Hornsby Brand Design LLC: Creating Sticky Brands: Dinosaurs Rule! Email vs. Social Media Campaigns

Compared to social media, email communication is a dinosaur...or is it? It's an older form of communication, for sure, but statistics show that it still reigns as the most effective form of electronic dialog. In fact, email campaigns have the highest ROI of any marketing channel available.

Consider these facts:

A click-through email campaign is 6x more likely to succeed than a click-through tweet.*
Email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter.*
Email marketing drives more conversions than any other marketing channel, including search and social.*
Including a call to action button instead of a text link can increase conversion rates by as much as 28%.*
A message is 5x more likely to be seen in email than via Facebook.*
4.24% of website visitors from email marketing buy something as compared to 2.49% of visitors from search engines and 0.59% from social media.*
Sending four emails in a month instead of one significantly increases the number of consumers opening more than one email.*

Surprised? Given that email is a more personal form of communication, maybe not. So, how can you harness this personal connection to build your brand?

8 keys to an effective email campaign:

Target audience: Who are you sending this email to and why? Use an existing contact lists (or buy one) and build on these through embedded "share" buttons and links to online subscribe forms. If appropriate, use incentives such as free shipping or first-time buyer discounts to encourage people to join your list.
Type of campaign: What's the purpose of your campaign? Are you generating new leads for your sales team? More RSVPs for your event? More donations for your cause? Are you providing industry news? Is this a newsletter? A special offer? An announcement? An invitation?
Content: What information do you need to convey? This will primarily be dictated by the "Type of campaign," but in any case, compelling and meaningful content will help to captured your audience. Be sure the content is relevant to your target. Statistics show that campaigns sent to segmented lists with specific and relevant information can increase revenue/response by 760%!
Brand design: Is the email campaign in keeping with your company's brand and goals? Align your campaign and it will reinforce your customer's consistent experience with your brand.
Layout: Email campaigns are generally deliver in HTML format and are no wider than 600px. Keep in mind, you have about 5 seconds to capture your reader, so design the layout to stand out. Also, research shows that 41% of email opens are on mobile devices, so make sure your campaigns are optimized across all devices.
Scheduling: Is this a weekly, monthly, quarterly or one-time campaign? Develop a content schedule to ensure timeliness and expectancy.
Sending and tracking metrics: Do you have open rates, click throughs, and other key metrics in place to review for improvement? These measurements provide invaluable information for future campaigns.
Blog and other connections: Have you linked to your blog and social media? Be sure to include a "share" call-to-action button to encourage referrals.