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You're trying to figure out how to better reach consumers, especially young ones. They're always on their phones, right? Why not a mobile app? Bad idea. Your customers don't want to have to download yet another app, as I wrote earlier this week. What do they want? Emails, actually. Really.
We surveyed nearly 500 readers - not a random sample by any means - about their online habits, and we asked how they wanted to interact with brands. Social media beat out apps, but even more surprising, email led the pack. Take a look:
When I saw this, I assumed marketers might be headed down the wrong path, as everyone knows that we all hate email. But our company survey (mostly tech-related Boston companies) tells a different story. Marketers are allocating resources to email. We asked marketers to list the channels most important to their marketing strategy, and here were the top three: Social Media, SEO, and Email Marketing.
But just because consumers are still interested in interacting over email, that doesn't guarantee they care about your newsletter. When an email newsletter is great, it's indispensable - I rely on several religiously - but the bulk of them are never opened. So prioritizing email marketing doesn't mean just sending lots more emails or trying to expand your list; it has to include testing and refining your approach, and should be treated as an editorial product.
It's not easy to do email marketing right, but it's possible. And, even more so than social media, it's what consumers want.
