Email Marketing Tip of the Week – Emailing Out of a Recession

For this week’s email marketing tip of the week, I want to talk about why marketing by email is so great during a down economy or a recessionary period. None of us needs to spend more time hearing about how bad the economy is and I’m certainly not qualified to make any predictions about when significant recovery will happen, or whether not it has already begun.

So instead I’ll be focusing on the strengths of marketing by email even if there is a slumping economy. Alternatively and in other times, your business may be going through its own downward sloping cycle as the economy is doing fine, making marketing by email all the more important.

Emailing Your Way out of a Recession

Whether the entire economy is sputtering or your business is the only one falling off the cliff, you need to turn to marketing by email to pull you out of the scrap head and ahead of your competitors. You can email yourself right out of a recession or downturn if you have the right tools in place.

What’s the most important thing you have to do when your business is struggling or the economy is suffering and money is tight? You need to find a way to control costs, while still finding new customers. This can seem tricky at best, but the truth is that there’s no more cost effective way of marketing than email marketing. This holds true for businesses and nonprofit organizations alike.

A 2005 study by the Winterberry Group found that for every dollar spent on email marketing, $15.50 was earned. This is higher than direct mail, and vastly superior to telemarketing. Many other studies turn up the same thing – marketing by email is more cost effective than other marketing mediums.

There are no large upfront costs associated with marketing by email. Many companies now offer free trials for checking out their services, and monthly plans start as low as $10.

Additionally, just as you are trying to find a way to make a better use of your money in a recession, so are your potential customers, whether you’re selling to households or to other businesses. That means you have an opportunity to see some fantastic conversion rates when you offer special deals and discounts to your mailing list. Free shipping is a go to offer if you’re selling physical products, but general discounts also work well.

Try hitting two birds with one stone by offering incentives to your email list for finding you new list members. Tell them for every 3 new list members they refer, they’ll receive a 10% or 20% discount on their next order, or will receive a special free gift with their next order. You’ll acquire new prospects and make more sales.

The importance of email marketing is also growing due to the prevalence of email itself. Email is the preferred means of communication not just for younger generations, but for professionals and executives as well. With mobile devices becoming more capable and accessible as well, people can now view and respond to their emails from anywhere.

You have to be able to reach out to consumers where they prefer to conduct their own communication. It’s not hard to see that people don’t run out to their mailboxes 20 times a day looking for letters from friends and acquaintances from around the world. No, it’s the email inboxes they check all day long, where they spend a lot of time and where they are receptive to communication. Meet a consumer on his or her own domain, and you’ll have a greater chance of success.

Maybe all of this helps to explain that while 60% of marketers surveyed by the Aberdeen Group in January 2009 said they will be decreasing their traditional marketing spending, 47% will be increasing their budgets for marketing by email.

Not juicy enough for you? Well, Forrester has projected that total spending on email marketing is going to increase to more than $2 billion by 2014, from $1.2 billion in 2009.

So let’s see… lower your costs, increase your ROI, take advantage of the preferred means of communication to make easier connections with your customer base and on down the line we go. No matter how bad a recession is or how badly your own business is suffering, some clever marketing by email can pull you right out of the red.

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