I was astounded to see the results of a recent Email Experience Council
survey in which marketers
ranked search marketing near the bottom of seven marketing channels for its synergy with email.
No great surprise about the top-ranked channel: 38% of respondents rated direct mail and
catalogs as being email's ideal marketing mate.
But search pulled only sixth place at 4%, barely above TV/radio (2%) and below blogs/RSS (19%), SMS (text messages, 17%) and social
networks and Internet ads (10% each).
What stunned me about the results was not just search marketing's pitiful ranking, but that emerging channels such as SMS and social networking,
both still in their infancy, would out-"synergize" such a proven dominant channel as search.
I would even venture to guess that a large percentage of the EEC respondents and
readers of this column acquire more customers and leads through search than they do direct mail or any of the other listed channels.
Using search for lead acquisition and email for lead
nurturing is truly the digital marketing dream team. But the EEC survey results belie that conventional wisdom.
Why Search and Email Belong Together
Email can
actually extend your search pay-per-click (PPC) spend and significantly increase your PPC ROI. On average you're likely converting 2% to 5% of your PPC clicks. That means that 95 of 100 people
visiting your site are not taking the primary action you want them to.
But what if you could convince another 5, 10, 15, 20 or more of those hundred visitors to your landing page to at
least opt-in to an email relationship? Perhaps they aren't ready to buy, but are still interested in your products or services.
Then, you use email to nurture those relationships over
the ensuing months and years and convert another 2% to 5% to customers from that original group that visited your landing page. You've in essence doubled the ROI of your original PPC campaign
spend.
Said another way, if you're not integrating your email and search programs, you might be leaving significant dollars on the table and failing to energize your email
program. Whether by design or as a byproduct, you also actively grow your email database and can potentially reallocate some list-growth dollars toward additional email marketing resources.
Key to PPC (or any online ad channel) email integration is, of course, the landing page. It should be designed and written to demonstrate a clear value proposition so that a high percentage of those
who don't take the primary desired action, will sign up for your email program. The key here is to balance your copy and layout so that you don't detract from your primary goal.
Once you have their email address, you can nurture these
"not-ready-to-buy" people using email drip campaigns, newsletters and trigger-based emails.
The search and email
synergy also goes well beyond PPC. For B-to-B marketers and publishers that send out content-rich newsletters, archiving and republishing articles and news on your Web site can be a huge boon to your
natural search results.
When you optimize your email content for search engines and target important keywords, you greatly improve your natural search engine rankings. This in turn enables
you to reallocate PPC budget for those keywords that rank high naturally and drives additional leads and conversions without any out-of-pocket costs.
Blogs and social media are proving to
have strong ties with email. But in my opinion no other channel, not even venerable direct mail, can match the ROI and synergy of integrating search with email marketing.
What do you
think?
Until next time, take it up a notch.
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