A good way of promoting your products and connecting with your clients is to launch an online marketing campaign. Online marketing can be done using various marketing channels. These channels are a bit like the members of a soccer team. There are some that are loved by the fans and are promoted by the media, and often appear on the field. And then there are those who those that are practiced and a little older (which, in soccer, is when you hit your early thirties). The latter spend more time on the bench, while the former get to dribble, apply force to a header and free-kick.

Spare a thought for that player on the bench
In the online marketing team, the coach loves to shove flashy players into the limelight: Facebook, Twitter, Del.ic.ious, Skittles and Blog just to name a few of the stars. Email marketing is the spare player on the bench, that reliable veteran that might have grown a bit of a paunch and is balding, but has been tried and tested. He is that dependable team player that the coach falls back on if one of his sexy new players has to be taken out because of non-delivery or unexpected injury, or even bad mannerism on the field.

Spare a thought for your spare player on the bench. When last have you tested his performance, had a look at his reports and fitness level? You are probably under the impression that your email marketing is doing just fine, even when it is deplorable. After all, even the balding veteran player will still drive results when sent out onto the field, even if there is no real goal, strategy or a terrible rendering of his appearance. What most email marketing users don’t realize is how much money they could get out of their spare player. If they allocated even half the attention to him as he deserves, then results would improve exponentially.

Work together to win a match
Just like half the world is in one way or another involved with the upcoming Soccer World Cup, so they are with email marketing. Pretty much everyone has jumped on the bandwagon. Now we realize that the inbox is a competitive and crowded place. It is now more important than ever to go the extra mile and rise above the crowd – by developing a smart digital communications strategy.

Email marketing is consistent and reliable and should be at the top of your marketing game. It should be the backbone of your online strategy. It can also be integral part of a fair play process, where the entire team of online marketing channels work together to win a match. Given its many years of experience and proven performance record, email marketing is a great advertiser of rising stars of the new social media generation. Email marketing still knows how to get into inboxes and deliver a message. You can easily attach an entire soccer team to email marketing: next time you send a newsletter to your fans, consider adding links to his team mates so the fans can check out their profiles. Email marketing will give you a report on whose profile was clicked on the most.

Engage fans in a dialogue
The bottom line is that email marketing engages fans in a dialogue – subscribers to your email newsletter or promotion can shout, blow a horn, pat you on the shoulder, tell you what they would really like to see being played out on the field, and what merchandise they would like to purchase. Because, if you follow the standard practice in email marketing, you use an opt-in email marketing strategy. In this way, you ensure you only talk to fans that have actually asked to hear from you. Email marketing lets you appropriately react to every action that an email recipient makes. Email marketing provides real-time results that allow you to test and refine your strategy.