As a marketing tactic, email is extremely affordable. While your open rate and eventual conversions will help to determine the true ROI of an email campaign, the investment in email as a communication device is always low. But when does email make sense for your business? Is it a go-to choice, or should it be used sparingly? How do you know? Our MLive Media Group team offers a few answers.

When you practice careful data entry to capture the personal details of your clientele, you set yourself up to understand more about your audience. Whether that means you can track transaction frequency, purchase size, or other factors, you know more about the consumption behaviors of that specific group. Using the adage that it’s more cost effective to retain the customers you have than to gain new, email seems like a natural communication method.

“Bucket” your existing consumers in ways that make the most sense. If you are a jewelry retailer, you might do this based on anniversary or birthday month. Sending an email to the spouse of a soon-to-be-forty wife seems like low hanging fruit. Tracking which customers have these life events coming, and for whom they’ve been purchasing can help to keep your business top of mind at the right moment. An auto dealer that sells leases knows exactly when that customer will need a new car. Communicate early with a trade in offer to buy up leases under a certain mileage. Or describe the deal on the newest model of the car they own, or comparable rates of their existing lease. Knowing when these events will occur is key, and this data is typically tracked using a Customer Relationship Management system.

But what if life or purchase events aren’t how you use your CRM? Perhaps you simply have name and email information of existing customers. Strategic communications around sales or deals might make an impact. Regular communication, especially when personalized, offers ongoing connection with your organization, driving frequency of visit, cart size, and loyalty up. But caution your team against spamming! Too much email leads to dissatisfaction, or a feeling of your business ‘chasing the sale.’

Do you have a blog or podcast that is releasing episodes or materials regularly? Especially if you give more than you ask—meaning you are trying to educate, inform or entertain your clients more than ask them for a sale—then email should be a consideration. Email can be a tactic that affordably drive more eyes to the content stream you are already working on. It will also support “cross-channel” tactics.

Cross-channel tactics are important because every consumer absorbs information differently. Video is most effective, and clients that watch a video will retain more of it than those that read an article, but it also requires large investments. Instead, email (containing strong visuals and teaser narrative) can drive your interested customers to read more on a topic on your website. (Once on site, perhaps your re-messaging or retargeting efforts will keep them returning and engaging over a longer period of time.)

Interested in seeing a real-world example of how email has worked for a MLive Client?