Email marketing lets you connect to potential and existing customers directly, and can help you to possibly yield a high return of investment. As a matter of fact, some email marketing experts agree that you can earn up to $44 for every dollar you spend in email marketing. With these high revenues, those who are interested in this line of work usually ask, “How to charge for email marketing?”
How Much Email Marketing Cost
Since email marketing makes it easy for business owners and affiliate marketers to make a sale and boost their annual revenue, it is okay to charge accordingly. After all, they will be using your smart approach, software, creative ideas, and your own effort to be able to turn those emails into revenues.
You can propose your email marketing plan as a way to:
- Improve brand recognition
- Encourage new customers and retain repeat customers
- Build a brand-loyal audience who want to hear from the company regularly
So, how much should you charge for email marketing? On average, a medium-sized business could spend at least nine dollars to as much as a thousand dollars per month if they manage their own email campaign. In case they plan to work with an agency, they can expect to spend about $300 to $500 a month.
Why Is Email Marketing Important
A well-composed email marketing message can help remind new, existing, and potential customers to visit the company’s website. By doing so, you can offer them incentives like discounts and coupons. Being able to execute a good email campaign successfully can guarantee customer retention as well as build trust and a relationship between the company and the customers.
By keeping in touch with the customers, the business will be the first that comes into the customer’s mind. This can help your existing and potential customers to choose you once they are ready to make a purchase.
Most marketers spend less on email marketing, but it is advisable to dedicate at least 16% of the company’s marketing budget to email marketing. The budget you allocate generally depends on several factors, including:
- The company’s annual revenue
- Percentage of online-generated revenue
- The type of industry the business is in
- The products and services sold
- Overall marketing goals of the business
In the long run, the company may need to allocate a budget that suits its goals. Nevertheless, email marketing, regardless of how much it costs, is comparatively more cost-effective than other marketing strategies.
In addition, it can generate incredibly high revenues for just a little money spent. Hence, email marketing is a great way for a company to reach more customers.
How to Charge for Email Marketing
Here are a number of factors that affect how much email marketing may cost:
1. Quality of Email List
If the company’s email list consists mainly of inactive subscribers, you may need to clean it up to generate better email campaign results. There are tools that you can use to help you identify inactive subscribers and useless email addresses.
If this is the case, you may charge an additional $0.01 per email address or $1,000 per 100,000 email addresses to clean up. Maintaining a high-quality email list is important to guarantee your emails get to the right persons.
2. How Complex the Email Design Is
You may charge higher for emails with customized or intricate designs. Most of the time, designing custom emails can be charged per hour or at a fixed rate. Keep in mind that the more complex the email design is, the higher price you must demand from the client.
3. Number of Triggered Emails and Programs Used
Even if automated email programs are used, monitoring, managing, and optimizing are still required. You must make sure to evaluate the program’s performance and make necessary updates.
Over time, programs that automate emails may need less time and effort than newsletters that you produce regularly. However, setting up an automated email takes longer.
4. Number of Supported Countries and Languages
Many companies require emails to be in multiple languages because of a possible international market. While there are solutions that can manage email distribution across many countries, ensuring the quality of emails is crucial. In addition, the company must make sure that each language goes to the correct market; thus, increasing the professional services needed.
5. Frequency of Campaigns
The amount you charge for email marketing also depends on the frequency of the campaigns. Typically, this will be a per-recipient rate multiplied by the number of times you email them in a month.
For example, the mailing list has 100,000 subscribers and the client wants you to send one newsletter per week. If the agreed distribution cost is $0.04 per email address, that is $16,000 a month. The cost of email distribution declines as the number of frequency of emails declines.
6. Number of Client Stakeholders
In terms of marketing, the more stakeholders the company has, the more approvals needed to be able to start a certain campaign. Hence, it will take more time for the email campaign to finalize.
When multiple stakeholders are involved, you need to do additional tasks like coordinating their inputs and changes. If this is the case, you may want to include additional charges in a per hour basis.
7. Email Marketing Platform
The cost of email marketing also depends on the platform you use. Here are some of the most common email marketing platforms plus their average cost per month:
- Constant Contact: starts at $20 a month
- Campaign Monitor: starts at $9 a month to $759/month
- MailChimp: FREE to $199 a month
- Get response: $15 to $999 a month
- ActiveCampaign: as low as $9 a month
- Salesforce Pardot: starts at $1,000 a month
- InfusionSoft: starts at $199 a month
There are many other available email platforms and using one has its own benefits and disadvantages. Doing thorough research will help you decide which is the best choice for your client.
Conclusion
Businesses usually find email campaigns to be a daunting task, and this is where you can enter as an email marketer. You can help them create emails and send them to their existing and prospective clients.
So, how to charge for email marketing? Most email marketers charge a monthly fee for their services. Plus, you may also charge additional fees if the client asks you to send large volumes of emails per month. So, on top of your monthly charge, you may also charge a per-recipient rate.