What You Need to Know About Email Marketing – Part 1

I think it’s fair to say that I have mentioned the merits of Direct Marketing Email Campaigns as a sure-fire way of expanding your business reach before. So, it was with great interest that I read the latest report form the Direct Marketing Association which details the latest in email marketing trends.

A stellar year for email marketing set to continue

Far from email being edged out as a viable marketing tool due to social media engagement, as the doomsayers suggested, it looks like email campaigns have an ever stronger foothold. This is such an important topic to explore, I can’t possibly do it justice in one article without it turning into something as epic as War & Peace. Accordingly, I’ll take it in bite-size chunks to explain why direct marketing campaigns are having an ever increasing impact.

ROI is on the rise

The report from the DMA states that in 2013 ROI from email campaigns rocketed to a whopping 2,500% – which equates to a return of £25 for every £1 spent.

So, why the big leap?

Targeted Emails

The report cites better targeted emails as being a contributory factor in the increase of success rates. The number of marketers not using segmentation techniques to target campaigns fell to 11% in 2013. Furthermore, segmented campaigns accounted for 60% of email revenue last year (a rise of 5% on the previous year).

Social Media

Rather than striking a death knell for our humble email, social media activity has actually helped for those companies that link all their marketing activities. Consequently, an email campaign with links to social platforms is proving to be a boon for brand awareness and customer engagement.

Hitting the bulls-eye

As the old saying goes, you have to speculate to accumulate, but whatever the size of your marketing budget you want the most cost-effective use of your hard-earned cash.

A targeted email campaign is a very effective way to improve your bottom line. How to segment and target your emails to your database of contacts is an important weapon in your arsenal. Next week, I’ll explain in a bit more detail how effective targeting gets the right message, to the right person at the right time and how analysing the data helps to build an effective direct email campaign.

To be continued…..

By Joanne Clayton

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