For most small businesses, marketing budgets are tight and there is a constant need to prioritize. It's necessary to ask yourself what the most efficient way is to communicate with your customers or target market.

Social media and SEO have their merits, of course, and any successful business needs to utilize those tools as much as they can. However, the one medium that allows you to be directly in touch with your customers is the humble email.

With 4 billion accounts and rising worldwide, email has proven to be a powerful marketing tool for businesses around the world. It's the one area of communications where businesses can retain total control over their message and interactions.

We've put together an infographic to show some of the facts and figures behind emails as well as lay out some strategies to help your business:

As you can see, there are a number of innovative ways we can use emails to boost revenue for your business. The ROI of $44 for every $1 spent is higher than any other form of communication including social media.

Here is what a well-organized, personalized email program achieves for your business:

  • Reach: Where else can you send to a potential database of 4 billion accounts?
  • Subscribers: Most of the time, people sign up to your list because they want to hear from you.
  • Conversion: On ROI, no other medium beats the email. For engagement and establishing trust with customers, email comes out on top, too.

Segmenting your list will give you the ability to personalize emails to by keeping the content relevant to them. You can do this by interest, age and location among many other metrics.

After 45 years — incredibly, the first email was sent in 1971 email is still going strong. Following these tips will help your business take advantage.