You’ve heard it time and time again…your customer’s buying habits and the ways in which they can be reached are changing. But how? And what exactly does this mean for your business?

Being in the 21st century, we know you are well aware that there are plenty of ways to connect with customers – we don’t need to tell you that. However, what you may not know is the wide variety of ways in which you can properly reach those customers –and believe it or not, this outreach is different for every business.

What is Email?

Email, short for electronic mail, is information that is exchanged and stored electronically between two (or more) individuals. It is one of the fastest growing forms of communication, as it creates both a quick and reliable form of communication between two said parties. It is strongly characterized by its convenience, much different from the slow process of postal mail or that cringing game of phone tag that can last for weeks or even months between two individuals.

The History Behind Email

To help you better understand email and where it came from, let’s take a quick dive into the past. The concept of sending emails first originated in 1971 by a man named Ray Tomlinson. Tomlinson was an MIT graduate and engineer working at a research and development firm when he sent out the first-ever “email.” While email is roughly 40 years old, it wasn’t until the last 5-10 years that the concept of email marketing really took off.

Email Marketing in Today’s Society

In today’s world, email marketing comes as second nature to most individuals, especially millennials, who have grown up using email for most their life. However, businesses are struggling to really grasp the concept and multitude of benefits email marketing can provide for them.

There are roughly 7 billion people in the world, and that number only continues to grow. How many potential customers are out there needing you, but just don’t know it yet? The world of email marketing can open up a multitude of doors for your business, giving you the opportunity to help better serve your current and potential customer-base.

Advantages of Email Marketing

If you want to grow your business, email marketing is a tool that you will want to keep in your back pocket –always. Since every business has its “unreachable” customers, it’s important to find an avenue in which you can create touch-points with those individuals. After all, some of those individuals may turn into your largest customers and brand advocates in the future. Below, we list a few ways in which email marketing has its advantages on helping you “reach” those “unreachables.”

• Strengthen relationships with regular communication
• Increase sales and grow repeat business by offering discount or promotion programs
• Build your brand recognition with new and potential clients, as well as extending your brand’s reach (remember, email allows for customers to actually forward on your information to their friends, family, and colleagues)
• 91% of US adults actually enjoy and want to receive promotional emails from companies they do business with
• Email marketing is roughly 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined in helping your business gain new customers (and even more effective when used in conjunction with the two)
• Easy to use (and oftentimes free) programs are available. Schedule out email campaigns and focus on other pertinent tasks
• Correspondence and communication is FAST. Send out an email one second, and it can be delivered halfway across the world the next
• Increase website traffic. Email is a great way to drive users back to your web site (your ultimate goal) and convert them to customers
• Ability to avoid generic sales pitches and instead offer a personal touch to all emails and customers

Disadvantages of Emails

As always, with each channel of communication, there are oftentimes a few disadvantages that you want to be aware of and take proper precaution toward. Below, we list the two most common disadvantages toward email, so that you can plan ahead and avoid any hiccups down the road.

• Emails can carry viruses. Make sure you have a proper and well-known virus software installed in your computer.
• Being marked as “spam” email. To avoid this, just make sure you don’t send your customers more content than they want. You don’t like being bombarded with emails, do you? So don’t do it to your customers.

As a marketer, you have many channels available right at your fingertips, but oftentimes time and resources are limited. You can do more work with less effort by utilizing email marketing for your business — Increase your customer reach, deliver your message, and drive conversions. Email will be around forever, so get a leg up on your competitors and start building your brand today.

Curious how Brand It Marketing can help you take your email marketing plan to the next level? Shoot us an email at hello@branditonline.com or give us a call directly at 419.363.2817 – we would love to hear from you. For a list of our full services, please visit our services page here.