Marketers have a lot on their plate. And between social media, blog posts, conferences, and creating sales enablement content, it can seem like there’s not a lot of time left over for emails. Before you put email marketing on the back burner, though, it’s important to have a complete idea of what it can offer you. The more you learn, the more apparent it becomes that you’re losing out on too much if you neglect to implement an email marketing strategy.

“Now isn’t the best time” is a common objection in the world of sales and marketing and a major barrier to accomplishing your goals. We get it: life’s busy, and the priority list never seems to get any shorter. Still, if you want to compete, you’re going to have to get on board with an email marketing strategy eventually, and putting it off now just causes more work for you down the road. So while it might not be the best time to get the ball rolling, it’s always the right time.

With that in mind, here are three big reasons why it’s time to get on board if you haven’t already.

Reason #1: Putting Off Email Marketing Gives Your Competitors An Edge

It’s a competitive marketplace out there, and your business needs every advantage that it can get if it’s going to come out on top.

Your goal here is a pretty simple one: create as many opportunities for conversions as possible. More opportunities equal more sales, which in turn creates more opportunities. And email marketing is integral to this cycle.

Among B2B marketers, 93 percent are using emails to distribute content and engage with prospects and leads, and the same is true for 80 percent of B2C marketers. By opting out of this key strategy, you’re inevitably handing off the lead to all of the businesses that are putting in the effort. Considering that 99 percent of consumers are checking their inbox every day, that’s a lot of attention to be sacrificing.

Reason #2: Putting Off Email Marketing Doesn’t Save You Money

Cliché as it sounds, you’ve got to spend money to make money. It’s true that email marketing can get a bit pricey, but when done correctly, it can show you a much higher ROI than other marketing tactics. We’re talking $38 earned for every $1 spent.

For more than half of marketers (59 percent, to be exact), email is the number one source of ROI, beating out social media, print marketing, and PPC. Sure, you can’t ignore those either, but if you’re missing out on emails, you’re missing out on huge profit potential.

To maximize the ROI of your email marketing efforts, start by optimizing your spending. Find an email marketing platform that aligns with your budget, and don’t pay for more features or capabilities than you’re going to need. From there, segment your contact list so that any time and resources you dedicate to your emails is driven toward sending the right content to the right people. Dollar per dollar, the more you spend to create a stellar email marketing strategy, the more you’re likely to earn in return.

Reason #3: Putting Off Email Marketing Doesn’t Save You Time

Let’s circle back to where we started, which is that email marketing takes time, and marketers don’t have a lot of it to spare. That being said, it doesn’t take nearly as much time as people tend to assume.

Creating an email marketing contact list is relatively easy and painless to get started with, and it doesn’t require a whole slew of names from day one. You’ll build your contact list over time through your lead generation campaigns, with plenty of opportunities to grow as you go.

Of course, list building isn’t the only part of email marketing that requires your time, and that’s where automation software comes in. A great email marketing automation platform will do a ton of the work for you when it comes to segmenting contacts, timing your messages, and tracking your data. You just focus on crafting some killer content, and your software will handle much of the rest.

The Best Time To Start Email Marketing? Right Now!

Plain and simple, successful marketing is about doing what works. And emails… well, they work.

Instead of looking at email marketing and seeing all of the hurdles you have to climb over to make it happen, put on those rose-colored glasses and look at all that you have to gain from putting in the effort.

No matter your company size or marketing budget, email marketing can help you reach and convert more prospects. So stop putting it off and start strategizing — you’ll thank us later!

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by Benchmark Team