Itʼs a topic that comes up pretty quickly when you talk to business owners – they arenʼt getting the engagement they want on social media, the cost of boosting all their posts is too high and they arenʼt even sure if anyone is seeing their posts at all. As a company who works in the space, we hear this all too often and we see it regularly. More and more, social media platforms are becoming a discovery platform or a portfolio showcase, rather than a regular engagement channel. They are no longer the key way to capture the attention of your audience.
That doesnʼt mean that itʼs time to throw your hands in the air and despair – after all, we have seen this all before. When print advertising became too expensive for too little ROI, we switched to social advertising. When TV ads started seeing less and less viewers as more people flocked to streaming services, we switched to content marketing. But there is one form of amplification that has never really gone out of style – and that is email marketing.
Email marketing or EDMs are those newsletters you receive in your inbox. We know, we know – you never open those. Except you do. You just donʼt open all the ones you receive – only the ones that add value. Your favorite clothing brand or that online course youʼve been doing. The one from a trusted news source or industry expert. Those ones you will open and click on to learn, experience, engage or observe from a brand you trust.
Typically what we find is that EDMs are relevant for customers for a season – a period of their life where your message hits the mark for them. Sometimes, that season is a few months or a year; but if you continue to engage with your customer and continue to add value, you can expect to see them engaging with you for a much longer period. Take a hairdresser for example. If your client is coming into salon regularly, you are engaging each time they come in for their appointment. When they next receive an email from you, depending on what value you are offering them (clearly communicated by your headline) then they are likely to at least open and read some of the email – they trust you, you add value to their life in the form of your service and are therefore worthy of their time and attention. What you do with them once they open the email is up to you – but we can talk about that some other time.
The one place we know people will always be is their inbox. We use our email addresses to sign into everything from our bank accounts to our Skype and yes even into our social media profiles. Email is fast becoming the most checked and answered place of communication, and so itʼs key that brands begin to talk to their customers where they are spending their time and where they are expecting to receive information. Social media is far from dead – we just need to work our new ways to use it and ways to adapt other amplification strategies to take its place in engaging your customers.
If youʼve abandoned your email marketing, or never really got it off the ground, then we would love to help you pick it back up and use it to drive new business for you in 2019. Donʼt delay – now is the time to make a change. Get in touch via email on ben@emdesigns.com.au and letʼs make a start!
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