Well, first you should know that EDM stands for Electronic Direct Mail. Secondly, you should be aware that EDMs and email marketing campaigns are two separate things.

Producing an EDM is a much larger effort than simple email communication. An EDM will employ multiple forms of communication to get your message out there and then work to reinforce your campaign messaging.

Some of the most commonly used channels used for EDMs include:

Social Media Channels

PPC Campaigns

Remarketing Advertising

Offline Advertising

An email marketing campaign, on the other hand, is purely based on email send-outs. It involves the process of creating an email database consisting of both existing customers and/or potential customers and sending them email communications about current offers and the like – directly.

In reality, the outcomes of both email and EDM marketing campaigns is often the same. As far as their proven ability to build on brand loyalty or to convert sales.

Here are some of our key recommendations through our experience with both marketing options:

BENEFITS OF EDMS AND EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

The primary benefit of email campaigns is that it’s one of the only means of achieving mass communication that also provides you with usable data. Regardless of the level of success of the campaign you ran – the analytics you can gather afterwards can be very helpful for future planning.

What we love about emails campaigns is that we can see how many people opened the emails, how many then took an action, when and where they did so and on what device – in fact pretty much anything you can think of – we can access. This data helps you in turn to be able to calculate a clear ROI.

Another significant benefit of email marketing campaigns is how much investment it can save your business. All email service providers make it pretty straightforward for small and medium-sized companies to reach large audiences – audiences that would probably have previously been beyond their reach.

Another massive benefit of email marketing is how incredibly personal they can be! Unlike the traditional marketing platforms, email provides the sender with various personalisation options, which we can see from our campaign results, does go a very long way with customers. For example email marketing campaigns can be tweaked to include the consumer’s name, localised news and most importantly: customise the products or services that they are interested in learning about. Because these factors improve the end user experience there is an increase in the probability of successful conversations.

WHAT KIND OF EMAILS ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVE?

The nature of the emails sent is dependant on what the desired action of the recipients is. Do you want them to like you on facebook, buy a product directly or are you just touching base to strengthen the relationship they have with your brand?

Some ideas to consider for your next email campaign effort:

eCommerce

Special offers

New arrivals/product launches

“We miss you”

Holiday specials

Re-orders

Sale reminders

Non-eCommerce

Company newsletters

Industry news

“Welcome”

Testimonials/case studies

Tips & advice

Event information

TESTING

Make sure that before you send the email that it looks the way you want on the devices, you want them to be viewed on.

Comprehensive testing is crucial for all email marketing campaigns – so it’s worth the effort to make sure it’s done properly the first time.

EMAIL SPLIT-TESTING

Generally, email providers will offer the chance to split-test an email campaign. This is handy because you can test different elements of an email in order to gauge which format and content generated the best results. Conveniently, these days testing can be carried out on the images, subject header, body content, and pretty much every aspect of the email.

WHEN TO SEND YOUR EMAILS?

Another thing worth testing with your next email campaign is when the best time is for the emails to go out to your particular audience. While there are many guidelines available and debates about the best time of day and obviously also the best day of the week – in general, these “best times” will differ between industries.

So, the best thing to do is to conduct your own email campaigns and take time to review the analytics carefully. You will then have the best indication of when and on what device your particular set of customers prefer to receive your information.

SO ARE YOU READY TO PLAN YOUR NEXT EMAIL CAMPAIGN?

If you are ready to make a serious commitment to online marketing, then planning an EDM or email marketing strategy is one of the most cost-effective ways to generate results you have been looking for.