Digital Traces…Where Email, Social Media and Brand Keywords Converge
Here’s what I’m finding out through conversations with clients, partners, and vendors about email campaigns:
- The “mulitple open” rate of email campaigns is spiking among the top %5 of people who open the email. Sometimes emails are being opened 10 or more times.
- Click-rates have dropped to near % 0.
- In parallel to the email campaigns, the links to websites through Brand Keywords (at search engines) have doubled or tripled.
What does this mean?
There are a few answers/scenarios. (The below info is non-scientific, I did not conduct any official surveys. This data was conversationally gained, and now shared with you.)
- People know they are being tracked through emails and don’t want to be.
- People don’t want to be directed to where you want them to go.
- Email recipients are “taking it to the search engine,” inputting your name, your brand name, etc (Brand Keywords) and seeing what the engine finds for them.
- Your audience is becoming more interested in (convinced by) your “Digital Traces” than in any marketing message you offer.
This is where the confluence of Email, Social Media and Brand Keywords is causing a new wave to rise. People want to get to know you, but not through marketing language. They want to read what you have to say (your blog, your comments on other blogs), what people are saying about you (does anyone talk about you online?) and to witness what you’re up to (are you on LinkedIn? Do you have a YouTube channel? Vimeo? Twitter?). They want to form a better model of who you are, and what you do, using these Social Media channels. They do not want this information through your crafted messages. Email still works, but you need to make sure you are matching the behavior of your market.
What to do? Before you plan your next email campaign, search for your Brand Keywords through the popular search engines and see what comes up. Then work to own the first page.
How?
- Fill in the blanks. Not through ads, but through activity. One example: get blogging, join appropriate social networks, seek conversations and engage.
Own the first page.
