While every online marketing strategy should include social media, search engine optimization and email, the latter should be your priority.
If you’re thinking, “What? You’re crazy! How can that be? Social media and Google are all I hear about,” take a look at the stats. Stats that matter.
Q2 2012 Conversion Rates
Source: Monetate
According to Monetate’s “Ecommerce Quarterly EQ2 2012,” in terms of Q2 2012 conversion rates, email (4.25%) easily outperformed search (2.49%). Social came in at 0.59%. Email’s 4.25% conversion rate was the highest in the report’s 5-quarter reporting period, going back to Q2 2011, up from 3.82% in Q1 2012, and 3.65% in Q2 2011.
Here’s more perspective that reinforces the importance of email marketing. And more.
And this goes for non-ecommerce businesses, too.
Email marketing works because:
- It allows targeting
- It is data driven
- It drives direct sales
- It builds relationships, loyalty and trust
- It supports sales through other channels like social media
Don’t listen to those who say spam, social media, and blogs killed email marketing. It’s flat wrong. Let the numbers do the talking.
Also, if you don’t subscribe to enewsletters, daily deal sites like Groupon and Living Social and such or ever purchase anything due to email marketing, don’t let your behavior impact how you need to market your business to current and prospective customer.
Studies of customer behavior, marketing experts and documented business results show email needs to be a top priority. Then, like all marketing tactics, it’s a matter of executing it right.
On Wednesday, I’ll share how to get started with email marketing. Until then, here’s some great information to read and bookmark on the topic. And here’s more.
Question: How are you using email marketing to your advantage?
