Many business owners and marketers assume that email marketing is somewhere in the hemisphere of door-to-door salesmen – long gone and inefficient. With social media continuing to soar in popularity and use, and new advertising opportunities offering great ways to connect with your audience on these channels, why should you bother with creating time-consuming email campaigns?

What if I were to tell you that email marketing actually boosts productivity? What if I told you that it keeps you connected with your customers better than almost anything else? And what if I told you it reduces the time it takes to make a sale? Here are three ways email marketing can help you (and your business) stay organized, keep connected, and get more customers:

Email marketing helps you stay organized through automation.
Organization is the key to any successful business. Contrary to what you may think, staying organized is easy when you utilize an email marketing automation program. Simply spend a little time in the beginning creating your campaign, designing the emails, and setting up when each of the emails are triggered, then sit back and watch the magic happen…automatically.

Worried about a lack of personalization? Don’t be. Even with automation, personalization is possible – and crucial. Personalization is more important now than ever before, so be sure you work it into your automated campaigns. Email marketing automation helps you strategize and create personal connections, thus increasing campaign open rates and your own productivity.

It keeps you connected to your target audience.
While social media is all the rage, there is little you can do to really personalize your posts, content, and communication. More importantly, as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ continually optimize the way information is served up to users, you can bet that the amount of people that will see your content will continue to decrease. While you work to optimize the content you post to your social media accounts, try staying connected with your customers by sending them relevant information and topics they may be interested in via email.

It’s important to know that social media and email marketing are two completely different animals. We might encourage you to post something great every day to your Facebook page, but you’ll never hear us recommend you send emails more than once or twice a month. Staying connected with your customers via email starts with your respect for their privacy. For your email marketing strategy, focus on creating and nurturing valuable relationships first.

It eases the process of conversion.
The easier it is for someone to take the step you want them to take – whether that’s filling out a survey, downloading an eBook, or purchasing a product – the more likely he is to take it. Email marketing is the perfect avenue for asking your readers to take that leap of faith. They’ve just read something of interest and value to them, they’ve come to trust you, and now they’re more willing to complete the buying process. And what easier way than by clicking a link in an email they’re already reading? By making the process simpler for potential customers, it also makes the process simpler for you.

Think about this: People that subscribe to receive personal, relevant, and interesting emails from brands they know and trust are ten times more likely to take an action from their inbox than they are from their news feeds.