3 reasons why electronic direct mail is an essential tool for businesses

Most of us are signed up to receive e-newsletters from our favorite sources on a daily, weekly, fortnightly or even random basis. More than likely, you have your favorite e-newsletters that you keenly anticipate receiving and others you might have forgotten about completely until they land in your inbox.

There are so many channels where you can reach your customers these days—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn—businesses should be putting just as much energy and effort, if not more, into their electronic direct mail (EDM) strategy.

Once someone has subscribed to receive emails from your company, you’ve already established some kind of relationship with them. We can’t always say the same for other channels and especially social media where we know there is a lot of noise.

Here are 3 reasons why you should be using electonic direct mails (EDMs) to communicate with your audience.

#1 – Email marketing is very cost-effective

Sure, social media marketing can be cost-effective but email marketing is even more cost-effective. The only fee you really need to cover is the email marketing platform you choose. Generally speaking, the more popular platforms such as MailChimp are free to use until you generate a certain number of subscribers (and even then, it’s a relatively small fee depending on how many subscribers you have). Once you’re signed up, you can send as many EDMs as you need to without paying a cent—the only cost is the resource you put into building the EDM (staff, any design costs etc).

#2 – It’s fantastic for relationship building

When you know who your customer is, what they need from you and how to communicate with them using the language they understand, you’re highly likely to succeed with EDM campaigns. Experiment a little in terms of what times and days work best with your audience through open and click-through rates.

Once this is established, consistency is key. So, stick to the same day and time so that your customers know when to hear from you. Most email marketing services will allow you to schedule your campaigns ahead of time and provide you with the data you need to see what’s working with your audience and what isn’t.

#3 – Email marketing arms you with powerful insights about your audience

The more you know about your audience, the better. Email platforms such as MailChimp provide powerful built-in analytics that allows you to track how your campaigns are performing. You can easily ascertain what kind of content your customers are responding to and what content is missing the mark. The following tools will assist you in helping to track audience engagement:

• Opens and click throughs
• Shares
• Google Analytics
• Email bounce rates

If you haven’t done much with your EDM strategy or have doubts about the success of effective EDM strategies, do your homework. You’ll quickly see that planning and implementing a strong EDM marketing campaign is crucial to your success in business today. It’s one of the few ways in which you can communicate directly with your customers and target market.

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DISCLAIMER: This article expresses my own ideas and opinions. Any information I have shared are from sources that I believe to be reliable and accurate. I did not receive any financial compensation in writing this post, nor do I own any shares in any company I’ve mentioned. I encourage any reader to do their own diligent research first before making any investment decisions.