While many companies are focusing on integrating social media into their marketing strategies (as they should), they are tending to also over look tried-and-true practices to reach customers, one of which is email marketing. While other online medias, such as Facebook and Twitter, continue to grow in popularity, I think that there may be a growing assumption that email marketing is becoming passé. But, this is assumption is very far from true. Email usage and reach is actually growing and is still a powerful tool for any marketer, and can still offer companies various insight into their marketing efforts, including:

• Gaining an understanding customer behavior
• Measuring  ROI
• Determining campaign effectiveness

iContact, a leading email marketing based company, compiled information about the current state of email marketing and how it is expected to change and grow in the future. They used this information to create a fun and informative infographic, see below.

The following are a few of the statistics from the infographic that I found most interesting and that show that email is not a dead marketing tool:

• The market to reach potential customers using email is 3 times larger than the total number of Facebook and Twitter accounts combined
• Email users are highly active, with 72% of email users check their inboxes 6 or more times each day
• Email traffic is not decreasing; Rather, it continues to increase, as the daily worldwide email traffic is expected to grow by almost 50 billion emails by 2016
• 71% of adult internet users buy products online, which is especially important during the holiday season since 13% of holiday shoppers list email newsletters as their favorite source of locating deals
• Email has the potential to drive high quality website traffic because consumers who receive email marketing spend 83% more when shopping, their orders are 44% larger, and they order 28% more often

So, how can email marketing benefit your company? The following are the top three most effective uses and benefits of email marketing:

• Nurturing new prospects
• Generating brand awareness
• Increasing customer retention

To learn more about the key components of an email marketing campaign, check out How to Create a Successful Email Marketing Campaign

By Brianna Smith