Reports of the Death of Email Marketing Have Been Exaggerated

Even though the boom in digital marketing is often attributed to improvements in web and social media tools, email marketing - - the backbone of online business for a generation now - - is alive and well. Per DMR, “Email marketing has spanned the various stages of digital marketing evolution and is still growing stronger than ever.” As email users and platforms have become more sophisticated, so have the fertile minds of marketing experts.  
 
Back in the old days, email was such a novel medium that users read everything that came into their inboxes, which was a gold mine for marketers.  Now that practically all aspects of human life involve email, savvy users delete more messages than they read, and are careful who has their email addresses.  Their email software helps them by pulling messages that look like marketing directly into a "Junk" folder. These two major developments have led some people to steer away from email marketing--but they're making a mistake. Here are two key ways to make an impact in this brave new world of email.

Bring your audience to you.  Use inbound marketing techniques to persuade your customers to engage with you based on the content you provide on your website or social media, whether it's blogs like this one, links to research and related resources, humor, analysis or reviews.  When they are interested enough to give you their email addresses, you can personalize your outgoing emails based on what content they focused on during their visit to your site/page.

Get creative with your message. Since inbound marketing is about appealing to the customer prior to engagement rather than making a sale, your follow-up emails need to keep the momentum going. If you are emailing customers who enjoyed the side-by-side reviews on your website, save a couple to add to your outbound emails.  If you are reaching out to individuals who wanted to know more about the specs of your product, don't just send them the link to a specs list; create an infographic that shows the advantages of each spec. category in an easy-to-remember visual format.

Email marketing has shifted from the primary outreach tool to the follow-up, the "hook" that transforms an interested web or social media viewer to a potential customer. It's the outstretched hand of the relationship that you are trying to build. Let us know if you have any questions about how targeted, individualized email marketing can help your business.  By making it a seamless part of your overall digital marketing strategy, you can make email marketing work for you better than it ever has before.

NextStep Marketing Your Email Marketing Expert

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