Is the email newsletter dead? The explosion of SEO, social media and now, content marketing seemingly dug a six foot hole and buried the email newsletter inside. The online world simply turned to Google, Facebook, Pinterest and other channels to connect with brands, bypassing their once precious inboxes in the process. Marketers quickly caught on to rapid declines in email newsletter engagement, jumping on the search, social and content marketing bandwagon. But there’s still hope for the email newsletter. Bringing it back from the dead is the growing mobile market.
Email is native to mobile – and smartphone users now spend an average of nine minutes daily on mobile emails. Will this trend die down any time soon? Probably not. Anyone who turns a blind eye on the email newsletter may be jumping the gun. With the email newsletter officially back from the graveyard, now is a better time than ever to reconsider the advantages of a powerful email newsletter marketing strategy.
Email Newsletter Integration is Key
As a standalone tactic, email newsletters are average at best. But as a mechanism in the marketing mix – integrated with promotions, customer loyalty programs and the like – the email newsletter has the potential to earn companies premium dollars. A profitable staple of any company’s online strategy, more marketers are now delegating budgets towards this fundamental integration.
Loyalty and Value
More than website visitors and social media followers, email subscribers bring marketers a valuable commodity – loyalty. Companies attract traffic from all across the web but a devoted list of email subscribers is often the foundation of a high-traffic website. Electing to sign up for your newsletters, email subscribers are also more likely to promote your content via their social media accounts and networks.
Email newsletters also attract audiences with a high lifetime value. If you can touch readers on a regular basis, you can renew and grow a deep relationship. Successful integration of the email newsletter promotes any army of followers you can depend on to chime in time and time again.
There’s no question the mobile market will evolve the email newsletter. In order to survive, companies must evolve, too. Research already shows us where mobile email marketing will be in the next five years.
Mobile Email Marketing 5 Years from Now
In 5 years, a new mobile-only player with emerge with 100 million plus users. Email newsletters will link closely to Google and Windows wallets as well as Apple Passbooks. Hundreds of millions of consumers will eventually ask the question, “Why would anyone want to check email on a computer?” Going forward, here are some incredible mobile email marketing statistics to consider:
– 90% of smartphone owners access the same email account on mobile and desktop.
– Mobile email opens grew 21% last year, from 43% in January to 51% in December.
– More email is read mobile than on a desktop email client.
– Typically, more than 25% of email is read on a smartphone.
Finally, mobile email will account for 15 to 70% of email opens five years from now – depending on target audience, product and email type.
The email newsletter is back from dead. The question is, “Will you evolve, or die?”
Linx
Linx is a strategic marketing organization which helps you meet your business objectives and challenges by linking your marketing strategies to your business strategies. Contact us for help launching an email marketing campaign. We’re always at the corner of Marketing and Strategy.
