Email marketing can seem outdated. The world of digital marketing is constantly changing, offering up new possibilities to promote your business and grow your brand.
But these shiny new toys are not always better than the strategies they’re meant to replace. Email marketing, it turns out, is still powerful, and should be a significant part of your marketing strategy in 2017 and beyond.
Stats Don’t Lie: Email Marketing (Still) Works
The average internet user now receives more than 100 messages in their email inbox. Does it really make sense for your business to spend resources on adding yet another message to that already crowded field?
It certainly does. Again and again, business look to move to newer strategies to grow brand awareness. But again and again, they return to email as a crucial way to reach potential and current customers.
That’s because of the undeniable, tangible return on the investment of email marketing. The Direct Marketing Association, for example, found that each dollar spend will result in an average $38 return. For those counting, that’s an ROI Of 3,800. And that number is not declining, either; in fact, it’s almost double that reported just a few years earlier.
The Dangers of Isolation
The above numbers may have you running to your email client. After all, email marketing is not only successful, it also ranks among the easiest marketing tactics to execute. Signing up for the right software is easy, as is designing a message to send.
But wait: simply sending mass emails is far from advisable. The easiest way to get caught in a spam folder is to simply send a mass email to every address you can find. Email marketing works, but only if you can integrate it into a larger digital and content strategy.
How to Email Marketing Into Your Digital Strategy
Your first step should always be to consider your audience. Your recipients, in fact, will make or break the success of your email efforts. Send it to the right people, and your chances of getting great open, click-through and conversion rates skyrocket. Send it to the wrong audience, and you may not just fail to achieve that – your sender address could actually be blacklisted.
As we’ve highlighted in the past, you should only send emails to recipients who have actually agreed to hear from you. That may sound obvious, but the plethora of list-buying services still available make simply buying the addresses of members of your target audience tempting. Instead, focus on organically generating leads that you can reach more reliably.
Even if your database consists only of organic leads, make sure you don’t send mass emails, but segment them into relatively homogenous groups. Then, design and write messages of particular, tangible value to that group.
Nobody wants to receive the 10th email promising a great product. But if you can actually provide valuable advice, or another reason for your recipients to want to learn more, you will get the opens, clicks, and conversions you need to succeed.
Finally, ensure consistency throughout your marketing efforts. The best use of email marketing is lead nurturing, using emails to slowly nudge leads toward the sale. By sending regular (but not too regular) emails that grow your credibility and build on the marketing messages you push out through other channels, your chances of getting the results you’re looking for increase dramatically.
Line up your subject line with both your web content and the content of the email. Link from social media to email sign ups, and vice versa. Communicate the same core value proposition throughout your various marketing channels, including email.
Don’t shy away from email marketing simply because it’s been around for a while. Instead, use the established best practices of the medium to maximize your success, and enhance the rest of your marketing efforts. The popularity and success of email marketing won’t soon subside, and integrating it into your digital strategy remains a reliable formula for positive ROI.
Call us today, for more information on how we can help you grow your business at Small Dog Creative 661-702-1310!
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