We’re often asked if email marketing should still be part of a digital marketing strategy. Does it still work? The answer to this is absolutely yes! It’s more important than ever that you can contact your customers and prospects directly. Remember, the goal of your social media and paid advertising is to get people interested in your product or service, which is great, and when they show interest you want a way to continue to build a relationship with them directly. Don’t build on rented land!
Email Marketing Still Works
Nurture your customer relationships with email. Don’t build on rented land!
The best way for businesses to nurture relationships continues to be email marketing even today. More frequent, shorter emails work more effectively than a long once a month or quarterly newsletter. Did you know consumers only spend an average of 10 seconds reading brand emails? So the most important steps when creating your emails are short, descriptive subject lines, easy to see buttons and headings, and short and simple paragraphs.
More frequent, shorter emails work most effectively.
Research shows that 46% of smartphone users prefer to receive communications from businesses via email, and 99% of email users check their inbox every day, with some checking 20 times a day.
But what about the younger demographics? We hear how they don’t use email. Current research says otherwise. 74% of Baby Boomers think email is the most personal channel to receive communications from brands, followed by 72% of Gen X, 64% of Millennials, and 60% of Gen Z.
Popularity in Text Message Marketing on the Rise
There’s also an increase in the popularity of text messaging marketing apps. It makes sense if you’re already asking for an email address to ask for an optional phone number to text, as well. That way if they want text messages, you’ll have that list too. Text messaging can be very effective. There’s a slightly different strategy than what you want to use with your email marketing however, and there’s no reason why you might not want to do both.
Text messaging is another great way to build rapport, but your strategy here will focus more on transactional messages like confirmations, and only sparingly for informational messages or offers.
Texting works particularly well for transactional types of messages such as reminders, appointment confirmations, order status and updates, and event confirmations. You’ll want to use it more sparingly for strictly informational messages or offers. Text messages are often opened immediately and are easy to reply to, but don’t abuse that with the same information and frequency you’d normally email.
The bottom line is this, communicate consistently with your customers and prospects. Email and text message marketing are the way to reach people directly. And, they can make it easier and more convenient for your customers to do business with you.
Links in this episode:
The Ultimate List of Email Marketing Stats for 2022
