Email marketing still relevant, not a lost art

With the wide range of Internet marketing methods that are now available to companies, email may seem a bit old hat. However, this channel is still highly useful for Internet lead generation and building relationships with existing customers. However, if you aren’t seeing the results you want from email marketing, it may be time to test campaigns for effectiveness and make improvements.

Email is one of the oldest online marketing tactics, but over time, it had lost some of its share to mobile apps and banner ads, according to MediaPost. You need to make sure that this medium is the right choice for the content you are trying to disseminate because some messages may be better suited to other marketing techniques. Younger people don’t use email as their primary communication channel, but it’s still a big player in B2B marketing.

E-newsletters, special promotions and transactional messages are all examples of how email marketing is far from dead in the B2B sphere. Rather than hoping potential customers stumble onto your blog, you can send a selection of articles to your subscribers in email format. This is very effective for B2B organizations with long sales cycles because you can’t rush purchases, but you need to stay at the forefront of leads’ minds. Special offers are also more suited to email than mobile messages, especially if there isn’t an immediate deadline. Emails allow prospects to view messages in their own time rather than having to click on a smartphone notification. In this way, email is less distracting for recipients.

Email needs to be tested regularly

Even if you’ve had success with email marketing, campaigns need to be tested regularly to ensure you’re getting the best results possible, Econsultancy said. However, marketers often avoid testing because they’re afraid it will reveal more about failures than successes. Even though it may seem scary, facing lackluster campaigns head on can help you see a better return on investment in the future. Testing should be seen as a valuable opportunity to improve campaign performance.

Marketing automation can simplify reporting because the analytical tools in the platform can easily measure campaign performance so you don’t have to stress over different metrics. Open and click-through rates are important because they can help you set goals for email marketing. While you want more people to open your messages, this metric doesn’t matter as much unless recipients are clicking to visit the website. Determining email’s effectiveness can help you understand how marketing efforts are translating into dollars for your organization. If a strategy isn’t working, you should eliminate it rather than continuing to waste money.

With solid reporting tools in place, it’s easier to make adjustments to campaigns because you have real-time visibility into what worked and what didn’t. Regular tweaks will need to be made to ensure email is still a relevant player in your marketing plans. Marketing automation helps you make email more effective.