The internet will be marking its 40th year of existence on January 1, 2023. Since its introduction, the way people live today has drastically changed. Everything is connected to the internet. Even in the way we sell products or services. It is transforming the marketing landscape in ways we never thought possible.
The relationship between the internet and marketing has become so intertwined that traditional methods are starting to shift towards the digital era. Thus the term “digital marketing”. As defined by Investopedia, it is “the use of the internet, mobile devices, social media, search engines, display advertising, and other channels to reach consumers.”
The evolving marketing landscape
While technology has enabled multiple ways to reach a target market, the demand for more strategic marketing has increased. Traditional marketing relied on mass media like television, radio, and print to get messages across to their intended audience. But it only guarantees a certain percentage. In the digital age, reaching the intended market is now more precise. Digital marketers call this “hyper-personalization”.
Marketing tools being used today are a stack of apps, all geared towards an individual or a specific target group. With the help of AI, machine learning, and automation, people can receive messages that are tailor-fitted according to their profiles, interests, hobbies, and so on. But two specific digital marketing tools stand out from the rest: emails and push notifications.
Both are technology-driven methods to reach a target market. But they differ when it comes to structure, process, and form of delivery. It is important to know their advantages and disadvantages and when to use which tool strategically.
Email direct marketing
While emails have sprouted in the labs of MIT as early as 1971, it wasn’t widely used until the early 90s. Today over 333 billion emails are sent and received every day worldwide according to Statista. And this number is projected to grow to over 376 billion by 2025, a 30 percent increase from this year. Shockingly, an average person or employee receives around 121 business emails per day.
When it comes to its structure, email marketing content allows more information to be downloaded to the individual. Ideally, you can attach one or two videos and images with an accompanying text no longer than 200 words. Identifiers like mastheads or logos also help make an email more legit and credible.
The process of email marketing can be quite laborious especially when you have a long email list. Some marketers rely on email automation services and mass email platforms like MailChimp to help ease the burden of sending the same message to many email addresses. Using mail merge also helps personalize each message according to the names listed in a database.
Emails are mostly read on desktops or laptops. But a growing percentage of people are checking their emails on their mobile phones. This has an impact on the content you put in your email. Large files and long texts are most often “delete-worthy”. Some emails are also sent to the junk folder. The average email click-through rate is 2.13 percent. That means for every 100 emails sent, you’ll get 2-3 people who will click on your content.
Push notifications
Push notifications on the other hand are like little sticky notes popping up on phone screens of individuals. They are usually reminders for upcoming events or a product that has gone on sale. An average smartphone user in the US receives 46 app push notifications in a day.
Compared to emails, push notifications to have a simpler structure, with words kept at a minimum of 15 to 20. Push notifications may not have the option to embed or attach media so it is important to be strategic about the choice of words. These are also only available mostly smartphones.
The process for push notifications can be less complicated and the click-through rate on Android is at 4.6 percent and 3.4 percent on iOS, slightly higher than emails. With basic personalization, CTR can improve by 9 percent. While push notifications allow for a more personal approach to marketing, they must be used sparingly. Constant bombardment will push the subscriber to cancel his or her push notifications and that’s the end of your marketing engagement.
In a world where the best goods and services can be easily gained from anywhere around the world, marketing is how businesses keep up with each other and stay ahead of the pack.
If you want to learn more about the other ways of marketing then click here
