Email Marketing Is Down But Not Out
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Fri, Jan 27, 2012
As 2012 gets underway in earnest, email marketing may have taken a beating in the last year… we think though, that it’s down but not out. Despite the best efforts of some naysayers who claim that email marketing has died a bloody death and social media is it’s replacement, email will continue to be the single most effective marketing medium for the average small business. Recent reports suggest that 64% of consumers prefer to receive promotional information from retailers via email instead of social media. Email campaigns have also been proven to convert customers to leads at a higher rate than social media does on it’s own.
The world of email is changing, however. In 2012, we expect to see changes in email marketing in the following ways:
Follow-up email will become the norm.
Email is the best medium for following up on sales prospects. It is fast, cheap and can be personalized quite easily. Email auto responders have been given a bad name because so many businesses don’t use them properly. We don’t want messages to look irrelevant and look like SPAM. Personalised email is going to be the best way to follow up in the future.
Email for first contact will become taboo
In email marketing, unsolicited email is known as SPAM. It’s not right or fair to email people without their permission, and tolerance of SPAM is steadily decreasing. Because SPAM reporting is becoming more popular, the use of it in this way is getting marketers in more and more trouble. Marketers in 2012 have to figure out more creative ways to get permission to send email.
Email will get more social
Social media is here to stay in the marketing world. It’s such a great medium to drive engagement, and so we need to look at how to cross this platform over with email marketing. Facebook is already doing this with their updated messaging system. Email is going to allow for social connections that are basically email in a different format. And why not try to integrate social campaigns with email marketing?
Whatever way you decide to carry out email marketing this year, make sure to take the advice above so that you can move into 2012 with an innovative email marketing campaign.
Dont forget to check out our FREE whitepaper 'Emerging Innovations In Email Marketing' to help you further! Click here to download:
