Email and...

If you are using one and only one form of marketing for your business, you are doomed.

Yeah, I know folks who say they only do newspaper advertising, or only do direct mail advertising, but they have either being doing that "forever", or they don't understand that marketing involves more than traditional advertising.

Your sign, your business cards, your company vehicles, your location, your website, these are also a part of your marketing.

This week I read the following piece about email as a marketing tool and it applies to all of us:

Two Key Ways Email Can Boost Results in Other Channels

"Once you've created a regular email-communications program, or developed your smart auto-responders, are you remembering to strategically use email to strengthen and encourage relationships with your list members in other channels?" Karen Talavera asks in a Pro article at MarketingProfs.

There's a simple reason why it's important to facilitate cross-channel interaction with your email subscribers, Talavera says: They are actively hopping, skipping and jumping from one channel to another!

"Conversations started in one channel don't just stay there," she notes. "Simply because a customer signed up for your email doesn't mean that customer is not also following you on Twitter or Facebook and might want to communicate there, too."

She suggests several ways to use email to build relationships online and offline. Here are two:

Make it fun to channel-hop with you. You've undoubtedly invited email subscribers to join you at social-media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. But have you given them a compelling reason to do so? "Contests and sweepstakes can work well in building social-media fan/follower bases rapidly," Talavera suggests, "but don't overlook couponing and the promise of exclusive treatment, content or access for your social-network community members only."

Drive traffic to your brick-and-mortar locations with special sales and events. Try an email campaign that promotes an in-store-only offer—one that cannot be redeemed online. "Store openings, clearances, benefits, or community events are also great ways to draw your target market into your ... place of business," she notes.

"Your prospects and customers are more likely to learn and retain information when it's presented in multiple modes, and your content will get more attention if you offer people multiple formats by which they can consume it," Talavera concludes.

The Po!nt: It's time to open things up. These days, you're most likely to make your messages memorable when you communicate with subscribers through a variety of channels.

Source: MarketingProfs. Read the full Pro article.

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