If you are looking to increase the number of quality leads for your business, look no further than the email.

Email is one of the best ways to gain qualified leads for your business. Not only does it allow you to build a list of people who actually want to engage with your business, but it also allows you to maintain a relationship with those potential buyers.

Yes, SEO, content, and social media are all important factors in bringing your audience to your website. But even when they do get to your website, most leave within 6 seconds, never to return. Even if they do look at your web content, they aren’t likely to buy right away. Only 1-2% of those visitors will convert into sales.

However, building an email list allows you to take those visitors and convert them into loyal customers.

Here are the top five reasons why email generates more leads for your business.

Email is the most direct way to reach your audience

Email is possibly the best way to reach your audience directly. Even though social media and display advertising have had a huge rise in internet marketing recently, there are more people using email.

In Radicati’s research, over 3.7 billion people use emails worldwide and that number is continuing to grow.

But it also allows you to build an ongoing relationship with your audience. Most consumers need 6-20 “touches” with a business before they trust the company enough to buy from them. Email allows your business to create those interactions with little commitment from your audience. That encourages them to get to know your business without feeling like they are being sold to so that by the time you promote your products to them, the audience trusts your business and is eager to buy.

A personalized experience

Because the customer goes through a series of different reactions in the buying experience, the intelligent business will customize the interactions with the audience based on where they are in the buying process. Each stage requires different marketing strategies and automated email campaigns can allow you to reach the different audiences easily.

Through personalized email drip campaigns, or automated emails, you can personalize your emails so the audience feels as though you are speaking directly to them. This list segmentation allows you to meet the different types of customers and their needs directly.

This way, your lead doesn’t feel rushed to buy. Instead, they feel as if your business understands their needs and issues as well as their hopes and dreams. When they feel understood, they are more likely to perceive your product as the solution they need.

High ROI

According to 89% of the B2C companies, email is still one of the most important aspects of customer information they can get. It is one of the most effective digital marketing methods and has nearly 5x the return on investment compared to social media, direct mail, and even paid traffic. It is even 40% more effective at acquiring qualified leads than social media, meaning the leads you get in your email list are much more likely to be loyal customers.

A customer return path

Email is also a great way to keep your customer engaged with your business even after they buy from you, creating customers that have high long term value for your business.

When done well, the email campaigns provide enough useful information and entertainment to keep your audience coming back and reconnecting with your brand. This creates the opportunity for them to purchase your upsells, cross sells and other promotions.

Each time your customer fails to take the desired action, you can redirect them and target them with specific messages to encourage them to take the next step in your sales funnel.

Tracking what works and what doesn’t Email also allows you to track what is working in your email funnel and what isn’t.

If you know that a certain call to action or series of emails have high click through rates or conversion rates, you can continue using it.

If you notice that some of your emails aren’t performing as well, you can retarget the copywriting to see what works better.

You can also do split testing in your email drip campaign to measure a variation funnel against a control that will allow you to increase your conversion rates.

Email marketing is one of the best digital strategies a business can have in their marketing arsenal to create qualified leads. Not only does it allow you to build a relationship with your audience, but it allows your business to continuously re-engage them through content to ensure they will be high value customers.