As social media explodes, and marketers look to capitalize on its popularity, it is easy to forget about good old email’s ability to reach customers. Email remains the primary form of digital communication. With the rise of smart phones and tablets, email is more portable than ever. As marketers look to develop new strategies for 2014, it is essential that email be part of the plan.
Optimize For Mobile
Build your email format and delivery with mobile devices in mind. Ensure that your early emails to customers work well on all mobile devices; this care builds trust with your users. Make certain that any forms that link off your emails are easily completed from mobile devices. If you fail to optimize, then you lose potential clients.
Data-Driven Communication
Strive to collect more than email addresses so that your communications can be targeted to gender or location. This is much more likely to be successful than simply blasting one email to all clients. Also, your customers may hear from you via email and social media channels. Keep the message consistent, but use different language in each. Personalize email whenever possible. For example, create unique emails containing personalized recommendations based on browsing behavior on your website.
Offer Deals
Promote deals using other social media, but get users to register with you and then use email to deliver deals to inboxes. Consumers prefer email for coupons and other deals, so make sure you get the offers to where users can and will use them.
Sharing Privately
With the push to get content shared and re-posted, it is easy to forget that valuable endorsements often happen privately, via word of mouth and, yes, email. Continue to create exceptional content, even in your emails, to encourage private sharing. Your brand can thrive with these types of endorsements.
Permission
Always get permission for emailing to consumers. Have customers register at your website. This permission is the first step on the path to the delivery of personalized messages centered on the consumer.
Email, in combination with a strong website and customer experience, forms a stable foundation for interactive marketing. Your strategy should be tailored to devices, but needs to always have its foundation in quality content. Properly designed, your email marketing strategy delivers custom content to target users at the time they are expecting it.