Unlocking the power of email marketing for creative and purpose-led businesses

Email marketing. It can seem quite sweetly old-fashioned, especially against its younger, more jazzy cousin social media, but I'm here to show you just why it's such a powerful tool.

Because of the dominance in the last two decades of social media channels such as Instagram and Facebook, there's been lots of talk about how email marketing is dead. But this most definitely not the case. In fact, with concerns growing over the negative effects of social media (time wasting, privacy issues, people like Mark Zuckerberg showing himself to be a pretty horrible individual), email marketing is becoming even more powerful.

If you're running a creative or purpose-led business, you should definitely be including email marketing in your comms arsenal. As an experienced content writer for these industries, I've seen first-hand just how amazing email marketing can be, and what results can be achieved.

So let's dive in with some stats to show you just how great email marketing is, then take a look at why and how you can implement it for your creative or purpose-led business.

Some stats that show how brilliant email marketing is

• According to the Direct Marketing Association in 2023, the return on investment for email marketing is £42 for every £1 spent. That's 4,200%, compared with around 250% for social media marketing.

• According to a Royal Mail poll, 47% of UK customers had made a purchase as a consequence of a marketing email they received.

• According to an Adestra poll, 78% of UK marketers say email marketing is critical to their business strategy.

That ROI is insanely high -- I'll repeat it: £42 back for every £1 spent. Compared with the ROI from social media, it's an absolute no-brainer to start writing emails.

It's also interesting to see just how good the open rates are. With engagement constantly fluctuating on platforms such as Instagram, it's great to see that people are still engaged with emails. In fact, 85% of internet users in the UK actively send and receive emails weekly while 96% of users check their non-work email daily. So people opening your emails means they're one step closer to buying from you.

It definitely does take time and energy to set up your email list and then get into the groove of writing emails to send out, but these stats show it's totally worth it.

Social media vs email marketing for creative and purpose-led businesses

One of the biggest advantages to email marketing for creative and purpose-led businesses, in my opinion, is that you own your own email list and you're not at the mercy of big tech. If Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn disappeared tomorrow, you'd still have a way of getting in touch with people who are genuinely interested in what you're doing.

Another huge advantage is not being at the whim of social media algorithms. You'll pop straight into someone's inbox, and there's a very good chance they'll open up your email. (Personalising the email can really help with this, as can a catchy subject line and emojis. According to that same Adestra survey, personalised emails had a higher open rate of 29.3% in the UK than non-personalised emails at a 23.9% open rate.)

It really is a lovely feeling when someone actively signs up to receive your emails. They've opened up a warm, welcoming space where you can share information of value with them and know that they genuinely want to hear from you. I always do a little happy dance in my office whenever someone signs up to my mailing list!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating deleting all your social media accounts. But just as I believe harnessing SEO on your website to help drive organic traffic is much better than spending hours creating content for social media, email marketing is similar. The time, effort and money you put into it is very likely to yield better results than posting endless Stories or grid posts on Insta.

Getting started on email marketing for creative and purpose-led businesses

There are two things you need to start email marketing for your creative or purpose-led business: a list of people who want to hear from you, then high quality content to share with them.

Building your list will take time, as you'll need to entice people to sign up. A good way to do this is with a lead magnet -- a freebie people can get hold of in return for giving you their email address. A lead magnet can be absolutely anything you feel is of value to your audience, such as a downloadable how-to PDF, a short course or an e-book. (I offer a free website review -- and I'd love it if you'd sign up to mine!)

Another way to get people to sign up is to promote your list on your social media channels, on the basis that if people already follow you on Insta or Facebook, they'll likely be more amenable to getting emails from you.

One very important thing to note is that once you start handling people's data, you have to make sure you're complying with GDPR rules. It must be easy for people to unsubscribe from your mailing list at any time, and you'll also need a privacy policy on your website that details how you handle their private data. Check out this short guide to GDPR, and head to to the Independent Commissioner Office's website for more info on privacy policies. There's a free template on there you can use -- I used it for the privacy policy on this website, and it didn't take long to set everything up.

Once the basics are in place, the fun of sending emails starts! Consistency is key, so decide on the frequency you can manage, whether that's weekly, monthly or quarterly, then commit to this. You can also set up an automated sequence of emails that goes out once someone signs up, to help build interest and trust in your brand.

Use your email list to send out special offers, details on new courses, or simply share great content and stories. Email marketing is a great way to get right in front of a really engaged audience, so enjoy this opportunity and make the most of it!

Want to start email marketing but are a bit lost as to where to begin? I love writing this type of content so give me a shout if you want to talk more about unlocking the power of email marketing.