Then, you can send email campaigns or newsletters to that list of subscribers. The strategy will differ based on your business and goals, but emails are usually sent about once per week with the goal of creating brand awareness, building relationships, encouraging purchases and sign-ups, or highlighting your offers.
What are the disadvantages of email marketing?
1. You might get sent to spam.
One of the biggest concerns about email marketing is whether your emails will be flagged as spam. You could experience challenges with deliverability if you use too much spammy language, have a lot of inactive subscribers on your list, or if your emails are flagged as spam when received. As with any other digital marketing effort, you’ll have to use best practices to keep your emails in the Internet’s good graces.
2. You need a large audience to see results.
Email marketing, like any other marketing plan, has the ultimate goal of sales. If your subscriber list is small, you’re not likely to see many sales. Consider that email marketing has a 3% conversion rate. If you have 100 subscribers, that would mean just 3 people might buy from you. If you have 1,000 subscribers, that’s 30 potential sales. Volume works in your favor when it comes to email marketing. And it can take quite some time to build a hefty list.
3. It can be time-consuming
From gathering subscribers to sending emails, email marketing can be time-consuming. You have to design ways to obtain subscribers through forms, free guides, coupons, or resources. Then, you have to publish those opt-ins to your website or socials. Finally, you need to consistently write, design, and send emails to your list. This can be a burden to some business owners, especially if you’re doing everything yourself.
4. You need a marketing strategy.
Email marketing isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. Your emails need to be written strategically to connect with your target audience. A solid email marketing campaign requires:
Engaging subject lines for good open rates
Content your target audience will enjoy so they don’t unsubscribe
Visually appealing design
A consistent sending schedule
That’s the bare minimum. To get the most out of your emails you’ll also want to categorize your subscribers, plan emails ahead of time so they follow a journey or reach a goal, and monitor performance. Not everyone wants to put in all that effort.
5. Your subscriber list will sometimes get smaller.
Whether a subscriber changes their email or unsubscribes, you could lose some of your list over time. People unsubscribing is an expected part of email marketing. But to prevent losing your list, you need to perform regular maintenance. This includes:
Monitoring how your emails are performing
Noticing any spikes in unsubscribes
Reactivating interest after a hiatus
Removing unengaged subscribers
Losing subscribers is never a good feeling, but it happens to everyone who uses email marketing. Maintenance is just another part of the process that adds time and effort.
What are the advantages of email marketing?
1. You can sell to people who are already interested.
People join your subscriber list for information, a free or paid offer, or simply because they like your style. This means that when people join your mailing list, they’re at least a little bit interested in what you have to offer. Warm leads, or people who have already expressed interest, are much easier to sell to than cold leads.
You can’t go flooding their inbox with sales emails and expect positive results. However, when used strategically, businesses can potentially see an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent on email marketing. By crafting thoughtful emails, you can nurture and sell directly to people who already want to learn or buy from you.
2. You can drive more traffic to your website.
Having an email list is like having a fan base that you can consistently bring to your website. You can include links to your website whenever you have a new offer, blog post, or update to share. You should also include a link to your website in the footer of every email. This way, you’re able to generate a steady flow of traffic to your website through your newsletter.
By consistently bringing visitors to your website, you’re improving your online presence, increasing brand awareness, and encouraging users to interact with the hub of your business.
3. It’s super easy.
There are many email platforms that make it easy to build, grow, and maintain your email list. I currently use the free version of MailerLite because it’s simple and fits my current business needs. There are also options like MailChimp, FloDesk, or ConvertKit. Each platform will differ in price, design capabilities, and list size capacity. Explore your options and find one that fits your preferences.
Each email platform has the ability to create opt-in forms, categorize your list, manage subscribers, and create and send emails. You can also review data like open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribes, and more. With help from the email platform of your choosing, it’s never been easier to add email marketing to your business plan.
4. It’s cost-effective.
The great news is that you can start email marketing for $0. Many email platforms have a free version or free trial to get you started. With no overhead, this makes email a great option to add onto your marketing campaign.
You might think that free options leave much to be desired, but you’d be surprised at the visually appealing messages you can send on these platforms. You can use drag-and-drop editors, branded colors and photos, and so much more to customize your emails. All for free. I can only speak to Mailerlite since it’s the only one I’ve used thus far, but it’s very user-friendly and super easy to create aesthetic marketing emails in the free version. Even paid options, like Flodesk, have a low monthly cost if you’re looking for something to grow with your business.
Whatever you choose, there’s a cost-effective option for every budget. Before you start throwing big bucks at other marketing efforts like pay-per-click ad campaigns, consider saving some money with email marketing first.
5. Everybody checks their email.
I don’t know about you, but one of the first things I do in the morning is check my email. In fact, 99% of email users check their email every single day, as much as 20 times a day. Make yourself a part of your audience’s daily habits by creating engaging content specifically for them. Send emails your subscribers will look forward to receiving every Monday at 9:00am (or whatever schedule you choose). This is a powerful way to connect with your audience.
6. It builds a relationship with your potential clients.
The beautiful thing about email marketing is people have given you a way to contact them directly. Consider this a blessing and a chance to strengthen relationships with your brand. You can build a relationship with your subscribers by:
Giving them insight into your life or business that they can’t get anywhere else
Encouraging them to reply to your emails to keep the conversation going
Show your human-ness through mistakes, mishaps, or lessons learned
Provide them with free advice and guidance that’s truly helpful to them
You can categorize your subscribers based on their preferences or opt-in method to really nail down the messaging based on their needs and desires. Be sure to include personalizations, like their name, in your greetings. People are more likely to respond to friendly messages that resonate. Think of your email marketing as a relationship-building strategy as opposed to just a sales strategy and you’re more likely to boost engagement and conversion rates.
7. Automations do some of the work for you.
Although email marketing is still fairly time-consuming, automation takes some of the guesswork and legwork out of sending emails. For example, you can:
schedule emails to go out on certain days and times
set triggers to send emails automatically, like when a form is filled out
Create an entire workflow with multiple emails and triggers that take care of an entire sales or marketing process for you
Track how people interact with your emails and see how your strategy is performing
With automations, you can create an entire “set and forget” email marketing strategy that will save you time in the long run.
8. It helps with brand awareness.
Since you can customize your emails to match your business colors, logo, and fonts, emails give you a way to consistently bring awareness to your brand. When subscribers open regular emails from you, they begin to recognize the elements of your brand until they become ingrained.
Emails are also easy to share with others, so when you provide highly valuable content, you can get your brand in front of even more eyes. When you craft aesthetic emails packed with quality content, people are more likely to remember your brand and give word of mouth (or email) referrals.
Conclusion: The 5 main advantages and disadvantages of using email marketing
It can be time-consuming to create a successful email marketing strategy. You’ll want to send emails your audience will love at a comfortable pace. You want to sell sparingly. And you want to craft high-quality emails to avoid the spam and trash folders.
Emails are super easy and cost-effective to use. You can start using an email platform with zero money invested and implement email marketing right away. Automations and tools make the process easy even for beginners.
Building a subscriber list is like building a fan-base of people who are interested in your offers and can visit your website regularly. This is great for brand awareness, website traffic, and sales channels.
In order to make email marketing campaigns a lucrative part of your business, you need a large audience. It takes a lot of effort to build both numbers and trust. Not everyone has the capacity to invest in email marketing. If you’re interested in using emails as part of your marketing strategy, you may want to consider outsourcing. I offer done-for-you newsletter and promotional emails your audience will love that keep them engaged and interested.
When people sign up for your email list, that means they’ve already expressed a desire to learn or buy from you. Your email subscribers are all warm leads. Selling to warm leads is far more effective than cold calling, making email marketing a fantastic addition to your business plan.
I recommend emails to anyone who has the capacity to add it to their marketing plan. You can start for $0, it’s easy to use, and has really great potential for sales conversions. Email marketing can be a really powerful tool for business growth. If you already have a newsletter and need a hand, or if you’re thinking of creating one but don’t know where to start, I’d love to help. Contact me here for a free chat about how email marketing can boost your business.
