The Most Important Pros and Cons of Email Marketing

Email marketing is a popular marketing channel that, if used right, promises one of the highest ROI in the business. 

Still, as with any marketing tool, there are pros and cons of email marketing. 

Here’s what you need to consider before diving into it.

The Pros of Email Marketing

There are several reasons why both small businesses and large companies can benefit from email marketing. Here are the most important email marketing advantages.

Cost-Effective

Email marketing is a low-cost tool to reach out to and connect with consumers. Email service providers offer different plans for every budget and many of them, like SendinBlue, have a free plan, in case you want to test them out.

Attracts People to Your Website

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to get the right people to visit your website. You can customise your email campaign with different plugins and forms and use automation to send subscribers to your website.

Promotes Products and Services

One of the most important benefits of email marketing for small businesses is that it allows them to send promotions and suggestions to subscribers based on their location, age, and past purchasing habits. Not only can you use email marketing to boost brand awareness, but you can also utilise it to put the right products in front of your targeted audience.

Customer Feedback

Email marketing allows customers to share their thoughts about your products and services directly with you. You can occasionally use surveys in your email campaign to get feedback, develop a better marketing strategy, and boost ROI.

Customisable

Email marketing campaigns are highly customisable. You can design messages and media, customise existing email templates, create lists to include or exclude certain subscribers, and target certain demographics. 

Saves Time

Most email marketing services have automation tools, which let users set rules and send out messages to certain subscribers at a given time. For example, you can set up discount offers for every customer that abandons their shopping cart, send welcome messages, and location-based offers.

Measurable

Email marketing is a great result to keep track of what’s popular with your subscribers and what needs improvement. Email marketing software also has tools that track open rates, click rates, link clicks, ads, and unsubscribers.

The Cons of Email Marketing

Let’s take a look at the most common disadvantages of email marketing.

Spam Issues

This is arguably the largest disadvantage of email marketing. Many email providers, like Gmail and Yahoo, filter messages and send them to the “Spam” folder instead of your subscribers’ inboxes. You can always ask subscribers to respond directly to your email and adjust their settings to let their email provider know your messages aren’t spam.

Undelivered emails

One of the more time-consuming tasks of running an email campaign is keeping subscriber lists up to date. Many people regularly create new email addresses and there’s no way for a business to know when a subscriber stops using their email address, which means your messages won’t get in front of the right people.

Competition

Email marketing is a popular marketing tool and everyone’s competing for subscribers’ attention. This includes companies like Amazon, Apple, and Starbucks. For that reason. Email campaigns must be unique and well-maintained.

Regular Updating

Inaccurate information reflects negatively on a company’s reputation. This is why it’s important to keep track of the offers you’re promoting and make sure all the information in your emails is accurate and up-to-date.

Design Problems

Some subscribers read emails via their phones and others on their PCs. Your emails need to appear as intended across different email providers and devices. Also, some subscribers opt to receive emails via SMS only.

Size issues

Emails with a large number of files may take too long to load, which can be frustrating to subscribers, cause them to lose interest, and prompt them to start sending your email to their “Spam” folder.

Resources and skills

A successful email campaign has the right design, copy, and marketing tools. You can use email marketing software to take care of logistics, but you’ll also need skills to create a campaign that will get entire subscribers and get them to regularly open your emails. 

Bottom Line

Email marketing remains one of the best marketing channels to put your products and services in front of the right customers. There are many pros and cons of email marketing, but given its popularity and practicality, the benefits almost certainly outweigh the disadvantages.