What is EDM Marketing?

Many digital marketers refer to newsletters as EDM’s. But what is EDM marketing and why is it important? We try to explain it in layman terms for you here.

EDM stands for Electronic Direct Messaging. In other words, you may know it best as “email marketing”. So if you’re planning to send a broadcast email to a list of prospects, you would be sending an EDM. 

Similarly, like social media and print media, EDM is considered another marketing channel for your business. 

According to Campaign Monitor, who are one of the largest email marketing platforms, they see EDM marketing ROI as high as $44 returns for any $1 spent on marketing! So when it comes to marketing your business, it becomes very hard to overlook this channel as part of your overall marketing strategy. 

And according to Custora E-Commerce Pulse, EDM accounts for 19.8% of all transactions – trailing only paid search (19.9%) and organic traffic (21.8%). 

So when it comes to customer interaction, EDM becomes the holy grail of marketing communication. It is a serious marketing tool if you want to grow your business. 

If you’re looking to grow your conversions and your email list, whether you’re an ecommerce business or a non-profit business, chances are you’ll greatly benefit from sending EDM’s. 

So what exactly is EDM marketing?

The simplest examples we can give is if you’ve been shopping online, then you’d probably be entering your email address to receive discounts. Your email address is captured inside an email marketing platform like Mailchimp. The retailer will decide to send an EDM, or a newsletter with a special deal, maybe they offer a discount which usually helps seal the deal. 

But EDM marketing strategy goes beyond just sending emails.

Strategically, EDM’s are used to collect leads and convert prospects into customers. They are very versatile and flexible that they can work for almost any business. 

It must consider the way of how contacts are captured and how they are qualified to receive special promos and discounts.  With this in mind, EDM marketing strategy then includes other channels in order to combine marketing efforts of attracting and collecting leads. 

A robust EDM marketing campaign starts with a few email blasts but normally is followed by ads that are relevant to the campaign, in order to capture the attention of the subscribers on other channels – sometimes even billboards or printed ads! 

What is the benefit of EDM marketing?

A good EDM marketing campaign will:

• Save you time and money 
• Build trust and increase conversions
• Enable advanced personalisation via segmentation

Here are some examples of different email campaigns you can send:

• Industry news and updates
• New client “welcome” emails
• Meeting followup
• Updating contact information
• Customer surveys
• Testimonials 
• Event information
• Promotional offers
• New product launches
• Sale reminders

And the list goes on!

The Association of National Advertisers ( aka ANA) has identified a number of other key marketing ROI stats:

• Average ROI for EDM marketing is $38 for ever $1 invested
• Segmented emails generate 36% of total email revenue (more than general email blasts)
• Behaviour triggered emails generate 306% more click throughs per email than non-triggered emails. 

So as you can see, if you are serious about growing your business and improving your marketing efforts, EDM marketing becomes a rather low cost option that can significantly deliver on your marketing ROI, making it the holy grail of marketing communication. 

Do you want to put together a bespoke EDM marketing strategy? 

You can talk to us and we will show you how you can earn more using email marketing for your business. Click here to lock in a time.