According to email marketing specialists StrongMail 62% of companies are keen to increase their spend on social media and 66% of them would like to incorporate this into their email marketing campaigns. The problems seem to lie in companies being unsure on two counts: firstly they do not know how to measure a campaigns success and secondly they are not sure how to implement the integration of social media marketing with email.

As outlined by Propero, email marketing is popular this year. Its a cost effective, efficient way to promote your business. In fact email gives the best return on investment of all the digital channels available: $46 for every pound spent (Direct Marketing Association report 2008). Additionally research from Forrester in July 2008 showed that email was the top way in which people share content online.

What is Social Media?

Social media are methods via which ordinary people can express themselves online in an easy and accessible way. They are wide in range. Examples are:

Internet forums (eg Google groups)
Weblogs (eg Propero Digital!)
Social blogs ( eg Twitter – micro blogging)
Podcasts (podcast.com)
Photos (eg Flickr)
Video ( eg YouTube)

The growth of this sector has been huge over the last three years and more and more companies are capitalising on this method of reaching people. Its interactive. Everyone gets a voice. This appeals because it is helpful in the creation of relationships.

Do your research
What are your competitors doing on-line? Research their activities to see what they are doing for your potential customers and how these customers are responding.

Where are your customers hanging out?
Find out where your customers are hanging out online. There are huge variations between different groups of people. Women, for example are more likely to spend more time online and use forums. Mothers in particular use social support networks. Younger people use video sites much more than older groups. Learn from your customers. They are your teachers.

Keep you eye on the ball
Social media is an ever changing area so you need to keep abreast of the developments and adjust your plans accordingly.  Things that are popular today can be superceeded in a couple of months by something totally new.

Communicate with your customers
Email allows you to inform your customers about what you are offering in terms of social media. If you start a blog for example, let all your email contacts know. Blogs allow your clients to access you more often.

Conversely in your blog allow people to comment. Also, allow them to email you from it. This increases your email list and allows users the facility to comment privately if this is what they prefer. Feedback will be useful in informing you of any changes that need to be made.

Measuring Return on Investment
Measuring ROI can be tricky with social media unless you are using paid advertisement. This is one criticism which is often levelled at marketing companies.

Testing the water – try things out in a small way to start with. The joy of social media is that it is free to try so your costs will only be staffing ones.

Asking questions – as always with marketing ask the right questions to find out how and when your customers found you.

Email marketing is currently being used as a cheap and convenient way to get messages across to existing and potential customers. Recent research presented by Smith-Harmon, an agency providing email marketing strategy services, suggests that email navigation bars can be tweaked in order for them to achieve their best potential.

A horizontal navigation bar
65% of companies that include a horizontal navigation bar in their emails found that they were more effective in driving clicks onto their sites than the main content of the email. Also 65% found that this method also had a better conversion rate than the main content.

Aaron Smith, co-founder and principal of Smith-Harmon said,
‘An email designer I know once half-joked that he wished he could send out emails that were just a navigation bar. That’s how effective they are at driving engagement.’

A navigation bar that fits
Emails are usually narrower than websites therefore using a navigation bar that fits is important to maintain the usability and aesthetic appeal of your email. Using smaller bars means that you should use fewer navigations links.

Pick five or six of your top-performing site destinations. If you have lots of areas for exploration you can consider adding a link to ‘more places’ which enables the user to look at everything you have to offer without an overcrowded email.

Highlight important areas
Navigation bars can be adapted depending on your current needs. For example during a sale you can highlight relevant tabs. According to Smith-Harmon, ‘We’ve found that rendering the ‘sale’ link in red is an effective trick for driving sales.’  Additionally seasonal changes can be reflected in new navigation buttons.

Use HTLM in navigation bars
50% of users block visual content automatically from email and you could loose potential custom if you ignore this. Using HTML ensures that all readers can access your material easily.

According to Hitwise, paid searches are down by 26% for the same period last year. This is a significant change which is said to reflect the problems of the current economic climate.

What are paid searches?
Paid searches are those where a company pays for its ranking on a search engine. It is something that is very easy to set up but requires a certain level of skill to implement well. Your company’s important keywords are identified (this is a skilful process which takes careful analysis and a degree of creative thought and artistry). Once you have these words you can approach search engines who then charge you for promoting your site according to your keyword choices.

The paid searches appear at the top of the search listings and are usually distinguishable from the natural listings by a difference in size, colour or highlighting. The theory is that the top listings will be clicked on more. Each time someone clicks on your link you pay the search engine company an agreed amount which is dependant on the popularity of your chosen keywords. An accurate keyword campaign can be very lucrative and a misguided one, very costly. Google Adwords makes the process very easy and anyone can set up an account and start experimenting with the results. Google analytics is a programme which looks at your traffic and click-through conversion rates and helps to guide further changes and although available to all, is a complicated and technical programme.

Decline in Paid Searches
The Hitwise survey found that in the four-week period ending in April 2008, nearly 10% (9.84%) of search engine traffic came from paid clicks. This figure declined by 26% for the same period in 2009 to 7.25%. The only sector which reported an increase in paid advertisement was education which saw a rise from 1.39% to 1.45%.

Reasons for Change
Although paid searches guarantee you a top-spot they can be costly. Avoiding high costs means being skilled at choosing the right words and analysing the results and this means either investing a lot of time in getting you or your staff up to speed or employing experts who can guide your campaign within your overall marketing strategy.

Avoiding high costs has led people to look at cheaper ways to market their online presence. A greater awareness of how search engines like to rank has led to people making more of their sites in a bid to increase natural listings. The search engines are super-open with information on how to make to most of your site naturally.

Social networking sites have created a platform from where to funnel visitors to your site and their increasing popularity is having its effect. The same applies to bloging which is a cost effective way to gather cross-market traffic. Additionally email marketing has increased in popularity as it is a highly personal and cost effective way to target your market.

Conclusions
We will more than likely see an increase in creative, natural and viral marketing campaigns which will reflect the needs of the current economic climate.  However with the high levels of competition that are set to increase in the natural search listings market, paid listings are still a very serious option.  We may see a reduction in costs for pay-per-click as there will be less competition for keywords.  The important point is that whatever you do it needs to be cost effective.  Implementing the right campaign and analysing the results to capitalise on your successes and minimise your risks will be essential and seeking expert guidance in order to do this is highly recommended.

According to data from the Advertising Association, reports MediaBuyerPlanner, internet marketing made up 20% of the total UK spend on advertising in 2008. Newspapers took a 25% of the total share, followed by TV (23%), Direct Mail (12% ), magazines (10%), outdoor (6%), Radio (3%), cinema (1%).

Overall the UK spend on advertising was down by 3.9% for the fourth quarter from 2007 to 2008 compared to last year when the spend was up by 4.6% on the previous year.

Despite the gloomy figures however, expenditure on internet marketing was up and it was only the traditional forms of advertising which suffered. The internet marketing spend was up by a staggering 17.3%.

The figures showed that spending on traditional forms of marketing had been reduced with newspapers receiving 12% less and magazines 9% less of the total advertising share.

Earlier on in the month we reported that business executives were looking to really maximise the potential of their marketing spend. They will be looking at cheaper and more cost effective ways to advertise their services and products. The main way in which they said they would be doing this is by using ecommerce and email marketing in particular. These new figures support the predictions for 2009.

Equally, targeted Adword campaigns can help to drive traffic to your site and can be highly cost effective.  With Adwords, Pay-per-click,  you have a great level of control and you can use very targeted words and get specific feedback on what is working and what is not. It also means that you can be very responsive and things can be tweaked and improved instantly. This provides great value for money which is what all businesses are looking for in this tight climate.

Dantran Media asked 3,000 marketing and media executives what marketing strategies they felt had been successful so far in the current economic climate and what they felt would help them do well in 2009 and beyond. The results show that a varied range of online-marketing techniques were considered to be the most fruitful strategies. The most successful of all strategies was email marketing:

-80.4% of respondents found that email was a successful marketing technique
-58.5% of companies were planning to increase their spending on email marketing
-69% were planning to integrate marketing messages into transactional emails

What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing involves using email as a strategic marketing device:  as a one-to-one communication tool and a mass-market vehicle that spreads your company’s message.

The Importance of Email Marketing
1) Its cheap – in tough times the most effective methods must also provide value for money
2) Its time saving: its quick to put together, quick to deliver
3) Its time responsive: companies can very quickly respond to public needs and changes in the market
4) It has huge potential for viral marketing* making it even more cost effective

What are the features of a great email?

• As with any marketing campaign attention to detail is paramount. Email partners-up with your website as your virtual shop window. It will help you to promote your brand – your logo, your company message, your signature – are all devises that will promote brand recognition and professionalism. It all adds to the picture that says: this is who I am, this is what I stand for and more importantly, this is what I can do for you.
• It is very important to have a standard email template for all your employees. The details of day to day work-related emails are just as important as layouts for major marketing email campaigns.
• Great emails help to create a relationship between you and your customers and future customers. Relationships are created through contact and preferably interaction. You send an email and it requires your customer to do something: read a newsletter, click on a link, enter a competition. By encouraging an interaction you are strengthening your relationship with your clients. Strong relationships engender loyalty and loyalty creates greater income for you.
• Great emails are part of a wider marketing campaign. Creating back links to targeted website pages is a great way to increase your search engine rankings and encourage more visitors to your site.
• Great emails provide something that will be useful to your customers. They give good value, they do not just sell.

As the Dantran Media survey suggests there is likely to be an increase in email marketing which means it is even more important to get it right. Consumers are adverse to being ‘badgered’ online so limited but focused and well designed campaigns will be the order of the day.