When you hear the phrase “email marketing,” you might envision overcrowded inboxes and unwanted spam – but the last thing you want your marketing campaign to do is annoy your customers. However, sending your brand’s audience any form of digital content is a strategic art that relies on your ability to engage and connect with them, which means standing out from the rest of the businesses trying to do the same. If you have a strong brand identity, know what message you want to get across, and have established the types of personas that are most likely to resonate with your brand, you already have the recipe for success. Email marketing has the highest rate of return on investment with an average of $42 for every $1 spent, making it an asset to your brand’s prosperity.

There’s nothing like a targeted ad campaign to catch the eye of your ideal customers. Email marketing allows you to compile your different types of clients into lists organized by what kind of content you think would most interest them, and then send out a different email blast to each group. This prevents you from appearing as just another company who sends out the same email to everybody, because where’s the value in that? The email you worked hard to compose will end up lost in a spam folder. Your customers want to feel like the content you share with them was done with intention, which will help them build trust in your brand.

Don’t be so quick to abandon email marketing for the use of social media instead. One reason that social media marketing pales in comparison to the use of email marketing in your business strategy is because of how personalized you can make the email experience. An Instagram post will be seen by all your followers, including everyone else who comes across your page, and while this can be a great thing, it’s much harder to create personalized content if you can really only reach one type of audience. Not to mention, the conversion rate of email campaigns is 6.05% compared to that of social media, which is 1.9%, making it a much more effective platform to reach your potential customers. The use of both email and social media are of course key to getting the most out of digital advertising that you can, but if it’s a contest, email marketing wins by a mile. This is a shock to many brand owners due to the vast growth of popularity in social media marketing this past decade.

One thing that email marketing and social media marketing have in common, though, is that they can both help you reach a mobile audience. The latest US Consumer Device Preference Report states that 66% of emails are opened from a mobile device, and in a world where marketers are always looking for new ways to communicate to their audience across all devices, using email as a platform for this proves to be the most reliable and cost effective option.

The opportunity for clients to click on your email and make a purchase right then and there through their smartphone is a convenience that they will appreciate, and a strategy for you to boost your sales through the roof. In addition, it helps customers share your email more efficiently with friends and family from anywhere in the world.

It is important that you keep an up-to-date report which illustrates the data your email campaigns accumulate. The first accomplishment that a successful email will make is your targeted customer choosing to open it. Your customer opening your email means that they were drawn to and affected by either the sender (your brand) or your subject line in some way, peaking their interest enough to click on your email to see what content is inside. The next thing you’ll want to keep tabs on is the click through rate (CTR), which will tell you how many of your customers took the time to read through the text and click on the link your email contained. If this is a link back to your website, your CTR is an especially important metric in your email campaign. After your customer has completed all these steps, the end goal is for them to complete your email’s call to action. Your email’s conversion rates are so important for you to analyze and determine what type of content prompts your customers to support your brand, so you can keep that content coming.

If your goal is to build long lasting relationships with your customers, having a quick yet powerful way to communicate with them is vital. Email marketing gives you all the tools you need to do this. And according to the statistics, you are bound to achieve success. Whether it be an automated welcome email that your client receives when they sign up for your newsletter, important information about your business to keep them up to date, or a reminder to purchase the items they left in their cart before they sell out, your audience will appreciate your brand’s ability to reach out and connect with them – keeping your product or service fresh in their minds.