Keeping Email Marketing Relevant Amidst the Social Sphere

Lately, buzz isn’t buzz unless it contains the word “social.” Social media, social sharing, and social sites are getting all the attention while email marketing is ignored.  But is email marketing fast going the way of the pony express (which is to say, down the road to extinction)? Absolutely not.

In fact, thanks to social media and all of other social sites proliferating daily, email marketing is more powerful than ever. The purpose of email marketing is different to the purpose of social media, and this small but important fact is getting lost in the “social” hubbub. Social media is about conversation and connection, and email marketing takes that conversation one step further: to conversion. A person’s email inbox is infinitely more personal than any social site they may be frequenting, and smart email marketers know this.

Savvy email marketers understand what makes email marketing the most direct line of communication to a sale, and how to utilize it in the most cost effective way. They understand that effective email marketing is all about good content, followed closely by an opportunity for conversation.

Your subscribers initially signed up with you because they wanted something from you. They believe you have something of value to them, whether that’s a great product, useful information, excellent deals, or leading industry news. In a show of trust, they provided their email address to you, for a true value-exchange. Reinforcing this message through a consistent and effective multi-pronged content strategy will strengthen their trust in you.

But what do we mean by multi-pronged content?

• Effective subject line writing: Many don’t consider subject lines when they think about “content” but subject lines are content too! Furthermore, it’s important content. This content is what leads to increased email open rates. For the “magic” subject line words that almost always lead to an opened email, see our recent blog post.
• Your stylistic flair: Is your email easy to scan? Is it optimized for both web-based email and mobile viewing? For more on how the overall look of your email can help – or hurt –your email campaign see our recent blog post on Typography.
• A unique voice: The overall readability of your content should be consistent and unique. Does it flow well? Is it concise, witty, smart, and/or snappy? It doesn’t have to be ALL of these things, but your content should carry a unique and identifiable voice, and ideally, the voice should be accessible to all of your readers.
• Quality content: What are you communicating? Your content should be niche-specific, and interesting. The better quality content you provide, the more click-throughs, forwards, and social shares (yes, we’re back to social!) you’ll receive, which all serves to reinforce your effective email marketing campaign!

If you need help developing an effective email marketing strategy, give ClickMail a shout: this is what we do. We love talking content and email marketing strategy, and we love to help!

So it’s not that we’re anti-Twitter. It’s just that we want to make sure the walls are up before we start painting the house.

According to eMarketer, only 7.4% of the U.S. population over age 18 is using Twitter. And you only have to use it once a month to count as a “user.”

Compare that to 80% of Americans using email.

That means less than one-tenth of the email users are using Twitter. Knowing that, where do you think you should invest your time and money?

Our advice to you as an email solutions provider: Make sure your email best practices are up to speed before you jump on the Twitterwagon. Below are some resources to help:

• This email marketing blog
• Our email marketing library of whitepapers and reports
• Our email marketing newsletter
• Our email marketing consultants

Tap into these resources and make sure your email best practices are the best. Then you can use Twitter to support your email marketing campaigns!

The panel presentation is titled “Chicken & The Egg: In a Web 2.0 World, Does Email Drive Social Media or Social Drive Email Marketing?” During it, you’ll hear email marketing and social media experts talk about the push-pull mechanisms that drive real social media success.

Jeanniey Mullen, CMO of Zinio and founder of the Email Experience Council (www.eec.org), will moderate several esteemed panelists:

• Laurie Beasley, Beasley Direct Marketing, Inc
• Jason Gan, Cisco WebEx Sr. Programs Manager
• Christelle Flahaux, Global Field Marketing, Ariba
• Sandra Ponce de Leon, Director of Marketing, BuzzLogic
• Michael Kelly, Director of Business Development, ClickMail Marketing

As an email marketer, it’s easy to feel isolated sometimes from the other marketing done by your organization. On the other hand, it can be easy to feel confused by how your email marketing initiatives might tie into other marketing efforts, like social media. But without learning more, you can’t know if social media might increase your email marketing ROI.

And OMS events are fun! So you’ll enjoy the “social” while you figure out social media’s tie to email marketing. Learn more about OMS San Francisco click here.