An email marketing strategy is part of your broader marketing strategy. Just consider how many platforms you use on a daily (or hourly) basis: Instagram, Gmail, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, WhatsApp—the list goes on and on, especially depending on your interests.
An integrated digital marketing strategy is crucial for meeting your audience where they already hang out online.
Nearly 4.4 billion people have access to the internet and 3.9 million of them use email. Integrating your strategy across multiple channels is crucial no matter where your business operates.
There are 3.9 million people using email and that number will increase to 4.371 million by 2023.
How should you develop your email marketing strategy?
Email is perhaps the most reliable way of reaching your target audience. So, when developing an email marketing strategy, you should first work to build a strong list.
You can do this by including gated content on your site, creating a referral program, or hosting a contest or giveaway.
Sixty-one percent of people prefer email marketing over other permission-based channels like Facebook and direct mail because they’re in control. If someone doesn’t want to hear from you anymore, they can simply unsubscribe from your list.
Source: Adobe
However, just because email is reliable doesn’t mean you can’t also use other marketing channels along with it. In fact, you can easily combine your marketing strategies for holistic brand awareness.
For instance, social media can be a great place to encourage signups for your list, and you can use it to promote content and advertise your business.
As you’re developing your integrated email marketing strategy, there are four lessons you need to follow:
1. Personalize as much as possible.
Customers are 75% more likely to buy from a brand that recognizes them by name. However, personalization is much more than just providing a name—aim to provide your subscribers with unique content based on their interests and behavior. Using data you’ve collected, you can create content that your subscribers can’t wait to see.
Personalization is easy to do in email, but you can also test your social channels to see which content performs best on each platform.
2. Plan your goals.
Set one goal for each email you send and each post you publish. Do you want to increase brand awareness or encourage your subscribers to click a link? Limit yourself and rely on automation to meet your goals.
This means scheduling social posts ahead of time and creating email triggers.
3. Write for one person.
Don’t write like you’re shouting to everyone who can hear you. Write your promotional material as if you’re writing for one specific person.
4. Build a healthy list and a healthy following.
When it comes to email, don’t, under any circumstances, purchase email lists. Only build healthy email lists with people who genuinely want to hear from you. Not only will this improve your delivery rates but it’ll also improve your conversions and ROI.
When it comes to social media, you can build a healthy following by providing content that is educational, entertaining, and helpful for your audience. And remember, you’re integrating social into your email marketing strategy, so always point back to your list.
How to measure your integrated email marketing strategy
Obviously, you’ll want to figure out if your integrated email marketing strategy is effectively working. Constantly collect data to see how well your emails are performing and how well social media is guiding customers to become subscribers.
For email specifically, you can likely see the metrics directly inside your ESP. Simply log in to your email platform’s dashboard and click on the campaign you want to track. You should also be able to browse the results of all campaigns in one location if you want to check your overall results.
Once you click on a campaign, you’ll be able to see that campaign’s delivery rate, open rate, click rate, and conversion rate.
If people aren’t opening your emails, this could be a sign that you need to work on your subject lines. What resonates with your subscribers and how can you reach them with interesting subject lines?
If people aren’t clicking your links, this likely means that your copy and content needs some work. Educate yourself about writing copy full of action words that engage your audience.
Does it really matter?
People are online each and every day, meaning you need to connect with your audience in an authentic and helpful way.
This means you shouldn’t simply post on social media every once in a while to promote your business. Instead, you need an email marketing strategy: Build strong email campaigns and integrate social media for full effect.
Following these steps is crucial when providing your audience with valuable and relevant content.
What now?
Now that you understand the importance of creating an email marketing strategy, you can focus on your audience. Where do they live? What are their problems and needs? How can you solve their problems better than anyone else?
Start by doing some audience research so you can figure out what type of content to provide them. From there, you can develop a unique strategy—using automation—that meets their needs at just the right time.
Are you ready to learn more about creating a personalized email marketing strategy? Check out this post about how to build a foolproof email marketing strategy template.