With the seemingly endless growth of social media, you may have become skeptical about the efficacy and longevity of email marketing. Yet, year after year, sources prove that email marketing continues to reign supreme, remaining a critical and highly profitable component of any successful business development strategy.

Email marketing might not be a shiny or sexy as social media, but it certainly has its own set of perks and benefits. For one thing, 90% of consumers prefer to receive updates via an email newsletter over any other medium. The customer is always right, right? If your prospects and customers want to receive your news by email, who are you to refuse? Give them what they want. Only 10% chose Facebook or Twitter as their preferred source of updates. Who’s looking sexy now? That’s right: email marketing is sexy.

Too many people are chasing the new thing instead of investing in the thing that really works, which is email. Email is more important than ever, not less. And those who leverage email most effectively will be the big winners.”

- Simms Jenkins, CEO of BrightWave Marketing
and author of The New Inbox: Why Email Marketing
Is the Digital Marketing Hub in a Social & Mobile World

As you’ll discover in this post, email is the most successful and profitable B2B marketing channel because it is highly effective at building and nurturing relationships. And relationships are very sexy. As is increased revenue. And longevity.

If you need statistical data to be convinced of the ongoing merits of email marketing, here are 3 darn good reasons to love email marketing.

1. Email marketing generates more leads

Email marketing is not dead. It continues to endure as a time-tested and proven way to ensure you gain more leads. It’s a powerful way to keep in touch with your prospects and increase the chances that they’ll make the journey from merely being on your mailing list to becoming a legitimate prospect ready to discuss buying your services.

Custora, a predictive analysis firm, published a study that demonstrated that “customer acquisition via email has quadrupled over the last four years” (from 2009 to 2013). Quadrupled! The study also showed that email is more effective at acquiring customers than social media—nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined. Social media is a valuable tool, particularly for customer engagement, but it’s not the best way to drive sales.

If you have just 1 bullet left in your gun to sell something, email should always be that bullet….
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Acxiom discovered similar results in their survey on email marketing and mobile devices, which focused on consumer habits and perceptions. According to the survey, 73% of respondents typically preferred being contacted through email marketing instead of through other mediums such as social media.

What does this mean? 7 out of 10 prospects might convert to customers if you communicate with them through strategic, relevant emails.

Email is still more effective than social media marketing because it’s permission-based. The people on your email list are already interested to some degree; they’ve given you the green light to send them messages.

Can you afford NOT to market via email? If you’re still unsure, keep reading.

2. Email marketing customers are more profitable

By understanding how much revenue each new customer will generate, you gain valuable insight into where you should be focusing your marketing efforts and budget. How is that accomplished? Caluclate the Lifetime Value (LTV) or Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), which is the value (revenue) a customer brings to your company through repeat purchases of your products or services throughout the duration of your relationship with that customer. KISSmetrics created a great infographic using Starbucks as the case study to demonstrate how to calculate LTV.

66% of online consumers make a purchase after reading marketing materials received via email….
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Various studies confirm that prospects who are nurtured with email marketing typically become more profitable customers for the long haul.

According to Custora’s study, the lifetime of customers acquired through email marketing is, on average, 35% higher than those from Twitter, 11% higher than those from Facebook, and 4% higher than those from affiliate marketing.

Prospects who subscribe to your email marketing campaigns are more likely to become lifelong customers. This means that leads nurtured with emails will generate more long-term, repeat revenue for your business.

3. Email marketing is affordable

Email marketing is one of the most inexpensive marketing strategies. Not only is it likely to pay for itself, but it will also provide a higher profit margin. According to Econsultancy’s 2014 Email Marketing Industry Censu s, revenue from email has increased proportionately by 28% in one year.

The average return on email marketing investment is $44.25 for every dollar spent.
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When it comes to prospect and customer relationships, email marketing must be seen as a long-term investment. At least half of those involved in the Nielson Norman Group studies said that email newsletters influenced their B2B purchases, but only when the timing happened to be right. Many times, the newsletter served to grow or retain the sender’s reputation or to sustain a relationship when recipients lacked the budget or buy-in necessary to move forward with the purchase. On a strategic level, this is why you should emphasize value-added publishing, relevant content and personalization. And why the affordability of the channel is so important and impressive. No other medium offers the same longevity and results at such a low cost.

According to a report released by the Direct Marketing Association (DMI) just one year ago, email marketing yields an average 4,300% return on investment for businesses in the United States.

Companies now attribute 23% of their total sales to the email marketing channel (Email Marketing Industry Censu s). In addition, more than 75% of B2B marketers claim email newsletters are the “channel of choice” for distributing their content, according to recent reports from The Content Marketing Institute (CMI).

Email is sexy and it knows it: 3 darn good reasons to love email marketing

Yet again, we can see that email is an extraordinary channel for delivering ROI. –…
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Perhaps it is not as glamorous or sparkly as social media, but email campaigns generate fantastic results for those who adapt their marketing practices to meet the changing expectations of their prospects and customers. Give your email marketing ROI a significant boost by implementing your email platform’s more sophisticated functionality, such as personalization, automation, dynamic content, and mobile optimization. Your return will increase proportionately the more you use features that enhance your subscribers’ individual experiences.

Email marketing generates more qualified leads, more long-term revenue, and more return on investment. Aren’t these three darn good reasons to love email marketing?

Get lead nurturing tips for your prospecting email campaign in this insightful, free whitepaper.

Learn which questions to ask when you connect with a new prospect via email to make the best first impression
See how to you break the ice with virtual strangers, keep them engaged and pave the way to a sale using an email campaign
Review six tips to develop trust, credibility and rapport with your email marketing prospects to generate more leads