Is email the untapped answer to successful integrated marketing campaigns

Digital’s radical evolution over the last few years has demanded brands lean on a multi-channel approach to deliver their marketing campaigns. But despite these shifts in the landscape, email marketing proves time and time again to drive results far beyond just customer conversion. 

Earlier this year, BigCommerce released their annual State of Ecommerce report delving into the essential retail benchmarks, growth levers and the power of customer-first UX. Their study reaffirmed the power of email marketing, with the channel ranked as the most important tool in helping consumers make purchase decisions (Bigcommerce, 2022). 

Email is responsible for 42.1% of the purchases triggered by some sort of marketing message, greatly outperforming other channels like social media. But the power of email marketing in your marketing campaigns goes far beyond an increase in revenue. Effective email marketing offers a more integrated, consistent and concise approach that lets brands reap a magnitude of benefits (BigCommerce, 2022). 

So, let’s dive into some of the reasons why the owned channel of email marketing is so vital in any integrated marketing campaign in 2022. 

Email Marketing: The Secret Revenue Driver

40 years on from its origination, email’s impact not only keeps up but surpasses other market channels like social media (BigCommerce, 2022). 

Studies have found that for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return on investment is 122%. Results such as these speak to email’s capacity to communicate effectively with audiences and more importantly, trigger action. 

By owning your email marketing channel, you can draw from real, live customer data to personalise campaigns. These tools enhance the user experience, as your audience receives relevant and timely messages that are individualised for them at their point of the user journey. More personalisation leads to higher engagement and sales and in turn, building a better and more loyal relationship with customers.

Rather than opting for blast-sends to all subscribers, segmented and targeted campaigns let emails match the personal algorithm experiences users have come to expect from digital. As a society, the kinds of content marketing audiences want to see is changing and these powerful tools let brands respond accordingly (Klaviyo, 2022). Today, we don’t want to be outwardly sold products anymore nor do we want to receive generic content. We have evolved to expect personalisation and preference-based content.

Preference & Personalisation 

The consensus points to TikTok as the future of digital. Its elusive yet hyper-personalised algorithm has driven it to unprecedented and accelerated success. However, despite entertaining over 1 billion users, the algorithm’s mechanisms ensure that each users’ ‘For You Page’ experience is one-of-a-kind.

So where does email marketing come in?

Email marketing allows us to tap into real-time customer data, through Shopify or other website platforms, to provide personalised content, based on user preferences and this is where the return of revenue really happens. 

McKinsey’s recent report found that 71% of consumers expect personalised interactions with brands and more interestingly, 76% say they get frustrated when this doesn’t happen. Customers are increasingly expecting convenience and ease when shopping, and as the post-COVID landscape reshapes our culture, they are also searching for more humanised and connective experiences.  This study cited that 72% of customers “expect” the brands they shop with to recognise them as individuals. Personalisation is defined by the customers in this study as brands making them “feel special”. 

Email persists as the ideal channel to foster this special experience at all touchpoints of the journey, by using the myriad of customer data you have access to and crafting engaging assets in response (GWI).  

Real-world examples drive home the impact this activity has on real people. A customer that has abandoned a cart with a specific style of product can be re-engaged with tips on how to style it. A customer viewed a product without purchasing and there’s an upcoming sale – secure their business with an early release discount code. A sale-only shopper with a low customer lifetime value who only ever purchases a certain product – you can curate a custom collection to engage with their sense of style during sale season. All of this and more is possible with email marketing as brands get the opportunity to increase conversion in subtle and responsive ways, which feel friendly rather than abrupt. In other words, a good marketing email should sound like it’s coming from a friend. 

Gone are the days of brands engaging in overt sales tactics across all channels. Audiences look to brands to be engaged, entertained or even educated for a more unique and rewarding experience. Optimised email marketing within integrated campaigns offers brands the opportunity to fully tap into this personalised, preference-based marketing era, and drive results. 

The Customer Lifecycle

Coined by the CRM provider Infusionsoft, Lifecycle represents the new frontier of integrated marketing campaigns. Its approach revolves around designing a marketing plan that responds to the entire lifetime of a customer. Lifecycle marketing not only attracts the customer and grows revenue, it also maintains their relationship with the brand for life through great experiences. 

This lets email respond to the customer at each journey point, starting with building brand awareness and personalised engagement, to leveraging customer data to support customer decision making and retention. Lifecycle marketing also harnesses data from other marketing platforms to share between each other, such as exporting & importing lists of customers between platforms to utilise all the data available. 

Ultimately, a customer can choose to leave the brand as easily as they arrive, so personalised content and relevant information is essential to differentiating your brand from the rest. The customer lifecycle is more than just a marketing tool, it allows us to personalise a journey based on a customer’s stage in the funnel to create a friendly, non-marketing style experience that in turn builds brand loyalty and a strong customer base. 

Want to fully utilise the power of email?

Although the market continues to be flooded with new social media and revenue channels, email marketing continues to emerge as one of, if not the most efficient and cost-effective marketing tool. By making email marketing a major arm of your integrated strategy, you can leverage both owned and paid channels to drive better results. 

If you want to learn more, our Email Marketing team are your go-to experts.