In this fast-paced digital age, where TikTok dances and Instagram reels dominate our feeds, you might wonder: Does anyone even read emails anymore?
If your inbox is overflowing with messages labeled “Urgent,” “Important,” and “Limited Time Offer”—it’s easy to think email marketing is as outdated as dial-up internet. But, before you hit the “unsubscribe” button on email marketing, let’s take a closer look at why this classic tool is still a powerhouse.
According to a 2024 report by the Data & Marketing Association (DMA), email marketing continues to deliver impressive results:
- Return on investment: Email marketing boasts an average ROI of $42 for every $1 spent.
- Read rates: Email open rates for the financial industry have remained steady at around 26% in 2024. While not every email gets opened, this is still a consistently strong and reliable channel to reach your target audiences.
But how do you make sure your message stands out in a crowded inbox? Email marketing gives you the flexibility to fine-tune your audience and strategy, to stay relevant and achieve various goals. Here are some effective ways to use it:
- Personalize product marketing: Email is especially good for segmented messaging, serving the right message to the right list. Paired with marketing automation, the investment in understanding and refining targeted communications can really pay off. For example, Oregon-based credit union Embold saw a 7X increase in the performance of their HELOC emails by deploying a set of 4 hyper-targeted and personalized email journeys. In one year they went from attracting under 25 HELOC loans to generating 162 total loans (and $35 million in new balances) with email.
- Elevate existing relationships: In addition to CTA-based product emails, regular, informative emails help build trust and keep your credit union top-of-mind. Monthly newsletters featuring market insights or personalized financial advice can position your credit union as a trusted partner.
- Acquire new members: You can send offers based on segmentation, user behavior, demographics, and past interactions—expanding your reach to people who actually want to hear from you.
Email marketing remains a dependable, effective, and cost-efficient tool. It’s also a highly measurable channel that allows you to experiment with different messages and offers, and different audiences, to better understand what resonates and moves the needle for your credit union. Those ready to take it to the next level of measuring email impact are even able to track and attribute additional unrelated products opened by email recipients with the right data platform to support these insights.
So, while you’re planning your 2025 marketing strategy, don’t forget to include email as a vital part of your digital ecosystem—and then make sure you are finding new ways to make this classic tool work even harder for your credit union.
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