By Kayleigh Toyra,

You will have heard by now the oft-repeated phrase that “content is king” — and it’s true. It boosts SEO and keeps your customers locked into your brand. The value of posting useful and engaging content regularly on your website and social feeds has long been recognised and appreciated by marketers the world over.

But it doesn’t stop there. You can take your content further than you thought. How? Through email marketing.

Here is why email marketing is such a valuable resource for marketing teams and businesses, and how you can the most of your email budget.

Why choose email marketing?

Email is one of the oldest forms of digital communication, and it still has considerable sway in the marketing world. In fact, the number of worldwide email users in 2017 reached 3.7 billion. It also has an average ROI of 122% — a figure that’s four times higher than any other marketing channel. That includes social media, paid ads, and the humble snail mail.

With stats like that, email is clearly not to be sniffed at. It’s also a great way to take your content marketing further by delivering it straight to your customer’s inbox. Just be 100% focused on value so that you don’t burn any bridges.

Taking your content marketing further afield

Chances are, the editorial calendar for your brand’s blog or social media is fully booked for the next three months. You’ve got plenty of blogs, vlogs and infographics scheduled, ready and waiting. But once that content’s been posted, it’s simply done and dusted while you focus on the next piece. No, no, no!

You need to work hard at promoting your content marketing efforts — and that is where email comes in. Email marketing is your way to take content promotion further as you can quickly create and segment content promotion campaigns, and even automate follow-up sequences. Use email as a way to disseminate your latest research white paper or ebook, and reward loyal subscribers with previews and special deals.

Revisiting old hits

Resharing and reusing previous content is a great way to beef up email marketing campaigns, saving you time and effort. After all, why reinvent the wheel?

Find a popular blog post with good time-on-page and hit count metrics. As it performed so well, it makes sense to edit it and build on what people found interesting, and use it as a foundation for a future campaign. And likewise for webinars, too. If you’ve given a particularly successful presentation that people found useful and engaging, revisit it and develop on the ideas that you presented.

Slice and dice any micro-insights into snackable emails and newsletters that offer readers a tonne of value.

You can also reuse content from other channels, such as high-performing social media posts or UGC from past campaigns. It’s a great way to get more mileage out of your content and support general PR efforts.

Boosting your ROI

Email marketing is also a chance to ramp up your PR campaigns by sharing any positive press you’ve received. For example, highlighting your industry awards and charity work can help bolster your wider reputation.

Similarly, including useful content like tutorials, customer testimonials, and video posts will make your brand useful, serving to retain existing customers by creating value. As a result, this will build a relationship between you and your consumers that have a meaningful and lasting customer lifetime value, providing you with continued custom.

This kind of content-laden email marketing can also net you considerable ROI. Insert previews of interesting and useful content into your emails. Interested readers can click through to your website to read the full piece, resulting in increased website traffic from qualified leads who are likely to make a purchase.

The overall cost of your email campaigns will be fairly low, as you can reuse earned media such as press coverage or customer testimonials. Email returns can be easily tracked through your email automation software. Many offer you the option to track your directed website traffic on a granular level, so you can accurately quantify the ROI of each campaign.

Be aware of GDPR

On the 25th May, GDPR EU legislation came into place affecting how you create and manage your email marketing campaigns. If you are tracking email metrics such as open and click-through rates, and if you’re changing content based on these metrics — you’ll need to let your recipients know.

You also need to let them know they can unsubscribe at any point. Be sure to familiarise yourself with the GDPR regulations.

Email marketing is like getting a puppy for Christmas: it’s a gift that keeps on giving, and that’s particularly true when it comes to your content. Email can give any form of content — blog, video, testimonials, you name it — a new lease of life. In turn, you can build your customer relationships and see a higher return on your initial investment. Embrace your email today and make your marketing pop!

Kayleigh Toyra is a Content Strategist based in Bristol who manages a small team of writers at a boutique agency.

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash