In the advent of social media, with so many companies already having their own brands managed by social media marketers, is there still room for email marketing?
Apparently, there is. E-mail marketing has many distinct advantages that make a compelling case against other forms of brand awareness proliferation, even in the onslaught of the more popular social media presence.
Some of the reasons why email marketing is still a thing for a business are:
1. Sheer Volume
Although most people probably have Facebook and Twitter, some don’t. However, most people have e-mail addresses since they need an all-in-one correspondence to friends, families, business associates. It is said that email accounts make up at least three times as much as combined Facebook and Twitter users.
2. Email is still a personal medium of correspondence.
This is somewhat related to reason number since some people don’t have a Facebook or Twitter account, they shoot emails for correspondence. This makes a compelling case of email-targeted marketing, particularly for niche brands. Older people still prefer long, winding letters (hence, and email) over chat threads in most social media sites. In addition, most people still think that a Facebook chat is only for “too personal” one-on-one messages, not an all-around correspondence network. If some professional is interested in a business or a brand and wants to dig deeper, the Facebook chat thread will most likely end with, “Okay, e-mail me the details.”
3. Click rates are real in an email.
When you click on a hyperlink in an email message, the engagement takes you to the brand, product, or service page set up by the marketer. This means that engagement rates really drive traffic through the website. On the other hand, high engagement rates over social media may only be click rates in a general sense since the numbers will include the number of likes, shares, retweets, etc. which is not part of direct website traffic.
4. E-mail engagement has minimal fees.
There are some email campaign sites that offer minimal fees but still reach a wider audience; there are even some who may give out some “trial services” for free. Meanwhile, sponsored ads that will get you on top of Facebook notification feeds or Google Ad searches may cost a small fortune, particularly if engagement is a regular metrics.
5. Email is much more targeted.
If you send your promos, deals, and announcements to your email database, it is a much more targeted approach than blasting it on social media. With the way social media is set up, notifications and feeds get refreshed minutes – if not mere seconds – so even sponsored ads may not likely get long attention span from users. A catchy email subject, on the other hand, instantly hooks the reader into opening the rest of the message.
6. Real-time responses
An email message is read the second it is opened in the inbox. With a catchy subject, there is a higher chance of a real-time response from the reader compared with other forms of engagement. In direct mail marketing, for example, it will take you a lot of time to convey what you want in the targeted audience, since you used “snail mail.” Social media sites, on the other hand, offers bits and pieces of information so fast that notification feeds refresh in only minutes, and your sponsored ad is more likely to get lost in the information dump rather than being read.
7. More interactive
A message click in an email engagement campaign is more interactive than a share and like in a social media post. Potential clients often get pulled in with a higher conversion rate when the campaign is made more interactive with videos, surveys, quiz questions, and the like. An e-mail engagement can readily lay it all out in a single message, as opposed to the character-limited posts on social media.
8. An email message is ‘invasive.’
With the way inboxes are set up today, even unread messages directed to the spam folder get highlighted, and will not be deleted any time soon. If you have a catchy subject, there is a high chance for customer conversion, since the reader will most likely click it open. This is unlike social media posts that get covered up with up-to-the-minute, fresher information. Even if the post is a sponsored one, the message is still likely to be missed.
Make e-mail engagements work for you
There are tons of internet marketing specialists available, and even some of them maintain a huge online presence. However, a highly-visible internet campaign strategist doesn’t necessarily mean an effective one. How can you pick the right specialist to optimize your marketing campaigns and make email engagement truly work for you? Here are some of the ways.
- Be a regular. A once-in-a-blue-moon email blast will not work in optimizing your brand and establishing name recall with potential customers. View an email engagement as a continuous, lasting relationship with customers. With regular correspondence, you build rapport with your market base and engage them to purchase new product lineups, or remind them that they have paid for an item before and may need to re-order.
- Let emails establish your expertise. It may just be a “Did you know” email or a message on simple tips, but these types of messages also do their part. It makes people see you as a specialist in your field and establish your business expertise. This may even translate into word of mouth marketing, pulling other potential customers into the fold.
- Look for cost-effective specialists. Not every email marketing campaign are equal. There are factors to consider in an email engagement, and those that provide free to minimal services don’t necessarily translate to successful internet marketing campaigns. Often times, specialists with competitive prices and a number of internet-related services – not just focused on email marketing – offer cost-effective successes in the long run.
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