How much content is published online every day?
Content marketing pros disagree on the exact numbers (it depends on how exactly you define content), but everyone agrees we’re dealing with massive numbers. As of 2013, NewsCred reported there we were sharing 27 million pieces of content every day. In a single day, people watch up to 500 years worth of YouTube videos on Facebook alone. Even a simple search for the word “manatee” returns an incredible 14 million results.
In short, it’s never been more difficult to make sure your content rises above the digital background noise of the net.
That’s why our content marketing company always stresses the importance of building an email list. Now, let’s be clear — email marketing won’t be an effective strategy for every organization, and for some, it might be wasteful. But if your existing inbound marketing services are coming up short, then email marketing could be the solution you’ve been looking for.
There’s a reason every politician on the U.S. presidential campaign trail is relying on email lists to raise money. It’s why getting off their email list can feel like trying to quit a gym. Email marketing is an effective, targeted inbound marketing service that delivers measurable results.
What kinds of benefits does email marketing offer that other kinds of content marketing don’t?
First, it allows for laser-like targeting.
As many a content marketing company has learned the hard way, digital media creation can quickly turn into a disaster if you don’t have a plan for getting eyeballs on your content. Our email marketing company helps you target the people most likely to be interested in your content, product or service. Without this kind of inbound marketing attached to your content creation, it’s easy to feel like you’re just shouting into the Internet abyss.
Second, it gives you actionable data.
There are a variety of methods an email marketing company can use to help you build an email list, some organic, some less so. No matter how you build your list, it will contain reams of useful data. For instance, the contacts from your email list can be saved and used for remarketing campaigns in the future. Often, our inbound marketing firm has to teach clients that their valuable email list can be used for Facebook advertising.
On top of that, you can optimize your marketing strategy based on the open rate, click through rate, and other data revealed by email marketing. Which brings us to our third point…
Finally, email marketing services gives you control over your content.
Once you publish something online, it’s officially out of your hands. But with email marketing, you can carefully control how, when, where, and to who your content is delivered. In 2014, Business2Community reported that email open rates drop sharply on weekends, while 76% of all opens occur in the first two days after delivery. These numbers will vary from campaign to campaign, but ultimately they put you in control of your content marketing.
And for what it’s worth, Business2Community also reported that year that email marketing had the highest ROI of all Internet marketing services, returning an average of $44 per dollar spent.