Gmail currently has over a BILLION active users and that number is still growing. With stats like that, email is definitely not a relic of the past. It remains an incredible way to reach current and potential customers. Besides contacting the people on your email list, you can also tempt them to share your emails with their friends. Because of this, email is a great way to spread brand awareness.

Once you begin using an email list, you can start to segment active users by their interests and other factors. For instance, if you have an email campaign that introduces 3 new products and there’s a link for each one — you can add tags to each reader for each link that they click on. You’ll then have 3 targeted segments, one for each new product, that you can send followup emails to. This allows you to be more effective by only focusing on the people who initially showed an interest. That’s efficiency and that’s the power of email marketing.

Well-crafted emails can keep customers informed and make them feel valued. Emails with special offers make the recipients feel, well, special. As long as you are giving them valuable information that’s worth reading, you will continue to grow trust. It’s also important to note that as mobile use continues to rise, your customers are almost always within reach. Most people check their emails throughout they day no matter where they are, so you have the ability to reach them in real-time.

Besides having the ability to segment and target, email marketing tools offer the ability to track tons of data about the campaign. You can track things like delivery rates, open rates, unsubscribes, complaints, bounce rates, click-through rates, and so much more. This data allows you to tweak and improve your future campaigns — with the goal of increasing engagement.

Besides being an incredibly powerful tool that is easy to target and simple to measure, email marketing is also very inexpensive. It allows businesses to reach a large number of customers (and potential customers) quickly and easily. Email may be an old tool, but it is still one of the most effective and affordable marketing tactics available.