Is email marketing in your digital advertising strategy? If not, it should be.
Engaging with your customers is really important in 2020. There are many digital marketing methods that allow you to do this effectively, from social media to content marketing. However, there’s one old mainstay that remains as or more effective than all the rest.
We’re talking about email marketing. As one of the oldest forms of digital advertising, email marketing has consistently been one of the best ways to appeal to your target audience, allowing businesses to find new customers and retain old ones.
The importance of email marketing cannot be understated, so that’s what we’ll be discussing in this post. First, we’ll discuss what email marketing is and how you do it, then go over 5 of the ways that an effective email marketing strategy can change your business for the better.
The digital marketing landscape is always changing, with new trends coming and going at a rapid pace, but email marketing remains steady. Here’s why.
In short, email marketing is when you use an email list of your current and prospective customers to do anything from showcasing new products to offering deals to building awareness around your brand. Unlike more traditional forms of advertising, it has a personal touch and has shown to be incredibly effective for small businesses.
As a relatively inexpensive form of advertising, email marketing has become a favorite for many entrepreneurs. However, as email clients have become more sophisticated at finding spam, many email marketing messages are sent to the junk or spam folder.
This has been problematic for companies that rely on email marketing. Frequently updating your email list and finding new ways to craft marketing messages allows you to combat these challenges, though. Like most other forms of digital marketing, you have to work on your email strategy to get through to customers.
When you get it right, it’s an invaluable advertising tool, which we’ll discuss next.
One of the best things about email marketing is its ability to keep you in touch with your current customers while you expand your reach. Finding your niche and target audience is one of the most difficult things to do as a business, so it’s a godsend to have a format that allows you to reach out to people on an individual level.
Well-timed and smartly-crafted email messages will keep your business at the forefront of your customers’ minds. Even if they don’t need what you’re offering right away, the fact that they’ve seen your name in their inbox will make you one of the first companies they think of when they do need what you offer.
A number of businesses offer deals to those that are on the email list or special promotions for signing up. This is extremely effective in growing your audience and creating a community around your brand.
Speaking of your brand, email marketing is actually really great for building brand recognition. As long as you’ve got a strong brand identity, that is. If you haven’t already built up your brand, you can do so by coming up with a logo, developing a voice, and using consistent color and graphics in your email messages.
You can use email alongside other digital marketing platforms like your social media accounts and your content strategy to become recognizable to your customers. When you have a good, consistent look to your emails, they’ll give your brand a little boost every time you send them out.
Unlike old-school marketing methods like direct mail or print advertising, email marketing isn’t expensive. The beauty of it is that emails are virtually free to craft and send out, but they often generate leads more effectively than any other marketing method.
Of course, building an email list and keeping on top of it will cost you some money, but it pales in comparison to most other digital marketing methods as well. The Direct Marketing Association even reports that the ROI on every dollar spent on email marketing is as much as $38.
You simply don’t see this kind of return with traditional marketing. If you have someone capable at the helm of your email list, you’ll see unbelievable financial benefits to this type of marketing.
Customers appreciate personalization, so with a personal touch in your emails, you can gain the trust of your audience. With that trust, you can use email to direct the right customers to the right products, link them to the content on your blog, and encourage them to follow you on social media.
When you get it right, your email marketing strategy can act as the conductor for your entire digital advertising plan. It’s the best way to reach out directly to your customers about things that they might be interested in.
As you grow your email list to encompass a larger number of customers, you have a greater responsibility to keep them all in the loop about what’s going on at your company. This might sound daunting, but it’s also a huge opportunity to boost your sales numbers.
The larger your email list, the more eyes, and ears you have on your business. If you’re doing email marketing right, then you’ll see that trickle into other areas of digital marketing as well. It’s an amazing opportunity to create a sense of community around your business and products.
Getting a true understanding of the importance of email marketing will help your business more than you know. Starting to build an email list might seem intimidating at the start. But you’ll see how it can grow exponentially when you put enough work into it.
You can try to do it all yourself, or you can consult the professionals. At Improz, we understand how important email marketing is in the grand scheme of your digital marketing strategy. Contact us today for a consultation.