Email Marketing Still Works
Marketing Mondays with Marci B.
The popularity of social media has caused some businesses to abandon email as part of the marketing strategy. While social media is a great way to communicate with customers and build your brand, email offers unique opportunities to develop customer relationships. Below are some of the benefits of email marketing and elements of a successful email.
Here are a few reasons why email is still an effective marketing tool.
- Customer Relationship Management
Email software gives you the ability to collect information on your prospects and customers. Depending on what software you use, you can collect details such as contact information and product preferences. - Segmentation
Information obtained from CRM efforts give you the ability to segment your customer base. Most business owners have customer that vary in age, gender, location and other demographics. These details can have an impact on what products customers prefer. Segmentation gives you an opportunity to have more specific conversations with your customers via email, and only share content that is relevant to their needs. - Integration
Most software platforms give you the ability to integrate a subscribe link within your website, social media, mobile applications, QR codes and other lead generation platforms. The email subscribe call-to-action can be used independently or a requirement for customers to access information such as e-books and webinars. - SEO Friendly
You can create a HTML version of your email, which allows you to publish the email as a webpage. The web page makes all content within your email scannable by search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. Keywords from headers will also be used by search engines, so consider your keyword strategy when creating all titles, subtitles and headings. - Multimedia
Pictures and video are quick ways to capture a reader's attention. You have the flexibility to embed the media or provide hyperlinks for viewing in a separate place. If you embed the media, it will show or play within the email. Providing a hyperlink will cause the customer to leave the email. If you provide a hyperlink, it would benefit you most if the video was connected to a sales tool such as your website or social media.
Here are a few elements of a successful email:
- Use email software
Although a regular server such as Gmail or Outlook is good for individual emails, email software is the standard for communicating with customers for promotional or educational purposes. Email software gives customers the ability to unsubscribe, and gives you better protection against spam accusations from customers. As mentioned above, email software also gives you an opportunity to acquire additional customer details that can be used for segmentation. - Begin with the end in mind
What is the purpose of your email? Are you educating or promoting? Where do you want them to end up? The answers to these questions will determine your message, imagery and calls-to-action. You want to put the most important information in the top half of the email. - The email subject is your introduction
Readers have a short attention span and they are constantly bombarded with email. Make yours stand out from the rest by creating curiosity, a sense of loss or even providing humor to get your customer's attention.
For more information on developing an email marketing strategy, contact Marci B. Marketing & Management at
248-838-9458 or marci@marcibmarketing.com.
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Webinars offer business owners an opportunity to interactively engage with many customers at once, which saves plenty of time on individual consults. You also have the ability to host a Q&A session where prospects can answer questions that can be applicable to other webinar attendees.
A strong digital footprint is a great way to attract attention to your business. Although social media presence is good, it is important to have a website when establishing credibility as a business. Here are a few web design fundamentals to consider when creating or updating your website.
Creating marketing messaging should make a business owner wonder what their customers would do, and it is essential to have the answers before heavily investing in ads.
Consider the different types of customers you have or want, and how their needs for your product may differ.
Creating buyer personas and tailoring messages to each customer segment will help you increase conversions, reduce churn and increase brand loyalty.
Despite many options for digital marketing, email remains a fundamental part of any campaign. Email marketing is one of the easiest ways to get your content directly to traffic you own,
whether your message is promotional or conversational. You can easily share information such as corporate updates, sales, product launches, free downloads and more.
Key Performance Indicators are aligned with high-level business goals, ensuring that marketing efforts contribute to overall business success. In order to have proper marketing KPI, you should also have a business plan, as it is the main reference point for indications of marketing KPI.
Every business owner has to invest to acquire new customers. Maximize your opportunity to interact with excited customers who already have their credit cards in hand. Recommend other products to enhance your customer's buying journey and increase your return on investment for customer acquisition costs by upselling customers with impulse buying.
Many companies spend money on advertising but fail to benefit from a profitable return on their investment. They lose prospective customers when they fail to provide a funnel for nurturing leads. The two biggest pitfalls for an advertising campaign are tracking results and converting leads. Landing pages give customer more information specific to their promotion of interest and capture customer information.
Today's customers are bombarded with marketing messages all day, every day. They have learned to easily tune out traditional advertising such as radio and television by changing the station or choosing commercial-free stations. In
a digital age where everyone wants information at their fingertips but no one actually wants to be "sold", how does the business owner connect to an audience to give them information on demand without being "salesy"?
Marketing and advertising are terms that get easily confused or misunderstood.
Advertising is an element of marketing, but it does not encompass how broad marketing can be.
A common mistake is developing a marketing plan that only consists of advertising. A true marketing strategy impacts many departments including product development, research, sales, customer service, operations and more.
Traditionally, creating an ad for television costs customers thousands of dollars for production and distribution. Cable providers and streaming sites are offering customers the option to remove or fast-forward commercials. Mobile devices, tablets, and the growing popularity of new media has given business owners the unique opportunity to produce distribute video for little to no cost. Technology, editing software and video-based websites have made it easier than ever for businesses to create and share videos. According to HubSpot.com : 2016 saw a surge in the popularity of video as a content marketing format. From 360-degree videos to Facebook Live , marketers are responding to audiences' shorter attention spans by making content more interactive and visual -- and it's paying off. Video is growing to dominate your audience's online activity: 78% of people watch videos online every week, and 55% watch videos online every day. If you don't already have a video marketing strategy in place for your website and social media, you're missing a tremendous opportunity to reach and engage with your audience. Consumers are bombarded with marketing messages all day long, and as a result have become increasingly impatient when it comes to advertising. Videos are a quick way to share lots of information. They let you communicate through words, images and motion all at once. You can even include typography and imagery to insert things like websites and logos. According to Dan Griego with Video Editing Sage , there are five main uses for video. Corporate Webinars Company Culture Videos Event Videos Video PowerPoint Presentations Sales and Marketing Online Marketing Videos Promotional Videos Testimonial Videos Giveaways Videos Product Videos Information Training Videos Video Tips Series Animated Explainer Videos Educational Videos Entertainment Music Videos Travel Videos Documentary Videos Legacy Videos News Digital (Online) Journalism videos Interview Videos Video PSAs (Public Service Announcements) Here are a few different styles of video to consider: Animation: Uses illustrations and special effects. Often used for corporate branding, entertainment or information. Presentation: Uses presentation software such as PowerPoint for creation. Often used for education, sales and news. Photo Collage: Uses photographs with transitions and narrations. Often used for entertainment and news. Motion Picture: Uses video footage to create video, may include narration and photographs. Most used style of video. For more information on how to integrate video into your marketing strategy, contact Marci B. Marketing & Management at 248-838-9458 or marci@marcibmarketing.com Further reading: http://www.videoeditingsage.com/types-of-video-productions.html https://blog.hubspot.com/ marketing /2017-year-of- video - marketing http://www.huffingtonpost.com/swati-joshi/why- video - marketing -is-th_b_9230342.html https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/02/03/ video - marketing -the-future-of-content- marketing /#6e0422c86b53 https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/5-secrets-super-successful- video - marketing https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajagrawal/2017/02/01/lights-camera-engagement-2017-is-the-year-of- video - marketing /#692848832315 https://www.wirebuzz.com/video-marketing-trends-2017/ https://www.martechadvisor.com/articles/ video - marketing -ads/4-predictions-for- video - marketing -in-2017/ https://blog.bufferapp.com/video-marketing http://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/7-video-marketing-trends-2017-and-what-they-mean-you
