There is no doubt that access to the internet is responsible for the most radical transformation in the way business is conducted since the Industrial Revolution. Today, in most parts of the world, the Internet is taken for granted and is the backbone of communication, education, entertainment, and shopping.
According to global stats, there are 4.2 billion users connected to the net, accounting for 55% of the world’s population. A Statista report says that 87% of the population in America go online. In the younger age groups, the use of the internet is even more prevalent and expected to rise in the years to come.
Given the overwhelming dependence on digital technologies, it is hardly surprising that all marketers are beefing up their digital marketing strategies as fast as possible. The spending on digital marketing in America is projected to grow to $201 billion in 2023, indicating the importance given to it by businesses.
However, for digital marketing to be successful, businesses need to put in place an effective strategy that combines all the different channels available to marketers. Even though social media has taken the world by storm, it may surprise many marketers to learn that email marketing, unarguably among the oldest digital marketing channels, continues to rule the roost with its versatility and very high ROI.
This makes it imperative for digital marketers to leverage email marketing to the maximum extent even when social media allows for real-time engagement with the target audience.
Digital Marketing Tactics in Vogue
The goal of any digital marketing strategy, regardless of the sector, is to build brand awareness, reach out to new customers, retain existing customers, and drive sales and profitability. Even though digital marketing strategies can vary widely, the following tactics are generally employed:
Content marketing: Compelling, relevant, and useful content is the sole reason why users access online resources. Marketers can attract organic traffic via search engines to their websites for conversion. Google is especially sensitive to content that is original, contextual, informative, and current and tends to reward sites by pushing them up the page rankings.
Paid search and digital advertising: Because it can take time for SEO to show results, marketers often need to invest in paid search and online advertising to promote their websites. Digital advertising can be particularly effective in raising brand awareness and driving sales.
Social media marketing: Given the huge popularity of social media, most marketers have made it a point to be present on social media frequented by their target audiences. Social media platforms are ideal for engaging with customers and ensuring top-of-the-mind brand recall.
Online events: Contests, webinars, and other online events not only help marketers to establish their credibility but also help them to collect useful data from their target audience.
Email marketing: Even though email has been around for a very long time, it remains the most effective way of reaching out to targeted recipients by findng their emails through email finder Linkedin with customized messages promoting the brand as well as products and services. By finely segmenting the contacts, marketers can devise customized messages that the recipients will find difficult to ignore.
Unbeatable Advantages of Email Marketing
While every online marketer would love to use all the marketing tactics available, typically they will need to prioritize their activities due to the various constraints. Given a situation where they need to pick their most preferred tactic, studies have revealed that the choice is invariably email marketing simply because it is relatively easy to manage and delivers a matchless ROI compared to all other online marketing tactics.
The research also revealed that email is also preferred by consumers as a mode of receiving marketing communications. According to McKinsey, email is held to be 40 times more effective in new customer acquisition compared to Facebook and Twitter while DMA reports that at 66%, email has the highest rate of conversion, far outstripping that of like social media and other web services.
MarketingSherpa also confirms that as many as 72% of people prefer to receive marketing information over email as compared to just 17% who prefer social media. There are many reasons why email marketing is considered to be the keystone in any digital marketing strategy:
Matchless ROI: The most compelling reason for marketers to prefer email over all other digital marketing tactics is that it is extremely cost-efficient. According to research reported by campaignmonitor.com, marketers can generate a whopping $44 for every single dollar they invest in email marketing.
The average return of 4400% beats hollow all other marketing modes, including the much-vaunted social media. Some companies have reported the ROI to be as high as $76 for every dollar invested by them.
Targeted and customized content: By finely segmenting their email lists based on customer profiles and buying behavior, marketers can send content via emails that are highly personalized prompting the recipients to open and read the emails more frequently.
Almost everything in the email message can be personalized right from the subject line to images in the content that resonate more with the recipient. The process of customizing the messages allows the building up of a strong foundation of credibility and trust between the marketer and the recipient that create enduring bonds capable of being used for conversions over time. According to inc, marketers can use AI techniques to customize emails to an ever-larger degree.
Longer message lifespan: Email messages have a longer lifespan than posts on social media and hence it is the perfect medium for connecting with customers in a credible and enduring manner. While it can be very difficult to locate a particular Facebook post or a tweet once it has disappeared from your feed, recipients can always conveniently search for emails that may have been buried under a mountain of other emails and read them again.
Conclusion
For marketers, emails represent familiar ground as the concept has been in existence for many years. Despite the arrival of many other methods of communication, there are very few people who can claim not to have an email account that they use regularly. It is also relatively very simple to put together an effective email marketing campaign given the very easy access to modern tools, including schedulers. The quick turnaround time for devising an email campaign means that you have so much more time to devote to other pressing matters.
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