Why email marketing is the secret to your successful digital marketing strategy

In today's omnichannel marketing space, digital strategies can easily become competitive, costly and overwhelming. But one of the most neglected tactics can often yield the best results: email marketing. Why? According to Justin Perkins, it comes down to ownership over the communication channel.

Perkins is the vice president of strategic partnerships at Care2, the leading cause-driven social network aligning brands with causes, and he's managed over 800 brand-building and email acquisition campaigns during his tenure there. Needless to say, Perkins has seen the impact this tried-and-true, yet often overlooked, approach has in developing long-term consumer relationships and growing sales.

Perkins is also our featured expert on this month's BrandCamp webinar: Consumer Email Marketing - Why it’s more important than ever for natural products brands. Curious if your brand could benefit from email marketing? Register to join us on May 22!

Here, Perkins gives us a sneak peek of what's to come on the webinar.

What are some common digital marketing strategy mistakes you see brands making?

Justin Perkins: I think one of the biggest challenges is that everything is now pay to play, and so there is a misunderstanding around the true cost of building a successful digital program. For example, as Facebook and Amazon shift their advertising policies, it becomes more competitive and costly to compete for attention on their advertising platforms.

Related:Email is not dead: 3 tips to mastering conversion

Ultimately, you don’t own the customer relationship—they do—and so your access to a customer base is really rented, not owned. This is not unlike retail distribution, but I think smaller brands in particular don’t budget properly to successfully play the game. Also, given the “opposite digital divide” of digital natives who have grown up with social media platforms, but not necessarily email marketing, there is often a misunderstanding of priorities and usage of the right tool for the right purpose.  

In a multichannel digital marketing space, why is it important for brands to consider direct-to-consumer email marketing?

JP: Email is often the main driver of online revenue for brands that prioritize e-commerce. It’s also a major driver, although indirectly, of Amazon sales as well. Because email allows brands to own the channel of communication by owning the data, it gives a brand a lot more predictability around scale and revenue. And for anything direct response-related, email is a much more effective channel, historically, than social. It’s also a key part of a multichannel strategy where you can do longer-form storytelling in coordination with social and ad campaigns across other platforms—even direct mail. There is no doubt it’s getting more competitive, but that is also because more natural products companies are discovering an overlooked medium that’s just sitting there.

What will you be discussing in the upcoming webinar?

JP: I will be sharing tips on email marketing and storytelling from my experience at Care2 over the past decade in working with over 800 nonprofit and natural products company campaigns to acquire millions of consumer supporters. Email can be a powerful secret weapon if wielded properly.

Curious what impact email marketing could have on your brand growth? Join us May 22 at 2 p.m. EDT for our BrandCamp webinar, Consumer Email Marketing - Why it’s more important than ever for natural products brands.