Whether it’s a startup, a scaleup, or a corporation, email marketing remains a channel relied on by many.
Social media marketing and paid ads are all the buzz right now. But as you scale, they become investment-heavy and, thus, aren’t the most sustainable marketing approach for startups and small businesses. However, email marketing is inexpensive and levels the playing field for new entrants.
Businesses often struggle to keep close relationships with customers. Regular email outreach can help them overcome this roadblock and solidify their position.
Why? Because email marketing enables direct communication without being at the mercy of finicky algorithms.
In today’s article, we dive into how email marketing can help businesses maintain sustainable growth.
Top 10 benefits of email marketing for startups
Email marketing offers several advantages, from increasing brand awareness to strengthening customer relationships. But how do top players use these perks to drive sustainable business growth? Let’s discuss
1. Direct communication channel
Promotions on social media or any other traditional marketing, however personalized, may feel impersonal to the customers.
However, email marketing offers a direct communication channel for brands to connect with their audience and customers. This makes each customer feel like the brand is talking to them personally and is far more effective than a commercial or an ad on social media.
Amazon has built a direct audience through regular email marketing. They nurture customer relationships by sending gift cards and special offers through emails.
For instance, when you send friends Amazon gift cards, they’ll receive an email featuring an on-brand visual followed by the gift card’s value, perfect for startups who are looking for more name recognition.
The recipient doesn’t have to open the website or app separately to use the gift card since the CTA lets them apply it to their Amazon account directly. Such ease and convenience nudge the recipient to take the desired action, i.e., to purchase an item using the provided gift card.
Result? Direct communication with the audience makes them shop more on Amazon.
2. Targeted messaging
Customers will only buy from you when your brand messaging resonates with their preferences and needs. Your marketing efforts must push the categories that interest the audience while staying true to your mission and vision, with emails being the perfect channel.
You can run surveys and leverage social media listening to collect and analyze customer data, segment the email list, and send customized messages to specific sets of subscribers. Instead of scrolling through bulk-produced and irrelevant marketing materials, your customers get the exact information they need or want about your product.
This way, target email marketing improves the customer’s overall experience with your brand, improving conversion, customer loyalty, and retention.
Spotify uses the benefits of email marketing to deliver exclusivity and make the audience feel valued. The brand is well-known for its accurately tailored playlists for every user and amplifies this image through targeted emails.
Spotify’s targeted messaging promotes new releases and playlists based on the user’s favorite genres through emails — just like they read the recipient’s mind.
For example, the above Spotify email promotes theme-based playlists that foster exclusivity.
The emails cater to the audience’s preference with tailor-made playlists filled with music selected to suit their different moods. They have vibrant and on-theme visuals that convey the message clearly with limited text.
Simply put, Spotify has perfected targeted email marketing and uses it to boost traffic on its site, improve the audience’s experience on the platform, and solidify its position as one of the top players in the industry.
3. Cost-effective and high ROI
Email marketing is one of the cheapest channels brands can use to drive sustainable business growth, and its ROI keeps growing yearly. Reports show that in 2022, about 50.8% of marketing professionals saw a 2X improvement rate in their email marketing campaigns’ ROI. 
You don’t need to bear the cost of print, photoshoots, ad space, or other expenses associated with traditional marketing. You only need attention-grabbing and personalized headlines, interesting and on-brand visuals, engaging email copies, and appealing CTAs. Many affordable tools can enhance, automate, and track your campaigns.
Timely emails with the fitting offers can boost sign-ups and re-engage the audience, and as they require minimal funds, their ROI goes up, too.
Damian Grabarczyk, the co-founder and growth marketer of PetLab Co., says, “Facing stagnant growth, we tapped into the benefits of email marketing, focusing on personalized content for segmented audiences. This strategic shift re-engaged dormant customers and attracted new ones, boosting our conversion rates by 25% in just one quarter. When leveraged creatively, the benefits of email marketing became our catalyst for sustainable growth.”
4. Personalization opportunities
Most platforms prioritize personalized customer experience just as much as their product quality. But, when a new customer signs up for your services, the algorithm adjusts the experience according to the user’s preference.
Email marketing can help you simplify this by offering personalization opportunities to your customers.
Read also: Top 10 email marketing strategies that win
For example, Pinterest uses the benefits of email marketing by sending personalized emails to its users. It analyzes the user’s activity on the platform and matches the data with other users. Then, they send marketing emails with personalization prompts that other similar users are engaging with.
Its process is simple and ideal for new and experienced Pinterest users alike. Each pin block acts as individual CTAs and has matching visuals to give the user an idea about the mentioned aesthetic.
5. Measurable metrics
Measuring the KPIs of your marketing efforts is crucial to maintaining sustainable growth. It keeps your efforts on track and lets you improve the results over time. To measure and monitor your KPIs regularly, you can get help from an online spreadsheet tool to help you organize things.
Calculating email marketing metrics is quite easy. They include:
- Open rate: The percentage of email recipients who open your email.
- Click-through rate: The percentage of email recipients who clicked on the links in an email.
- List growth rate: The percentage at which your email subscriber list grows.
- Email forwarding rate: The percentage of email recipients who share or forward your email to others.
- Unsubscribe rate: The percentage of people unsubscribing your email campaigns within a given period.
- Email marketing ROI: The profit you make from your email campaigns.
Several affordable tools with analytics features like Mailchimp, GetResponse, and Pipedrive exist. You can set up email workflow automation; the system will give you real-time insights into your email campaigns.
6. Increased brand and product awareness
Social media posts and ads are subject to ever-changing algorithms. So, even if you run brand awareness campaigns there, there is no guarantee they will reach the right audience.
With email marketing, you have more control over audience targeting. You can design the copy according to segment-specific challenges. This will highlight exactly how your product can solve their problem, creating more impactful awareness around your brand and reinforcing your brand identity.
You can also run A/B testing with email marketing and measure brand awareness for each version. It lets you perfect your approach and set up email frequency that creates the best brand awareness without overwhelming the recipients.
Email gives you a wide audience to reach with your brand awareness campaigns. Reports show that there were 4.26 billion email users in 2022, which is expected to reach 4.73 billion users in 2026.
Grammarly uses the benefits of email marketing to educate its users on product updates. The email features clear and easy-to-follow instructions to use the new features. It is a detailed guide, boosts product awareness, and elevates user experience.
7. Global reach
One of the key benefits of email marketing is that you can use it to target a specific audience segment, making it a perfect medium to connect with a global crowd.
You can create an international mailing list and segment them according to the location. Adapt your email content to suit that specific location segment’s language, customs, and norms.
It’s difficult to align your social media campaigns with different time zones. However, you can schedule your marketing emails according to the local time zones to maximize exposure to an international clientele.
Reports note about 25% of consumers are more likely to purchase a product upon receiving an email newsletter. So if you have newsletter campaigns, you can customize them to address location-specific challenges and preferences. It will let you connect with potential customers beyond the borders.
For example, Ellvest’s newsletter “What the Elle” runs a special column written by the company’s co-founder, Sallie Krawcheck. Here, she educates her predominantly female audience on how to manage their finances well. The recipients can click on the “Read more” button for more in-depth topical knowledge.
Read also: How your business can benefit from digital signatures?
8. Enhanced customer engagement
The benefits of email marketing include higher customer engagement — all it needs is a dash of creativity. Add interactive elements like gamified widgets and redirect buttons to increase traffic and on-site time.
Read also: 10 AI marketing tools you must try in 2024
For example, Netflix’s emails feature glimpses of new and trending cinemas and shows. They are categorized according to the genre, making it easy for the recipient to select one according to their preference.
Clicking on the posters will take you to Netflix’s website, where you can watch the content. This technique not only boosts traffic but also enhances viewer engagement on Netflix.
Another notable brand driving engagement through emails is Olipop. For example, the email offers valuable insights into how the brand changed the unhealthy beverage consumption habits in the US.
Instead of making this progress all about itself, Olipop engages its customers by involving them in the achievement. Just like how the email copy says, “Without you, we would be just a bunch of soda enthusiasts talking to ourselves, and well, that’d be kinda lonely” and “Together, we have achieved so much since our inception.” Clever, right?
9. Redirect to purchase
Email marketing can simplify your customer’s shopping journey. You can promote new product launches or sales and add CTA buttons that redirect to the purchase page.
For example, Projects Watches promoted its Black Friday Sales through the above email. It has multiple buttons curated for different product categories, so the customer doesn’t have to browse through your site to get the on-sale products. They can click on their preferred product category to view a specific product page.
10. Collect more reviews
To drive sustainable business growth, you need credibility above everything else. And what else can be a better tool for this than glowing customer reviews? Reports show that 98% read online reviews before opting for a brand.
As email marketing opens up a direct communication channel with the audience, you can use it to collect honest customer feedback.
Building meaningful connections with your customers through regular emails improves your chances of getting reviews. The positive ones can be used as social proof, while you can assess the critical ones to identify user challenges and improve customer experience.
For example, pet food company Sundays uses emails like the above one to collect customer reviews. The email copy is short and persuasive and features a straightforward CTA button.
Conclusion
Exploring the benefits of email marketing uncovers its pivotal role in fostering sustainable business growth. This strategy provides your audience with a direct, personalized pathway essential for building lasting relationships. With targeted engagement and customized content, email marketing ensures each message is meaningful, making every recipient feel uniquely valued.
Remember, social media trends will come and go, and hip taglines and clever commercials will only get you so far. But the right email marketing approach will help you drive sustainable growth and maintain the most meaningful element of a successful business, i.e., positive customer relationships.
Embrace the benefits of email marketing to propel your journey towards sustainable growth. Begin today and witness your business flourish.
