The most valuable marketing channel

If I were to ask you what is the most effective marketing channel being used today, what would you answer? Facebook? Twitter? Social media as a whole? Mobile marketing? Well, all these answers would be wrong. The correct answer is email marketing. It”™s been around almost since the invention of the Internet ”“ and it still works. The idea behind email is very simple: to keep you in front of your audience and get them to take action.

At a recent Constant Contact conference I went to in Boston, the key speaker asked a set of simple questions to the audience.

Question 1: How many of you (in the audience) read the newspaper today? (A few people raised their hand.)

Question 2: How many of you checked your social media accounts today? (About 20 percent of the audience raised their hands.)

Question 3: How many of you checked your email today? (Almost everyone raised their hands.)

With just a few simple questions in an early morning presentation, the speaker uncovered a significant result: people assign a higher priority to incoming email whether through mobile or desktop than most other online activities. While these questions don”™t address which marketing channel is ultimately more effective ”“ particularly over the long term, their response strongly reflects the importance of email marketing despite its lack of flash (when compared to newer technologies).

An October 2013 study by x+1 and Research Now reported that 25 percent of consumers stated that email marketing messages were the most useful in helping them make purchasing decisions. This was the highest percentage of all responses. Surprisingly, personalized web experience ”“ the “hot” area of digital marketing ”“ was a distant second, garnering only a 16 percent influence on purchasing decisions. (A personalized web experience involves the providing of content that is based on individual behaviors and preferences.) Web ads and Facebook/Twitter finished in third and fourth place, respectively.

Consumers also felt that email marketing was more relevant than personalized web experience by a 32 percent to 28 percent majority. It”™s also better directed since email content can be aimed at highly targeted market segments. Particularly if the email piece is well written and has a clear call to action (CTA), it can elicit a notable ”“ and trackable ”“ response.

What does this mean

for your business?

What this means is that email marketing should be an important component of your marketing strategy. In fact, when we promote a webinar, we consistently get more sign-ups from our email campaigns than we do from social media or any other medium.

It also means that with email marketing you can reach your target market, generate analytics that indicate their likes and preferences and help build the necessary trust that will result in business and sales.

Despite all of the ”“ often justifiable ”“ hype about newer technologies, email marketing remains a highly effective and informative platform. If you do not have an email strategy, it is well past time for you to create one. If you do have an email strategy that is unproductive, start examining how you can improve it. After all, it may just become your most valuable marketing channel.

Bruce Newman is the vice president at The Productivity Institute L.L.C. He specializes in content creation and digital marketing. Most of his time is spent in the creation of content for webinars and their promotion, email marketing, education and social media campaigns for clients. He is also the creator of the highly popular The Complete Webinar Training Course. He can be reached at bnewman@prodinst.com.