It always surprises me when new clients tell me email direct marketing (EDM) isn’t part of their marketing tactics. It’s an easy win to keep customers in the communication loop (that endless cycle of awareness, consideration, purchase, post-purchase experience, and awareness again) and ensure your products and services are top of mind.
Today’s blog focuses on the massive potential EDM can have in keeping your customers engaged, particularly as we enter the cookieless era of marketing.
The benefits of email direct marketing
EDM is a cost-effective marketing tool to help nurture customer relationships and consistently reach your audience directly via their inbox. If you have permission to email your customers, keep them in your communication loop so you’re top of mind when they’re looking for their next purchase or experience.
Email marketing is direct and personal
Unlike other forms of marketing, such as social media, email marketing is a way to speak directly to your customers. Can you offer them exclusive deals and industry news, or share tips about services and products they want to know about?
You can personalise your enewsletters to compel your reader to take action. Depending on how sophisticated your lists are segmented and integrated with your CRM, you can create automated emails that, to the customer, feel like they are understood by your business, while for you it has the potential to generate more revenue.
How many times have you clicked on a link in an email from an ecommerce store, only to receive the “Did you leave something behind” email when you abandoned your cart? Campaign Monitor found automated emails, like this, get 86% higher open rates, produce a 196% increase in click-through rates, and generate 320% more revenue than standard promotional emails.
The frequency of enews is set by your market. The demand for social media content is highly driven by the platforms that host your content, while the frequency of your enews is determined based on industry, what you want to say and how often this needs to change. For example, hospitality clients, like the RUC, email their members monthly to tell them about this month’s events, latest articles, community sponsorships, competitions, promotions and specials. While Voltair, our favourite airconditioning specialists, email their client base seasonally to help their customers know what maintenance they should be doing in summer, autumn, winter and spring.
Email is actually the preferred method of communication
You might think that social media is the preferred method of communication. Yes, organic social media is great – you put a lot of effort into ensuring that posts look, feel, and sound like your business. It feels good to get high engagement.
But when it comes to how customers prefer to interact with businesses, email marketing is still number one. It’s easier to drive a customer to your site with email than with a social post. It’s easier to nurture customer loyalty through email than it is on social. In fact, 83% of consumers prefer to hear from brands via email, and email users are set to peak at 4.4 billion in 2024 (Campaign Monitor). Those are some pretty compelling numbers, wouldn’t you say?
Proper segmentation and automation will increase conversions
A data-driven email marketing strategy will increase your email engagement by matching customer personas to your existing data to build targeted segments and send highly personalised emails, tailored to your customers’ individual interests.
Add automated customer journeys to your email strategy to further enhance the personalised experience for your customers. This can build up a loyalty program, and reduce time creating once-off campaigns and the manual administration required for event reminders, RSVPs and survey responses.
How to level up your EDMs in 2024
Here are my recommendations to help level up your email direct marketing in 2024:
1. Start small
If you don’t have EDM as part of your marketing mix, that’s ok. Start small with a seasonal update to your customers. Add email to your marketing tactics with our in-house email marketing platform, data-driven strategy, beautifully designed templates, ecommerce and website integration, or personalised customer journeys with automation and segmentation.
2. Personalisation is here to stay
People don’t want to feel like a number, and the easy way to avoid this is through the personalisation of emails. Tailor your messages, segment your audience, recommend products based on the customer’s previous purchase behaviour, and set up trigger-based automation based on actions the customer has taken on your website or in previous emails.
3. Consider incorporating AI
There’s a caveat: AI can help get you started with subject line ideas, write content, and even develop your graphics. My one piece of advice is this: review everything. You are the expert in your brand’s tone of voice and messaging, so ensure that this is reflected in the final piece of content.
4. Mobile is here to stay
It’s important to consider how people will be viewing your email. These days, it’s mostly mobile so make sure your emails are easy to read. This means bullet points, short copy, call to action buttons are easy to find and refrain from all-image emails.
Get started or elevate your email direct marketing journey – just ask us how.