Spoiler: they do but it depends.
Now let’s dive into details.
In the previous couple of decades, subscribing to a newsletter from a favorite blog or a useful platform was something everyone did.
Without social media, for businesses, email was basically the only way to send a message directly to the reader or potential customer, so every business tried to master email marketing and use it to their advantage.
For users, it was an efficient way of getting news, updates, discounts, and generally staying in touch without the need to check on the site manually daily or weekly.
However, in the era of social media, people seem to be more and more reluctant to subscribe to newsletters.
There are plenty of reasons for that; the readers do not want to leave their email to a random website, do not want to get random promotional emails, or simply hate receiving those newsletters because the inflow of information is already overwhelming.
Also, let’s be honest here – most newsletters deliver no news and they are often poorly written.
Therefore, the question is whether people still want any newsletters at all, or is this marketing method dying, giving place to smart social media marketing? Every online entrepreneur should find that out.
Email Marketing: Pros, Cons, Hidden Nuances
Email marketing still works for many companies but for a very limited number of niches. People are tired of getting poorly written newsletters that really do not contain much news, but rather remind of the business that wants customers to buy something.
It seems that the companies that actually email discounts, relevant promotions, or particular benefits get the highest percentage of emails opened. This approach works for every niche; whether it is a company that sells concrete or whether it is a reviewer like CasinosHunter their newsletters get opened if they send relevant promotions.
However, what about smaller businesses that do not run a discount every now and then? Overall, newsletters are hard to manage, especially for websites that have to invent a cause to send a newsletter or struggle with providing valuable content every time.
In other words, email marketing is likely to work for those who can really deliver something useful to their subscribers – daily, weekly, or monthly.
If you want to get a better idea of whether email marketing is likely to be efficient for your project, check out the pros and cons you might face.
Pros:
- Ability to measure the effectiveness of promotions and sales strategies;
- Building relationships with the audience and keeping them engaged in the long term;
- Delivering extra value to what you already sell;
- Comparatively easy to create and run;
- Affordable and cost-effective, especially compared to other marketing tools.
Cons:
- Many people eventually never bother to open emails they have subscribed for;
- You actually need news or quality updates to produce efficient newsletters.
While there are more advantages than disadvantages, and email marketing is rather easy to master, it just won’t work for many niches. Some entrepreneurs may struggle to find anything valuable to email but another promotion, others have few offers to lure in more customers, etc.
This is why many experts today recommend starting now from a newsletter but from a social media account. Social media accounts will work even for affiliate websites.
Social Media Marketing in Addition to Newsletters
Today, people receive just too many emails, most of which bring no value at all, and only demand time for reading, deleting, or even unsubscribing.
Digital mailboxes are treated more like places for important information, replacing passwords, keeping logins to accounts, etc., so people are more reluctant to share their emails with random websites.
This is especially true when the value of these emails is not clear, or if the reader suspects they can find this information online without subscribing to anything at all.
Of course, particularly wise customers have more than one online email; one for important stuff and one for subscriptions and similar stuff is a bare minimum strategy. However, how often do they actually read what they receive in their second online mailbox?.. It all eventually boils down to whether your subscriber perceives your newsletter as something important, or not. And it is a pretty complicated task to get into the few “important” subscriptions.
This is why email marketing can be hard, and this is why it is recommended to combine email marketing – if any! – with promoting your own business via social media accounts.
While reading emails can often feel like work, scrolling through the social media news feed feels like play.
As a result, people are more positive about promotional posts they meet on social media than in their emails. In social media newsfeeds, they are aware this is a promotion post or an ad and have no problem just scrolling past it, but on a bad day, a poorly written promotional email can appear in the wrong place at the wrong time and lead to hitting “unsubscribe”.
Social media, in their turn, may be even harder to master and demand lots of effort and attention but they also give more opportunities for the business owner. And the exposure possibilities are way higher.
So, summarizing all the above said, newsletters as a marketing tool are still alive but it is better to not rely on them as the only tool.
