Email Marketing strikes many as old-fashioned. More fashionable things like social media and mobile marketing get all the attention, and some people will even try to tell you that email marketing is dead.
Unfortunately, reality doesn’t agree. In fact, with a strong content marketing approach, email is more powerful than ever thanks to social media. Why? Because it moves the conversation about your business or information product to a more personal environment — the in-box.
Email provides you the most direct line of communication for conversion to sales … which is why the most savvy online marketers have no intention of giving it up any time soon.
It’s also amazingly cost-effective. With an ROI of around 4,300% (according to the Direct Marketing Association), email practically pays for itself … and saves a tree or two. It’s what you use when you want to move from “conversation to commerce.”
What makes email content work?
All of us are far too familiar with email newsletters that waste our time, pitches that annoy us, and downright spam. Those don’t work.
What works is a value exchange — your valuable information for your prospect’s valued time. Your subscribers need to know they can trust you … that you’re not a soulless self-promoting spam-bot.
Good email content deepens your relationship with your audience through effective subject line writing (getting your messages opened), your distinctive voice (getting those messages read), and delivering quality, niche specific content your prospect needs and shares with others (inspiring referrals and word-of-mouth).