You Need This Underrated Marketing Channel
As customers get costlier and costlier to acquire, marketing leaders are left to ponder two things: will the Zuck and Tim Apple ever make up, and how can marketing leaders get costs back down to a palatable level?
Part of the answer is to diversify your channels (we’ll cover that next week). The other part answer is to maximize your brand’s utilization of owned channels, including email and SMS marketing.
Most marketing leaders are using at least some level of sophistication when it comes to email automation: you’ll likely find a welcome series, cart abandonment flow for eCommerce brands, and a monthly newsletter that gets sent most of the time, but rarely all time. At Fidelitas when we audit email accounts we find that, much like organic social content, a brand’s email strategy is either really, really purposeful (read: profitable), or is simply another check-the-box exercise of a marketing team strapped for time and resources.
When it comes to email, brands and their marketing leaders need to get back to the basics and consider how they can add value to their customers through the channel. I’m no Nostradamus, but I’m guessing the answer is NOT going to be 3-4 emails over a 5-day span for Mother’s Day or Memorial Day next month. On the B2B side, adding value means providing additional insight (yes, even the insight that you might normally charge for) and positioning your brand as a thought leader while instilling prospect confidence as they continue their journey to purchase. B2C brands need to consider specific calls to action and measurable goals, such as driving traffic to brick and mortar locations or increasing AOV online, and then create more personalized campaigns around those initiatives.
In our opinion, SMS has become perhaps the most underrated channel for marketing leaders. While B2B marketers can use SMS for tactics like appointment setting and on-site lead generation, the real potential is still being unlocked for eCommerce marketers. Klaviyo recently overhauled their SMS program, and eCommerce platforms are creating more and more opportunities for merchants to use third-party plugins to build their SMS lists throughout the journey to purchase, including checkout. SMS is a tool that needs to be used sparingly, but goodness it’s effective when done well. Regardless of where you’re at stewarding your brand’s growth, SMS should be a part of your game plan if you want to stay ahead of, or at least keep up with, the competition.
