There are many advantages and disadvantages of email marketing.
As a result, many articles are written about how to overcome the challenges.
If you’re wondering what the advantages and disadvantages of email marketing are, you’ve come to the right place.
You’re told, “the money is in the list.” Yet, there are undeniable disadvantages of email marketing.
Then, does it make it worth your time to market to your email list?
That’s what this post seeks to answer. What are the advantages and disadvantages of email marketing?
You should know before you begin and invest money in an email vendor, you are using a fully verified email list for email marketing.
By the end of this post, you will know four advantages and three disadvantages of email marketing.
Readers are the lifeblood of any blog. If you don’t have enough of them, this business model cannot work. You need as many as possible to be able to rank in Google, get ad clicks, make affiliate sales, and sell your products.
With this in mind, you are going to wonder why I am suggesting that you consider publishing a newsletter.
Are you ready to learn the advantages and disadvantages of email marketing?
Advantages and Disadvantages of Email Marketing
There are many advantages to publishing a newsletter.
Advantages of Email Marketing
Using a Newsletter is Easy
I want you to see how easy it now is to produce a newsletter.
First, create a template for your newsletter
Using a newsletter template like this one you can download by clicking the link, makes things extremely easy. Just choose one, download it, fill it in, and send it out. If you don’t spend too much time searching through the templates, you can get this part of the process done in minutes.
Email list providers offer beautiful templates for your newsletter you can modify. They also offer landing page templates, visually-pleasing opt-in forms, to entice people to sign up for your email list.
Next, create and add the content
You need to create the content for the newsletter. Or, if you prefer, you can simply use something you have already written. There is no reason not to take a few of your articles and use those.
After all, sending your newsletter enables your email list members to receive your blog posts. They get the content they signed up to receive, and you get traffic. Win-win!
Although, it is a good idea to mix things up a bit and include some fresh content in your newsletter. If you do that, at a later date, you can always take those articles, add a bit more detail and publish them on your blog.
There are lots of ways to repurpose your content by publishing it elsewhere. You can learn about that approach here.
Send out your newsletter
Now, you just need to send it out. Most of the time, you will want to do this via email. Your email vendor will email your list the newsletter for you.
But, now and again, it is worth sending out a physical mailshot. This form of marketing still has a place, even in the digital world.
Some people will respond positively and buy when they are handed a pamphlet or receive one in the mail. The good news is that, usually, you will be able to copy and paste that mailshot content into a newsletter template.
Using a Newsletter Results in Branding
Newsletters help you to build your email list so people learn about you and your brand.
But, you have to give them a reason to share their email address with you. Many people find the idea of receiving an informative newsletter to be an attractive proposition. So, when you provide one, they will be more likely to share their email address.
Also, new subscribers are used to getting an incentive for joining the list. The incentive is called an “opt-in” since when people receive the incentive, they opt to join your list.
You can offer anything people in your niche might want as a free incentive. People give downloadable ebooks and cheat sheets, for example.
One of the strongest advantages of email marketing is the fact that once people share their email addresses with you, the email is yours.
If people give their email to WordPress instead, for instance, and WordPress folds, you no longer have the emails to communicate with your list.
Using a Newsletter Results in Traffic
It is also possible to use your newsletter to drive traffic to your website. There are lots of ways to do this.
First, you need to get people to open your email. Come up with an intriguing, catchy subject line that entices list members to open.
Next, make sure you embed links in your newsletter that invite people to click to learn more. When they do, they can be taken to your website.
Notice in this email, the link to the post appears three times. This gives your list members three opportunities to click the link and send you traffic.
Using a Newsletter Results in Sales
Every blog owner wants more of their visitors to share their email address. The saying “the money is in the list” really is true.
Provided you feed people interesting and useful information, they will start to trust and buy from you more.
Due to the current Coronavirus climate, many consumers aren’t purchasing. That is no reason to stop emailing them. On the contrary, now, more than ever, you should continue bonds you started when people signed up for your list in the first place.
Ask how they are doing, and mean it. During the holidays, thank them for this support and wish them a happy holiday season.
It’s true: There is a difference between marketing and selling. Marketing means spreading brand awareness, making connections and strengthening those ties. Marketing does not always mean selling.
When you do try to sell to your list members, apprise them of new products and services. Let them know if you have discounts such as Black Friday Sales. Let them know about events such as if you host a webinar.
But there’s more.
Disadvantages of Email Marketing
There are three disadvantages of email marketing. You will find there is overlap among them.
Newsletters Take Time
When I first started blogging, I was shocked to hear bloggers struggled to continue sending their emails. Now, almost six years later, I am as guilty as anyone.
I used to spend hours in the evening after publication researching successful subject lines to boost my email newsletter open rates.
Update November 2020: When you sign up for an email service provider, you get sent blog articles with email tips. Lose-lose. Reading the tips takes time, but not reading the tips causes you to miss out on possibly valuable information.
Open Rates are Poor
That was in 2015. Today, I have my Aweber email vendor draw from my RSS feed and send my emails for me. I no longer use those “catchy” subject lines that would entice people to open the posts. The result: My open rates are low.
There is another reason my open rates are low. Many people on my list signed up to get my optins and don’t care about reading the information in my newsletters.
Note: There is a way to segment who gets your emails based on interest but trying this resulted in disappointment, so I stopped.
You can also try A/B testing your subject lines. Your email vendor will send out the subject line with the highest open rate to the rest of the list. However, when this didn’t produce the hoped-for results, I stopped this as well.
When people don’t open your emails, you waste money. You are, in essence, paying your email vendor to deliver emails that don’t get read.
Emails Go to Spam
As a result of low open rates, email distributors like Gmail believe my emails are spam. When this occurs, my list members don’t see my emails since they wind up in list members’ spam folders.
What should be win-win is now lose-lose. My list members don’t get the information they signed up to receive. Also, I am paying my email vendor to send emails people never end up getting.
Wrapping Up: Advantages and Disadvantages of Email Marketing
This post shared four advantages of email marketing and three disadvantages.
Look at the dominant image for this post. As you can see, I polled Instagrammers to see what they thought about the advantages and disadvantages of email marketing.
Clearly, an overwhelming majority, 67 %, believe there are more advantages than disadvantages of email marketing when the advantages and disadvantages of email marketing are compared.
What do you think? Do you agree with the authors and the Instagrammers that there are more disadvantages of email marketing? Are there additional advantages and disadvantages of email marketing you can add to the discussion?
Readers, please share so other email marketers learn the advantages and disadvantages of email marketing.
Authors: Emily Taylor and Janice Wald
This post was made possible by the support of our readers.
