Email marketing is one of the most popular marketing techniques today. It helps businesses acquire and nurture leads. It’s also used to promote products and build customer relations.
But what about electronic direct mail (EDM) marketing? How is it any different from traditional email marketing. This review will help you understand what EDM marketing and will teach you how to get started with it.
What is EDM marketing, and how does it work?
EDM or electronic direct mail marketing is an advanced form of email marketing. Like traditional email marketing, EDM marketing involves building an email list and putting subscribers through different email drip campaigns to build customer relationships and promote products.
However, whereas email marketing revolves around building an email list and sending out emails, EDM marketing combines other marketing channels. An organization could use social media, PPC, or even television and print ads to retarget potential customers and reinforce the message distributed through marketing emails.
EDM marketing allows businesses to interact with prospects at multiple touchpoints. The increased interactions deliver a consistent brand experience, allowing you to scale your campaign faster.
Here’s a guide on how to set up an EDM marketing campaign:
1. Choose the right software solution
A good email marketing software helps you build your email list, segment it, and automate workflows.
There are many email marketing tools to choose from. But, of course, they don’t all perform the same, so you have to choose your tool carefully.
Here are some of the features to look for in an email marketing platform:
- Advanced audience segmentation capabilities
- A/B testing features to help you optimize your campaign
- Advanced reporting and analytics.
- Drag and drop email editor to help you create optimized emails quickly.
- Seamless integration with other applications like customer relationship management (CRM) platforms.
Some email service providers have free plans. While enticing, these plans usually have a catch. For example, they may limit the number of emails you can send per day. Others will hold back on key features like advanced analytics. Therefore, picking a premium package is often the best way to go.
2. Build your email list
More people will sign up to your mailing list if you make the process simple enough. Don’t ask for more details than you need. The most efficient signup forms ask for the email address alone.
Consider using lead magnets to increase signups. Provide a free insightful guide, ebook, checklist, webinar, and other resources in exchange for email addresses.
That’s one of the tricks we use at Diggity Marketing to collect emails and promote our link building and other services.
You can also increase your email list signups through quizzes. It’s a great way to make the signup process more enjoyable.
Ecommerce stores can also use discounts as lead magnets. Create an exit-intent popup offering visitors a coupon code or discount in exchange for their email address.
As you build your mailing list, work on audience segmentation as well. If you use a lead magnet like a quiz, include a multiple-choice question that allows you to segment your audience the way you want.
For example, the question below segments respondents based on their fitness goals:
Your email autoresponder can also help you segment your audience based on different parameters. For example, you can group your audience based on specific behaviors like previous purchases or subscriber activities on the website.
You can also segment your audience by asking subscribers which content they’re interested in. You can do that by setting up an email preference center.
3. Create the email campaign
It’s now time to create the campaign itself. The exact procedure for building your first email campaign will depend on the email software you’ve chosen.
As for the email message itself, you’ll need to follow best practices. For starters, write catchy subject lines to boost your open rate. Here are a few pointers on how to pull that off:
- Keep the subject line short and focused
- Create a sense of urgency
- Personalize.
- Pique the recipient’s curiosity. You can ask an interesting question, for example.
You can see the potential of your subject line beforehand using a subject line tester. Use these tools to fine-tune your subject lines and maximize the open rate.
The subject line aside, make sure the email message is easy to read and understand. Structure it correctly, ensuring it is mobile-friendly. After all, 49.3 percent of emails are opened from mobile devices.
Use simple language free of jargon. Address your readers directly and personalize the message to match their unique interests.
Great emails also utilize visuals. Add images or a video to break up the text. In addition to making your message more inviting, visuals can also help you drive the point home.
Your emails should also have clear call-to-action buttons. Ensure the button stands out from the rest of the copy. You can also experiment with different CTA placements to maximize your click-through rate.
For example, the CTA in the email below uses a contrasting color to stand out.
Make sure your emails remain consistent with the rest of your branding style. Remember, successful EDM campaigns deliver a consistent experience through multiple channels.
4. Set up autoresponders
Autoresponders take EDM campaigns to the next level by automating some critical messages. You can set your software to send a specific message based on a particular trigger. The most basic example is the welcome email sent when a new subscriber joins the email list.
You can also set up advanced automation. For example, if you’re an eCommerce store, you can track the pages or products your subscriber interacts with.
Then, set a unique email revolving around that product/page and have it deployed by your autoresponder. For example, you can have your software send out a discount code of a product your prospect looked at.
The right email services provide advanced autoresponder services. Although they’re likely to cost more, the efficiency and ROI are usually worth it.
5. Run campaigns that complement your email campaign
After setting up your email campaigns, shift your focus to the complementary channels. Your choice of campaigns boils down to your strategy, budget, and needs.
You should also consider where your target audience is when choosing complementary channels. For example, suppose you are an exclusively online business targeting millennials and Gen Z. In that case, digital marketing campaigns will probably get you better results than traditional campaigns like print and television ads.
Even then, you still need to consider the specific digital channels your target customers use. For instance, social media campaigns are great, but it’s challenging to focus on all platforms at once. Therefore, you’ll need to prioritize the platforms used by your target audience.
Make sure the content in your complementary campaigns remains consistent with the messaging in your marketing emails.
For example, Shopify sent this email for their Reunite campaign.
They followed it with posts like this on their socials.
From the branding and messaging, you can quickly tell the content comes from the same brand.
6. Track your EDM campaign
To know how effective your EDM campaign is, set up and track key metrics such as open rate, bounce rate, click-through rate, email sharing rate, and others.
Track these metrics consistently and look for any opportunities for improvement. For example, if you notice the open rates are dropping, take a different approach with your email subject lines. You can also check inactive subscribers and try re-engaging them.
Or, if your email bounce rate is high (more than 2%), clean your subscriber list to get rid of any invalid or outdated email addresses.
Look at your complementary channels as well. Are you getting good impressions and click-through rates on your PPC ads or social media posts? If not, find a way to make your content more compelling.
For example, try using visuals instead of text alone to make your social posts more interesting. You can even experiment with some memes to see if that’ll boost engagements and impressions.
With PPC, you can try writing better headlines and CTAs. You can also evaluate your keyword list. Utilize quality keywords to boost your impressions and create a negative keyword list to eliminate unqualified clicks.
Tracking and adjusting your strategy is the only way to boost your EDM campaigns’ ROI and overall performance.
Bottom Line
EDM marketing is an excellent way of taking traditional email marketing to the next level. It helps you combine the typical email campaigns with other channels like pay-per-click and social media. That helps you deliver a more personalized brand experience to your leads.
You learned how to get started with EDM marketing from this article. Once you’re done building your email marketing strategy, create complementary campaigns. Be sure to remain consistent with your branding and messaging. Do all that, and the results will start trickling in.
