What’s the most powerful tool you have in your day-to-day marketing work?

Would you say it’s your computer? Or maybe your phone? Perhaps your sales and marketing teams use a great project management software that makes everything just a whole lot easier. Or, maybe you’re a diehard e-commerce evangelist, and you’re always singing the praises of Shopify.

Well, we’re going with something else: your email list.

The email list offers so much pure marketing goodness that it’s really hard to overstate how useful it can be to your work. But frankly, you may be underutilizing it—or at least under appreciating it.

Whether you agree with our view that a well-maintained email list can offer almost unlimited potential to your business—or not—we hope you’ll give us a few minutes and hear us out. We know we may not replace your love of Spotify or that nifty CRM your team just switched over to, but we’ll give it the old college try. Because your email list (and your sales!) deserve it.

We’re going to walk you through a few reasons why an email list can be a marketer’s best friend and how they can help grow your numbers.

3 Advantages of an Email List

As you probably know, email lists carry a range of benefits that can really aid your marketing efforts. But some of these advantages are distinct from other direct response methods like social or media buying.

1. The ROI Is Unreal

One reason we’ve been thinking about email lists a lot lately? Their ROI is unreal! Seriously, for the cost that goes into growing and sustaining an email list, it richly rewards the effort. 

According to Hubspot, as of 2020, email generates $38 for every $1 spent. That’s an ROI of 3,800%.

In terms of maximizing your dollars, you really can’t do much better than an average return of nearly 40x your investment. And that’s because email lists are cheap to maintain. As opposed to, say, running Google Ads, you don’t have to pay to play each and every time. Once a user has provided you with their email address, you can get right to work. And you may not have to put any money into capturing that user’s email in the first place!

Of course, there are costs associated with email. Aside from hours spent on copywriting and editing, scheduling emails, and managing subscriptions, you may also run related ad campaigns and drive users to sign up. But these are priced in. So if email marketing makes sense for your business, you may want to remember that 3,800% ROI figure before you pass it over.

2. It’s Steady and Stable

One reason many marketers tend to overlook email is actually one of its biggest strengths: It’s kind of boring. Let us explain.

Email marketing has been a tried and true direct response marketing method since nearly the advent of email itself. Since then, the marketing world has seen the rise of blogs, podcasts, YouTube, social media, “pivot to video,” apps, and a lot more. Trends have come and gone, and what’s hot in marketing has flashed and fizzled. But through it all, email has remained steady. Perhaps “boring.” But always steady.

We’re not going to recommend you steer clear of that new fad or marketing trend. Some of them stick, and even when they don’t, they may provide your business with powerful new ways of connecting with new customers! But it’s important to reframe how you think about email—it’s always a good staple.

3. It Builds and Nurtures Relationships

In an ideal world, every direct response message you put out there would get a resounding response. Television viewers would read “buy now” and hurry to call. Your sales would triple in a week, and every week after that. As we all know, things work a bit differently here on Earth. 

Your first social ad may not be the one that gets a user to click, but it may help prime them for the next ad they see. Fortunately, things become a lot more personal when you utilize your email list. And with your email list, you have a captive audience with which you can build and nurture a relationship over the course of 5, 10, or 25 emails!

Email can bridge the gap between direct response marketing and branding. As you develop the relationship you have with those in your list, those email subscribers become more likely to convert into customers. So while the road may be long, it can often yield just the kind of relationship you hope to build with your customers in the long term.

It’s Time to Dust Off Your Email List

If email makes sense for your business, it may just be time to give it another look. Between its impressive ROI, its stability, and the opportunity it offers to those wanting to build relationships with potential customers, there’s a lot of upside just waiting to be taken advantage of.

So what are you waiting for? Dust off that email list and let’s get going!