To step up your digital marketing game, you need to combine your SEO efforts with email marketing to achieve genuine, organic reach for your content.
In the age of digital marketing, excellent content marketing along with the latest SEO techniques (which need to keep up with Google and social media algorithm changes) is absolute necessity. It's been all about making sure your content reaches your brand's target audience.
Yet, the market has been saturated with content, and everyone is using SEO techniques.
But there is an unlikely "new" way for brands to reach their prospective customers and target user base: email marketing.
The Sleeper Hit: Email
On average, email users are bombarded with 120 emails a day (some studies claim that number is now closer to 140), and 57% of users say the content they receive through is never or rarely useful.
Yet email remains one of the fastest, most common, and most direct ways of reaching customers. A lot of people also typically prefer to read emails, which often are now read first via mobile. There are few faster ways to reach the audience so directly than email marketing.
The trick is not to overwhelm. The problem is that although everyone uses email, most companies don't really use it discerningly, instead blasting emails for just about any opportunity. Users are bombarded with clunky newsletter updates, spam, and promotions. As a result, users don't open those nonessential emails anymore and consider most of them as spam.
So how do you get your customers' attention via email?
Utililty. Make sure that whenever you contact your consumer base, it's something they will consider useful. And here's where content is key.
Say you're developing an app; you will likely use some form of email communication (it's important to reach out to new users with a welcoming email). But many companies don't send welcome emails to new users, even though it's an ideal time to provide highly useful content to new users by leading them to your website.
Email Marketing Levels Up With an SEO Mentality
By using SEO approaches combined with email marketing, you can...
- Drive traffic to your website. Make your email more personalized and targeted; think of it as you would content. Use the right mix of keywords and SEO methods to perk up users' attention and make them realize that this content is relevant to them (something you can do even without the help of an SEO specialist.) Whether it's trending articles, or a product or service they are particularly interested in, make it super clear what the email is about and its benefits.
- Once they're onsite, engage. When qualified traffic heads to your site thanks to the keywords and relevant information in your email, it's time for reinforcement. Redirect them straight onto the website where the information, item, or service they're looking for is.
- Improve mobile interaction. When users receive a notification on their phones, they pay attention. If an email with the right SEO keyword (i.e., relevant to their interest) appears, they're more likely to open it right then, on their mobile device. That increases website traffic. (Make sure your website is mobile-user friendly!)
The Email Marketing and Content Marketing Tag-Team
In content marketing, you will have fewer better allies than email marketing. It gives content the highest ROI in any marketing channel. Using this combination of content and email can...
- Improve brand and customer relations. The people you are communicating with via email have opted in to hear from you and are paying attention to what you have to say. Meet their expectations by providing timely, relevant content that they want to hear about. When that's done well, the customer will keep opening your emails and continue to build a rapport with your brand.
- Highlight the most important information. Normally, websites contain a great deal of information, and items that you might want to highlight will get lost in the bustle. Using email marketing, you'll be able to put a spotlight on information that you need the customer to see. It may be a new product or service, or even an important update.
- Answer your customers' questions. When issues arise with regard to any item or product, or maybe an influx of customer concerns regarding an incident or event, a combination of content and email marketing will give them their answers, reassurances, or just inform them of the company's position on the matter. Provided in a timely manner, it will strengthen a customers' trust in the company.
The Future
The future of these and other marketing techniques continues to move toward greater personalization. What really makes users click open is based on personal interests and individual needs. The more emails seem canned or generic or broadcast in bulk, the more disingenuous they seem. Personalization gives the customer the feeling of truly being given attention, the feeling that the brand is taking steps to address their needs in particular.
