What is an email address?
An email address is an online address — much like a phone number — that allows you to contact the owner of the address via various Internet Service Provider’s (Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) messaging services. In today’s world, an email address is a bit like a person’s online phone number — most people will only give it away to those they trust most.
What makes an email address so valuable?
Email addresses are a remarkably powerful online marketing tool for businesses for three primary reasons.
First of all, 90% of people in the U.S. sent at least one email per month in 2015. This means that almost everyone has an email address and they regularly look at their inboxes. Contacting leads and prospects is hard enough for most businesses, which is partly what makes email such a fundamental marketing medium in today’s world — if you want to contact someone, then email is one of the best ways to do it.
Second, the ROI on email is significantly better than most other marketing platforms. In fact, for every $1 spent, email generates an average of $40 (VS. $7 for catalogs, $22 for SEO, $219 for display ads, $11 for mobile, $17 for keyword ads, and $2 for banner ads):
Third, email marketing results and interactions are less controlled by third-party businesses than most other online communication platforms (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc). While YouTube, for example, reserves the right to ban any user for practically any reason, an email list is safe from the opinions of companies like YouTube.
In other words, an email list is yours, not someone else’s. And it’s an asset that can be monetized well into the future.
Of course, there are regulations that you must follow when using an ESP (Email Service Provider), but they are much less strict and foreboding than that of other messaging platforms.
The following parts of this series will help you determine the monetary value of an email address.