Flashy social networks like Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram are getting all the hype from marketers – telling you to invest all your time and energy into social media. Often times, email marketing is one of the most powerful tools for connecting with your existing audience is overlooked. While it may not be as cool and hip as some of the other platforms out there, email is still a powerful weapon that every marketer should be using.
It was only a few years ago when email marketing was cited as the most effective digital marketing channel for customer retention in the U.S. While email marketing’s effectiveness may have slipped in the past few years, it still is a valuable resource for connecting with your audience. Many ecommerce companies use email marketing to entice their audience to purchase another product by staying on their radar.
If your business is executing a content marketing strategy and is consistently creating all types of content, it’s great to share that content on social media. Don’t forget about email! Many times your audience is too busy and may miss your social media post for the day. The way social media is oversaturated today, there is a slim chance they are going back to find your content. Sending your content out to your subscribers increases the chance they are going to consume and share your content.
Many times people will check their email multiple times per day but may only check their social media accounts once. It is important not to flood your followers with multiple emails per day or even over the course of the week. People can receive upwards of 25-35 emails per day, it is important to make your emails simple and straight to the point. Use creative text that entices your audience to click through.
Email, just like any other social network, will take time and practice to master. You have to understand how your audience digests email content, especially yours. Make it as easy as possible for them to enjoy. When you are first building your list, send emails out at different times on different days and see which ones give you the best results.
A good strategy is to take the best performing posts on social media over the course of a month or week and highlight them in an email. Another route you can take is taking the content that performed the worst and share that in an email, giving that content another chance to be consumed and shared. If that email or content isn’t received well then you know to stay away from that type of content.
Every marketer or business should include email marketing in their plan. Make it a part of your social media content calendar and build out a strategy behind it. Some people may not be on Instagram or Twitter so when you share your content with on those networks, you aren’t hitting your complete audience. Most people have email and check it more often than all their social networks combined. Be sure you are giving your content the best chance possible, use email marketing.
