Emmanuella Elenbalu: Still Not Using Email Marketing? These Tips Will Show you Why your Brand Needs it

If you are an entrepreneur who used only Twitter to market your products or talk about your brand, the  ban would definitely shake a lot of things for you. From being locked out from your account to the possibility of your engagement and post-reach reducing, your hard work could go down the drain swiftly.

Social media is huge, no doubt – it can help reach a wider range of audience with nearly no restrictions, but it doesn’t change the fact that it is a rented space. A time would come when there would be a need to find a home for your contact; somewhere enclosed and secure. This is where email marketing comes in.

Email marketing involves using the email messaging technique to send customised and personalised content. The best thing about this kind of marketing is that the people you message have permitted you to communicate with them and so are expecting to hear from you. 77% of people say they prefer receiving permission-based promotional messages via email to paid advertisement pop-ups and direct messages on social media.

Email marketing promises the highest return on investment over all other digital marketing channels, including social media. Marketers say that for every $1 spent on email marketing, you can expect a return of at least $44.

Maybe you still doubt the effectiveness of this channel because of your personal experience. I get it that too many spam messages and promotional contents from God-knows-where have a way of dampening one’s belief in this channel. On second thought, are there brands you anticipate getting an email from? Are there contents you engage with and never get lost in your folder? If there are, you can also make other people anticipate getting emails from your own brand. 

Here are 4 reasons why email marketing works:

Automation

When you get a new follower on your social media page, or a first-time visitor on your blog, you don’t get an option to send them a thank-you message or welcome them properly. All you can do is smile at your notification and pray that your content wouldn’t get swallowed up on their feeds.

With email marketing, it’s different. You can set automated messages that will enable your audience get a thank-you message immediately they click the subscribe button. You can also personalise and customise your welcome message.

This is a good marketing strategy: you get a new subscriber on your email list, with the automation feature, you send them an email immediately thanking them for joining the list, and then inform them about the kind of content you would be sending, and the content schedule. It’s a good idea to get your subscribers acquainted with your messaging schedule, it creates expectations in them that are similar to the one they get when you post a countdown series for your product launch.

Track your buyer’s journey

As you continue to send your subscribers email, you would be able to track the kind of content each of them responds to, this helps you detect where they currently are in the “buyer’s journey”, and send them content that helps them at whatever stage they are in. Are they responding well to only content on brand awareness or are they becoming leads? Or have they bought a product and what they need is a how-to guide, coupon codes, or referral/loyalty bonuses? You would be able to pay close attention to what your subscribers are clicking and the offers they are opting for. With this information, you can segment your list based on interest and send them even more valuable content.

The more useful your list finds your content, the more likely they are to engage with you and the closer you are to getting them to buy from you.

Personalization at its peak

Have you ever opened an email because it had your name on the subject line? Yeah, me too.

We say social media lets you post personalized content and engage with your audience one-on-one. Emailing takes this further; you can send personalised content including the name of each subscriber to their email so it appears as if you know them in person when in actual sense, you don’t. It doesn’t end there. Combined with automation and segmentation, you can send even more personalized content.

Let’s say you send an email to your leads containing links to purchase a product from your website or send a direct message to get an offer on WhatsApp. You track that someone in that segment who clicked the link but didn’t complete the required action. With the aid of your automating option, you can send a follow-up email asking if the contact needs assistance in completing the order or other options on what to buy. Jaw-dropping stuff!

Almost every digital marketing channel compliments each other. You can build an impressive profile on social media and lead your audience to sign up for your email list, then track their journey with email marketing and send personalised messages. If someone had joined your list from a platform other than social media – like from your website or blog, for instance, you can send them a link to follow you or join a live event on social media. Every channel compliments each other.

Relying on only one medium for your marketing is becoming riskier by the hour, so spread your tentacles.

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