Have you ever heard of Electronic Direct Mail (EDM)? If not, you’re probably not the only one. The essence of EDM marketing is to deliver offers through e-blasts. But EDM is much more complex. EDM includes several channels. Using EDM will enhance your email marketing strategy.
EDM marketing is one of the best ways to reach potential customers. In 2022, you indeed won’t find anyone who has an email. Email should be the focal point of any modern marketing campaign because of its potential to reach a vast audience. So when should we use it?
Contents
- 1 What is EDM Marketing?
- 2 EDM Marketing vs Email Marketing: What’s the Difference?
- 3 Benefits of EDM Marketing
- 4 Build an EDM Campaign Strategy in 7 Steps
What is EDM Marketing?
Electronic Direct Mail (EDM) is a marketing strategy companies use to connect with customers and potential customers. Marketers use EDM to send personalized emails that build strong customer relationships and drive brand loyalty and conversions. EDM marketing is more than email marketing.
EDM Marketing builds customer loyalty by reaching large groups of clients and prospective clients, creating and cultivating relationships, generating new leads and increasing sales. By using cross-channel marketing, companies can use EDM marketing to target customers on various channels.
EDM Marketing vs Email Marketing: What’s the Difference?
You may still ask what the difference is between EDM and email marketing. Both use email to build lists and increase conversions, so, understandably, they look similar.
While email marketing campaigns are limited to that, EDM campaigns are much more complex. EDM marketing campaigns start with e-blasts but continue with retargeting to see who has viewed the email, supporting social media campaigns and even billboard or print ads in magazines.
These supporting marketing campaigns are built on top of the email. Each one serves as one of many needed brand touchpoints and will help convert prospects into customers and existing customers into repeat customers.
Prospective customers need to see or hear your marketing message at least seven times before they take action and buy your product/service. EDM marketing helps you create a broader comprehensive marketing strategy than email marketing.
Benefits of EDM Marketing
Although the benefits of using EDM marketing are the same as email marketing, the main difference is that multi-channel campaigns usually show better results than typical email marketing campaigns.
1. Save Time and Cost
Both EDM and email marketing are very cost-effective. Once you have an email list, you can send emails to them at a reasonably low cost based on a predetermined schedule. You can create beautiful emails using templates or the expertise of the in-house design team. It also saves time because you can do everything yourself without turning to a printer or delivery service to get your message across to your audience.
2. Build Trust and Increase Conversions
Speaking directly to an audience is how a business can build trust with its customers, and email marketing is the most effective way to do this. The BCG study found that, for millennials, trusting a brand is the second most crucial thing after discounts. A 2019 study found that 62% of consumers are brand loyal, with another 51% stating that they will support a brand they trust.
One of the most significant elements of EDM marketing is that you are working with a list of people who have been directly permitted to contact them via email. They have opted in to receiving communications, so you know they are interested in hearing from you now. For that reason, they are more likely to engage with content submitted by your business. It allows you to build trust with your audience by sending timely and engaging emails. By building trust, you can turn them into paying customers.
3. Allows Personalization
EDM Marketing allows you to personalize your email strategy based on how you segment your audience. For that, your business can connect with your audience on a more authentic level. It offers beneficial information for them. You no longer need to send emails to a global audience promoting free shipping – with proper audience segmentation; you can accurately address a wide range of audiences.
Email marketing is about collecting leads and building a relationship with them. EDM marketing takes it one step further and tries to leverage the valuable information it has gathered to improve your marketing strategy. Personalized communication is only one way to improve customer relationships.
Build an EDM Campaign Strategy in 7 Steps
1. Choose an Email Service Provider
If you already have a choice of email service provider, you can proceed to step two. But if not, you must find an email platform that works for you. If you are implementing an EDM marketing campaign, use an email marketing tool with features such as list segmentation, autoresponders, automated workflows and analytics.
There are many good options, and you should test to see which is the best. Whichever platform you choose, you can segment your lists and send out automated email campaigns that define KPIs trigger.
2. Building Email Lists
The success of an EDM email marketing campaign lies in your prospect list. You want to make sure that your database is valid, and you should consistently clean up your email list. If you’ve been in business for a long time, you should combine all your contacts into one list. Pull contacts from email accounts, eCommerce and CRM platforms, and existing email lists.
If you’re building a list from scratch, you’ll need to develop an email list-building strategy. Many email marketing tools can help you convert more website visitors into customers.
Creating a lead magnet – offering a 30-day free trial, a 10% discount code, and interactive quizzes – all attract the audience to sign up.
Show Your Audience How to Sign Up – Use lead forms, embed forms in your content, floating CTA buttons and many more to collect email addresses on your website effectively.
Create Dedicated Pages for Lead Capture: Create strong lead capture pages and link to social media profiles, ads, marketing collateral and so on.
Don’t Forget Offline: You can use physical stores and other physical presence to enter email into your database.
3. Segment Email Lists
Once you’ve built your list, it’s time to start segmenting it. You should segment your list accordingly to deliver the most targeted content to subscribers. If you’re having a sale on women’s clothing, then it may not be possible if email male customers.
Segmenting your list will depend significantly on your goals and the information you have gathered from your audience. Several segmentation types can be applied: demographic, psychographic, geographic and behavioural.
Categorizing your email list allows you to meet customer needs, market directly to them and send effective emails every time. It is an integral part of an EDM marketing strategy.
4. Create an Email Campaign
You are ready to create a campaign and send emails to your list. Depending on your email platform, the steps for creating an email campaign are slightly different. But some email marketing tips can be used when building campaigns:
Avoid Hard-to-Understand Jargon: Speak to your audience in easy-to-understand language.
Make emails stand out visually – Replace overly wordy sentences with images.
Write an exciting email subject: The subject is an essential part of the email because it determines whether people will see your email.
Consistent with Brand – Consistent with email design, tone of voice, sending intervals and so on
Don’t hide the unsubscribe button: Anti-spam laws are no joke, so display the unsubscribe button or link in the footer.
5. Setting up Autoresponders
Take advantage of autoresponders to help you automate email communications. Autoresponders are emails sent automatically to your list based on triggers set in the email platform. Triggers can be:
Specific actions, such as when someone opts into your list and welcome emails sent
Release timed like a week after signing up to your email list; a discount code will be sent.
If you’re looking for ways to include autoresponders in your EDM marketing campaigns, try some of the following:
- Happy birthday
- Invoices, receipts, delivery confirmations and transactional emails
- Product recommendations
- Content is built based on visitor behaviour on your website
- Reminder cart
6. Turn on Tracking
If you run a marketing campaign, you must track the results. You can fully understand how a campaign affects your marketing goals with analytics. Here are some metrics to follow for your EDM marketing campaigns:
Open Rate – How many people open your email
Clickthrough rate (CTR) – How many people click on the link in your email
Click-to-open rate – compares the number of unique clicks to unique opens
List growth rate – Number of people subscribed to your list
Email sharing rate – the number of people who share your email
Unsubscribe rate – the number of people who unsubscribed from your list
Most email platforms can provide this information – coupled with Google Analytics. You should be able to track all the metrics needed to measure the success of your EDM campaigns.
7. Running Complementary Marketing Campaigns
Depending on your goals, complement your direct email campaign with campaigns on other media channels, such as pay-per-click advertising remarketing, social media posting, SMS remarketing, web push notifications, print advertising or different offline strategies. For example, suppose you are promoting a new product launch and have sent an email blast to a list of recipients. In that case, you can follow up with targeted social media ads and SMS reminders on the launch day, as well as advertisements in magazines.
FAQs
How do I write an electronic direct letter?
-Copy for EDM is different from other corporate writing. It should be more like an online copy: short, concise and easy to scan.
Why is EDM Marketing effective?
-EDM is the only channel offering a broader reach and precise targeting options. It provides versatile segmentation, triggers content based on user behaviour, and offers unparalleled personalization capabilities.