How Email Marketing Impacts Your Digital Marketing Strategy

The first marketing email dates back to 1978. This early foray into email marketing was also a home run: a single e-blast sent to 400 people netted $13 million in sales! With such profound results, which email marketing stats have shown was not an anomaly, it’s no wonder email has become a marketing toolbox staple. So much so that 4 out of 5 marketers today would rather give up social media as a marketing tactic than email marketing.  We don’t fall into that camp. We would rather play one off of the other because when it comes to email and the rest of your digital marketing, 1+1 does not equal 2; it equals so much more. In fact, email marketing, when combined with your social media and the rest of your digital marketing, can have an exponential impact over time.

Email marketing, like any other component of your marketing strategy, is most effective when it is done in concert with the rest of your digital marketing, including social media, pay-per-click advertising, newsletters, landing pages, and blogs. Each of these marketing tools is a means for building brand awareness, communicating with customers, reaching new audiences, attracting prospects, converting leads into buyers, and driving sales. And, by the nature of digital marketing and the interconnectedness of your total internet presence, each of these tactics can and should be leveraged against each other. This is the primary principle of content strategy. For example, original blog content optimized with keywords and phrases and published on your website will help improve your SEO and search engine rankings. As a stand-alone item, though, the impact of that blog post is going to fall short.

But, when that content is integral to a larger campaign and further leveraged in excerpts published to your social media, it begins to reach a larger audience with the potential to drive more traffic to your website. And when an email campaign around the same topic, again pulling excerpts from the original blog, is added into the mix, with a clear call to action, the impact on your overall marketing effort is even greater. Of course, nothing is quite this simple. A one-and-done approach is not an effective strategy. You want loyal followers, you want to become and remain top of mind, and you want lasting customer relationships. This takes time and is the result of persistent and consistent marketing across all channels. This is why email nurture campaigns are essential.

Email marketing has evolved considerably since that first promotional email back in 1978. Today, savvy businesses and marketers are using email to increase brand awareness, improve customer loyalty and retention, increase revenue/sales, generate leads, and drive website traffic (State of Inbound Marketing Trends 2022), with lead generation ranking as the number one objective for the majority of marketers. Of course, lead generation doesn’t amount to much if the leads don’t convert into customers. This is where nurture campaigns come into play. Unlike a drip campaign, a nurture campaign is much more personalized and tailored in response to the lead’s behavior. Email nurture campaigns can help you build a relationship with your audience by delivering information, links to resources, and special offers over time, based on your prospect’s behavior–how they are engaging with you on social media and your website, which blogs or guides they have read, or what information they have requested or events they have registered for. The purpose is to deliver timely, targeted information that will help guide the prospect through the buying process.

Lead nurturing is a highly effective tactic for securing new audiences and turning leads into customers. When integrated into your digital marketing strategy, email marketing is a powerful tool for engaging with your audiences while also driving traffic to your social media, your website, blog, or specific landing pages.  Tracking data across all of your marketing channels and analyzing your website traffic, email opens, social media stats, and ad click-through rates will give you further insights into your audiences, as well as the effectiveness of your campaigns. Armed with this information, you can continue to tailor your marketing and nurture campaigns for improved results.

Working with a digital marketing agency like Fuze7 can help you pull all the data together. We can also outline an effective marketing strategy that enhances your SEO and leverages your social media, pay-per-click advertising, website content, and email campaigns for maximum ROI. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your business gain more visibility online and increase audience engagement.