It seems like the entire world is online. In today’s world, everyone relies on digital channels for communication, education, entertainment, and shopping. The online world has become a crucial part of everyday existence.

The marketing tactics in a digital strategy

The goal of a digital marketing strategy is to build brand awareness, find new customers, retain existing customers, and increase revenue.

Digital strategies vary, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, but, when people discuss digital marketing, they’re usually referring to tactics that fall into the following categories:

• Content marketing. To succeed online, you’ll need great content that connects with customers along their buying journey. From blog articles and how-to guides to videos and infographics, you’ll need content that’s compelling and relevant.
• Email marketing. Using email, you can attract and retain customers with personalized messages that promote your content, brand, and product. You can segment contacts and use personalization techniques to deliver messages that customers can’t ignore.
• Social media marketing. Your customers use social media, so it’s important to maintain a presence that engages customers. Announce new products, ask questions, and run contests to keep fans active.
• Organic and paid search. Help customers find your website and product through organic SEO practices and paid search efforts. Organically, you can create content for your website and blog that customers might search for and combine those efforts with paid search ads to bring customers back to your site.
• Digital advertising. To attract customers, you’ll likely turn to digital advertising. Investing in Google or Facebook ads, for example, is a great way to fill your sales pipeline.
• Online events. Hosting online events like webinars not only helps you establish credibility, but it also provides a great means of data collection. Upon signup, ask customers for information like their email address, job title, and location.

Now, while small businesses say they used Facebook as their primary marketing channel, studies have shown that consumers prefer email marketing over Facebook marketing when it comes to receiving marketing materials, which shows in overall consumer engagement as well:

• Email is shown to be 40x more effective at acquiring new customers than either Facebook or Twitter. 
• Email marketing has the highest conversion rate at 66%, when compared to social media marketing, direct mail, and others. 
• A message is 5x more likely to be seen via an email than via Facebook message or post. 
• Seventy-two percent of people prefer promotional content by email, compared to 17% who favor social media channels such as Facebook. 

Why email marketing is crucial in digital strategy

Of all the marketing techniques mentioned, email marketing is often ranked as the top contributor to a successful digital strategy. Here’s why.

Email offers an unbeatable ROI.

Marketers gravitate towards email marketing because it’s effective and cost-efficient. Research shows email marketing generates R55 for every R1 spent, and some companies see an ROI as high as R80 for every R1 spent.

Email ties all your marketing techniques together.

Every marketing effort you make can be promoted via email. Creating content for your blog? Share it with subscribers via email. Launching a social media contest? Invite subscribers to join with an email invitation. Want to drive traffic to your website? Send a product email to subscribers and follow it up with a retargeting ad through paid search. As you can see, no matter what kind of marketing you do, email is at the center or it.

Email connects with more consumers than social media

Social media use is growing. No question about it. However, it still doesn’t outpace email use. More consumers use email and rely on it daily to communicate.

Email messages have a longer lifespan than social posts.

Email provides a credible, long-lasting way to connect with subscribers. Sure, you can reach subscribers with a Facebook meme or a tweet, but the lifespan of social posts fade quickly. Research shows a tweet’s lifespan is 18 minutes. Your tweet lasts for mere minutes and then disappears into the newsfeed abyss, never to be found again. An email is different. It gets prominent placement in an inbox and is easy to reference later on.

Email offers a way to send tailored messages to new and existing customers.

Advances in email automation have made it easier than ever for marketers to personalize their messages. Personalization goes way beyond adding a subscriber’s name to the subject line. Now you can segment emails, create tailored messages, dynamically change content based on the subscriber’s preferences, and insert more personal fields like job titles and locations.

This kind of personalized marketing is the best way to attract new customers and delight existing ones. Knowing your customer and sending relevant messages has become the ultimate benchmark of a successful marketer.