Electronic Direct Mail (EDM) is a form of digital marketing that involves sending targeted and personalised promotional messages, offers, or information directly to a group of individuals via email. EDM campaigns are typically used to engage with existing customers or potential leads, aiming to drive brand awareness, promote products or services, and encourage customer loyalty or conversions.

Building your own email list and sending periodic emails is a vital strategy for your business’s long-term success. While social media plays a crucial role in connecting with your audience, relying solely on these platforms comes with inherent risks. By cultivating your email list, you gain direct access to your most engaged and interested customers, ensuring your message reaches them without being subject to the ever-changing algorithms of social media platforms.

Email marketing offers several advantages over social media:

1. Control and Ownership: With your email list, you have complete control and ownership of your audience’s data. This autonomy is vital as social media platforms can change their policies or algorithms, impacting your reach and visibility.

2. Personalised Communication: Email allows for highly personalised and targeted messaging, tailoring content based on customer preferences, behaviour, and past interactions, resulting in more meaningful connections and higher engagement.

3. Reliability and Reach: Unlike social media, where reach can fluctuate, emails consistently make it to your subscribers’ inboxes, ensuring that your message reaches the people who are most likely to be interested in it.

4. Conversion Potential: Emails are an effective medium for promoting offers, product updates, and driving sales conversions, making them a powerful tool for revenue generation.

5. Long-term Relationships: Email marketing fosters a lasting relationship with your audience. By regularly sharing valuable content, promotions, and insights, you build trust and loyalty, nurturing customers into long-term brand advocates.

6. Data and Analytics: Email marketing platforms provide valuable data and analytics, allowing you to track open rates, click-through rates, and other key metrics, enabling informed decisions to optimise your campaigns.

In summary, while social media is an essential part of your marketing strategy, it’s crucial to build and maintain your email list to strengthen your business’s foundation and ensure consistent, direct, and personalised communication with your most loyal customers. By diversifying your marketing efforts and utilising both social media and email marketing, you create a comprehensive and resilient strategy that maximises your reach and impact.