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Gone are the days when CMOs spent their time solely buried in strategy decks and spreadsheets. Today’s CMOs are tasked with driving tangible and measurable progress toward business objectives, and they need to do it quickly. This demands not only strategic vision but also a keen understanding of how each marketing channel operates and how to assemble teams to effectively manage these channels.

Enter email – the unsung hero of marketing. Despite being declared dead and back to life more times than Elvis, email marketing continues to survive and thrive. Here are five reasons why it remains an indispensable tool:

1. Email is the Perfect Canvas for Your Brand’s Story
Email provides a unique opportunity to tell your brand’s story in a personalized and engaging way. It’s not exactly long-form, it’s not quite short-form either – which perfectly positions it to engage creatively, entertain, educate (or both!) with content, while also driving to a clear call to action or point of conversion. Whether showcasing new products, sharing customer success stories, or delivering exclusive content, email allows you to create a narrative that reinforces your brand identity and drives toward those KPIs.

2. Email is a Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Neutralizing Channel
Unlike other marketing channels that may require significant investment to acquire new customers, email marketing can be a cost-effective way to engage with your existing audience and nurture relationships over time. In fact, according to Litmus, email generates $42 for every $1 spent – that’s a 4,200% ROI. By leveraging your email list, you can reach out to potential customers who have already shown interest in your brand, making it a highly targeted and efficient channel for driving conversions. It’s also a low-cost channel for testing messaging to understand what resonates the most.

3. Email is Your Gateway to Retention
While acquiring new customers is essential for growth, retaining existing customers is what makes ‘forever brands’. Email marketing plays a crucial role in nurturing customer relationships and fostering loyalty. From engaging newsletters and personalized promotions and loyalty rewards to post-purchase follow-ups and customer feedback surveys, email allows you to stay top of mind with your audience throughout their journey, increasing the likelihood of repeat business and referrals.

4. Email Can Be Automated
One of the most significant advantages of email marketing is its ability to be automated. And what’s even better is there are many marketer-friendly email service providers (like Klaviyo, Iterable, and Sendlane to name a few) that put automation within reach even without a team of full-stack engineers. All stages of businesses can benefit from automated campaigns based on specific actions or behaviors, such as welcome emails for new subscribers, abandoned cart reminders, or re-engagement campaigns for inactive subscribers. And once your list is growing at a fast clip, testing in your triggered program can squeeze significant gains out of your list. Automation saves time and resources and ensures timely and relevant communication with your audience.

5. Email is Highly Visible!
Your boss sees it, your boss’s boss sees it, and beyond. If you don’t agree, try sending your CEO an email with a typo in the subject line or a broken link and see how quickly you get feedback! Email is a highly visible channel that frequently catches the eye of senior leadership and can even contribute to building culture within your organization. An email sent to customers often represents the collective effort of many team members, so make your team proud by sending only exceptional emails.

How to Assess the State of Your Current Email Program
Before diving into any changes or improvements, it’s essential to evaluate the effectiveness of your current email program as a whole. It’s easy to get caught up in reacting to one-off ideas and feedback, but this approach generally won’t move the needle in a way that satisfies all stakeholders.

Annual comprehensive audits of your email content, design, segmentation strategies, and automation workflows are crucial. This involves analyzing key metrics such as audience growth, click-through rates, conversion rates, revenue, and subscriber engagement compared to industry benchmarks, as well as your historical performance and the relative performance of other channels.

Additionally, consider seeking the expertise of fractional experts. They are a valuable resource for fresh perspectives that cut through clutter and internal bias to prioritize impact more efficiently.

Building Your Organization Around Retention
Building or restructuring your organization around retention requires a holistic approach that involves cross-functional collaboration and alignment. Start by identifying key stakeholders from various departments, including marketing, customer service, product development, and data analytics.

Collaborate on developing a unified retention strategy that prioritizes customer experience, personalization, continuous improvement, and most importantly, aligns on goals and success measures. Then, invest in the necessary resources, technology, and talent to execute your retention initiatives effectively, and regularly monitor and measure the impact of your efforts to ensure ongoing success. Communication is key – retention metrics don’t change overnight, so keeping teams apprised of learnings and progress is critical to maintaining momentum.

By recognizing the power and potential of email marketing, CMOs can strengthen their connection to the customer and drive measurable growth!

About the Author
Loretta Doria is a fractional head of marketing with extensive CRM expertise, focusing on early-stage high-growth businesses in e-commerce, fashion, beauty, health, and wellness, among other sectors. With a track record of working with category-defining brands like Birchbox, Pura Vida Bracelets, Function of Beauty, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and Doubleday, she has been called “startup whisperer” and “chief cat herder.”

About RevelOne
RevelOne is a leading go-to-market advisory and recruiting firm. We help hundreds of VC/PE-backed companies each year leverage the right resources to achieve more profitable growth. We do 250+ retained searches a year in Marketing and Sales roles from C-level on down for some of the most recognized names in tech. In addition to our Search Practice, our Interim Expert Network includes 200+ vetted expert contractors – executive-level leaders and head-of/director-level functional experts – available for interim or fractional engagements. For help in any of these areas, contct us.

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