Let’s face it – everyone is on social media today. More pointedly, almost every business has a social media presence. The real question is: how effective is the average company’s social media marketing strategy?
Almost everyone has some form of social media or another. Even those who refuse to join Facebook or Twitter are still often found on LinkedIn or other networking sites. Social media is an ingrained part of our networking and social culture – so why do so few businesses standing out online?
Just as most individuals have a social media presence, almost every business does as well. For many, it’s the perfect way to connect with potential customers and strengthen existing customer relationships. Unfortunately, this is often as far as the conversation goes for many businesses.
Social media advertising, blogging, YouTube advertising, direct mail – all the best ways of reaching customer take considerable time, experience, and investment to succeed without the right strategy.
If you’re overspending your marketing budget on social media and aren’t achieving results, EDM marketing is just what you need. Here are 3 reasons why a cost-effective EDM campaign can provide better results at a lower cost.
Reduce unnecessary spending
Have you been experimenting with Facebook and Instagram ads? While this form of advertising may be cheaper than traditional methods, your costs can quickly spiral without a solid strategy in place. EDM marketing both works off and is informed by, accurate data – there’s no better place to collect information than through social media.
Once you’ve built up a reasonable email database, you can then segment your list by demographic, and use targeted content to engage with people on a different level than most businesses. This means less time spent tweaking and constantly going through social ad campaigns, and instead using engagement data with your EDM to help drive your strategy.
In the digital world, EDM marketing allows a business track and measure everything! With email marketing and the right tools, it’s easy to track open rates, sales conversions, and engagement patterns and more. Because you’re not tied to an ad spend, you’re given more freedom to adjust your campaign as you need to.
Direct reach to the widest audience
For marketers, the smartphone can be a double-edged sword. With so many people owning a smartphone these days, traditional print advertising on billboards or street posters must compete with the instant fulfilment of online media. For digital marketers, however, this means your audience is potentially connected at any moment of the day.
EDMs can be customised by demographic, region, or other data descriptors you may have collected while growing your database. They allow you to experiment with different approaches for individual customer groups, to find what works best and what doesn’t. Once you start to understand your customer’s behavioural patterns, you can easily convert these leads into repeat customers.
While smartphones are undeniably popular, who doesn’t have an email address? Although there are trends of people moving away from social media accounts such as Facebook or Instagram, almost everyone has an email address and knows how to use it. Even those who aren’t tech-savvy are connected with email – either just as a means of communicating or for social verification purposes.
A well-structured and strategised EDM campaign can reach arguably the largest audience available around the world.
Build trust faster and with more customers
If you’re able to send a potential customer an email, it’s because they’ve engaged with your business in some way in the past and given you their email address, which means your product or service interests them on some level.
Email marketing is a fantastic tool for building strong customer relationships – by using the right strategy and high-quality content, sending out consistent emails will have your customers starting to expect messages from your business.
This is because a great EDM provides value to customers while increasing engagement. It’s also an opportunity to use more diverse content than you normally would – such as white papers, infographics, and case studies – to catch a customer’s attention.
Ultimately, with a well-thought-out EDM strategy, you’ll drive people across to your website and social media channels to increase conversions. Once people have interacted with your businesses, EDM becomes a continuation of that same connection, informing and engaging with customers throughout their journey with you.
Plan your first EDM campaign today
Media Giant is the home of EDM and direct marketing, offering a better way to share your information and products with the world. We see the benefit of personalised experiences and information, and how EDM marketing is a cost-effective solution for delivering both.
Drop us a line today to learn more about EDM and direct marketing, and what we at Media Giant can help your business achieve.
