An ever-increasing growth in the number of social media platforms has somewhat blurred our vision about what really works best in terms of reaching clients. But be NOT confused, good old primitive email is still an essential and arguably the most important feather to your bow.
When all is said and done, your email list is the ONLY platform, which isn’t on borrowed land. Your email is your database. Cherish it and build upon it.
Reaching your customers through email is also a more exact science compared to catching people’s attention on the sea of incoming posts on the likes of Twitter and Facebook.
People also approach email with a different mindset, one of obligation. Email is to do, whereas twitter feeds and other news feeds are about absorbing information.
To get sales via social networks you have to be at the right place at the right time. To get sales via search, customers have to seek you out. To get sales via email, all you have to do is use your direct, opted-in route right into their inbox.
The success in email marketing over recent years has led experts to predict that 2014 will continue to see email marketing grow and the growth in other social media platforms won’t stop this from happening.
It’s worth noting that at least 91% of consumers check their email EVERY day. Moreover, the 2013 eMarketer’s report revealed that a staggering one in three emails (sent in North America) were opened-the highest number in recent history.
Indeed global consulting company McKinsey reckon that email is a significantly more powerful acquisition channel than social media and interestingly, its efficacy is increasing versus that of organic search.
Of course you can also make use of your social media platforms to grow your email list. By engaging with your social media audience you can turn your followers into subscribers who’ll become long-term customers.
Marketers also need to be mindful of the increased use in mobile, which is affecting email performance as well. The eMarketer’s report found that as mobile continues to steal greater open rate share from the desktop, it’s affecting measures such as open rate, click through rate (CTR) and the best day to mail. However, data suggests mobile might not yet have as strong of an influence on business-to-business (B2B) emails, considering the majority of business-related communications continue to be opened on the desktop.
Companies are using marketing automation to drive greater email engagement via triggered messaging. And marketers that are feeding these automation platforms with consumer data and responsive design to create more personalized, targeted communications are seeing even greater gains.