Electronic Direct Mail Marketing (EDM) is strategic way of building marketing (subscriber) database for businesses using any multi-channel campaign involving both online and offline campaign to build personal relationship with targeted customers and also get conversions.

The purpose of Electronic Direct Mail Marketing (EDM) is to increase brand value through online or offline channels. These offline channels could be through SMS, print media, e.t.c. The online campaign involves social media, emails and any other form involving online procedures.

EDM and Email marketing are always misinterpreted to be similar, after these explanations, you should be able to differentiate between both of them.

1. Customer Relationship:

At first, EDM and Email marketing focus on building a list of potential customers or subscribers. When this is done, EDM tends to primarily focus on building a relationship with potential customers and then reach out to those who has been responsive to their campaign to generate sales or conversions. This is not same for Email marketing.

2. Use of multi-channel campaigns:

Multi-channel campaigns comprises of both online and offline method of reaching out to potential customers. EDM focuses on both online and offline (SMS, print media) methods to reach out to people or subscribers. Email marketing had traditionally been an online method of communicating to customers or subscribers and does not involve any offline method most times.

1. Establishes brand recognition

2. Establishes loyalty and trust

3. Increases conversions

4. Increases ROI

• Establishes brand recognition:

Through the use of multi-channel campaigns in Electronic Direct Mail Marketing, a brand can register both offline and online recognition towards customers. By this way, people will be able to develop some attraction towards your brand and feel comfortable to engage with your brand because it has been recognized by them.

• Establishes loyalty and trust: Due to the fact that your brand had been recognized by the people through the relationship established by the use of multi-channel campaigns in Electronic Direct Mail Marketing, subscribers or customers will be able to trust and engage with your brand that has been well-known to them than a brand they do not recognize.

• Increases conversions: Due to the fact that the brand had established a relationship with the people through Electronic Direct Mail Marketing, there are high possibilities of increase in conversions because the brand is well known to them.

Imagine trying to buy a mobile phone and you are giving a choice to pick between an Apple phone or an Itel phone, most people will go for Apple phones because their brand has been more recognized than Itel phones.

• Increases ROI : ROI simply means Return On Investment. Electronic Direct Mail Marketing (EDM) creates increased ROI for brands through the use of multi-channel campaigns.

Getting started with EDM requires some skills like copywriting, which will help you to create your Email write-ups. If you already have the knowledge of EDM and other required skill sets, here are the 5 things to know before starting Electronic Direct Mail Marketing:

1. Choosing/pick an Email Service Provider ( ESP):

Email service providers help you to create and automate your email campaigns. There are many Email service providers out there like System.io, Convertkit, Aweber, Getresponse, e.t.c. If you already have the knowledge of Email marketing and have chosen your Email service provider, let's move on to the next step.

2. List building: List building is very crucial to any business. Email list contains the address of customers who have subscribed for a particular product or niche. These customers subscribe through lead magnet page or opt-in form in your ads or through opt-in forms in your website.

To build a list, there are 3 things needed as far as you have your Email service provider ready, they are :

• Traffic: Traffic can be acquired through free or paid method like facebook ads, Google ads, Bing ads, YouTube ads, e.t.c. Traffic sources bring your products or contents in front of potential customers.

• Lead magnet page or opt-in form: This is a single page site through which people can subscribe to get notified on a particular product or offer. This page is meant to be simple and with no other external link or navigation bar leading to another site or page. The only link which is advisable to be included is the link to the "privacy policy" and may be linked to product sales page. Also, the lead magnet page should have a clear call to action (CTA) button.

• Free offer: This free offer could be a PDF (relating to the niche or product), an online webinar, and a free question and answer class. These free offers are given in exchange for the customers address and should not deviate from the niche or product.

3. List segmentation: After building or gathering addresses (email address, mobile number, location, name, e.t.c) from potential customers, your next step is to segment your list according to:

• Demographics: This includes age, gender and other personal factors.

• Geographics: It involves location of the customer or subscriber.

• Interest: This indicates people who are interested in a particular niche. This is used to differentiate customers that subscribed for a different niche category.

• Behavioural aspect: This shows people who took a particular action like purchase, adding to cart, opening your emails, clicking a particular link e.t.c

List segmentation helps you to send the emails to the right customers interested in a particular product or niche.

4. Creating Email campaign with Autoresponder: This involves creating Email campaigns and these email campaigns should have :

• A good or enticing subject line because the subject line is the first thing the customer will see before opening the email.

• Personalize your emails through the use of your brand Logo and colour which will help the customers to recognize you more often.

• Use friendly tune in communicating through your emails.

• Use clear graphic images and bold call to action (CTA) buttons.

• Include an unsubscribe button in case the customer wants to leave.

5. Re-targeting / Re-marketing campaign: Re-targeting helps to pull-in new customers to your list while re-marketing helps to spark customers interest in a particular product or niche

Re-marketing is done:

• To remind customers about a particular product.

• To offer product as alternative similar to the one they subscribed for.

• To remind them about products in their carts or discount offers similar to the ones in their cart.

Re-targeting focuses on 2 main goals:

• Creating awareness.

• To bring in new interested customers to your business.

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