14 Stats that Prove Email Marketing is Still King

Regardless of company size and success, smart business owners know the best way to eliminate excess spend is to continually re-evaluate their budget. Because marketing often represents a significant part of company’s budget, it generally faces additional scrutiny. Savvy marketers know it’s up to them to justify every dollar through reports, examples and measured success. As marketers, it’s our duty to choose channels wisely and ensure every penny is well spent.

Because marketing is always evolving, and new tools and applications emerge every day, choosing where to allocate resources can be a challenge for even the most seasoned marketing professionals. The good news is email has long been a tried-and-true platform capable of yielding impressive results and a fast ROI.

Need help convincing your boss of the importance of email marketing? Here are 14 statistics to prove email is still one of the most powerful channels for reaching, and converting, your audience:

Email Is Everywhere

Few channels can match the reach email achieves. For example:

• From 3.9 billion email accounts in 2013 to a projected 4.9 billion accounts by the end of 2017, email has more users than social media.
• Email has not only not been slowing down, it’s been growing at a rate of 6% per year.
• Moreover, 91% of all U.S. consumers still use email every day.
• The explosion of smartphones on the market has fundamentally transformed the ability of email to reach consumers wherever and whenever the consumer chooses. In fact, 79% of people use their smartphone for reading email. That’s more than they use their phones to make calls!

Email Leads to Nurturing, Which Leads to Sales

It would be fantastic if every lead entering your CRM was prepared to make a purchase. In reality, though, converting a prospect to a customer takes special TLC. Few channels are as well suited to lead nurturing as email. Here’s the proof:

• Up to 73% of B2B leads are not sales-qualified. This means your marketing team needs to engage with these leads before they’re ready for the sales team.
• 80% of customers require five to twelve contacts before a sale takes place.
• Not surprisingly, companies that nurture their leads outperform those that do not, with 55% of companies reporting an increase in lead conversions.
• Lead nurturing can help cut costs. Companies that use this practice enjoy a 33% lower cost per lead than companies that don’t nurture their leads.
• Additionally, nurtured leads buy about 47% more than non-nurtured leads.

Email Delivers Terrific ROI

One of the biggest challenges in marketing is properly measuring results. But, no matter how you slice or dice it, email produces outstanding results.

• For every dollar spent, email returns $43. This makes it the most effective marketing channel for delivering ROI.
• Email delivers an ROI at least three times that of social media, with an average order value 17% higher.
• The impact from email continues to grow: Revenue from email grew 28% in 2014 alone.
• To further improve your results, include personalization. Targeted, segmented, activity-based or life-cycle based emails account for more than three-quarters of all email marketing revenue.
• Additionally, personalized emails produce 20% higher revenues than general broadcast emails.

In other words, email is here to stay, and it’s stronger than ever. The next time you find yourself justifying your email marketing budget, pull out this list and let these numbers speak for themselves.

Need help taking your email ROI to the next level through personalization? Start with a free trial of InstantData!