The wave of social media is upon us and many are finding themselves awash with excitement and engagement with this important form of communication. But getting your marketing message out in 140 characters isn’t going to get the whole job done.
Telephone, fax and direct mail used to be the primary marketing tools available to marketers. Today, marketers can use text messaging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, direct mail and, yes, the telephone–or cell phone.
But email has emerged as one of the core methods of business communication. Think about.
- You need email to sign up for just about anything.
- You can’t sign up for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube without an email address.
- You even need it for your kids’ sport teams and schools to communicate with you–aren’t you glad the baseball team call trees have been replaced by email and text messaging?
What are the benefits of email marketing? Email is fast, flexible and can be targeted. Keys to successful marketing include consistency and frequency and, with email, you can accomplish both.
It’s important to remember that
Marketing is every contact that you make with your marketplace.
So, while every email message that you send out may not (and should not) be an outright advertisement for your products and services, it is still a marketing message and should be created and treated with care and intentionality.
There are some basics that people should keep in mind when communicating by email.
Email is a natural marketing channel and its effectiveness can be improved when combined with social media as well as direct mail. Here are a few ways that you can use your email marketing program to move your marketing forward:
1. Deliver coupons and special deal announcements for your products and services.
2. Announce the publication of your latest blog post.
3. Provide industry news and updates that are important your customers and prospects.
4. Deliver free educational content to enhance the knowledge of your customers and prospects.
5. To solicit feedback.
If email marketing isn’t a part of your marketing program or if it’s slipped to the background because of social media, it might be time to rethink and revive your email marketing program.
