One of these days I gave up on taking a plane to New York. In fact, every January, for years, I've given up on taking a plane to New York. As surely as I plan to take it in January every December. NRF. National Retail Federation. The world's largest retail trade show.
It's school holiday time and I always end up prioritizing family, sunshine, and warmth. But that doesn't stop me from reading, watching, and listening to the latest trends coming fresh from the Big Apple. This year, the #boravarejo podcast by Alfredo Soares with Mariano Gomide, co-CEO of Vtex, really caught my attention. The guy gave a masterclass on entrepreneurship, retail, management, and e-commerce in 40 minutes. And about NY.
But I ended up focusing on one point. Which aligns with the new moment my company is experiencing, especially post-pandemic. Mariano spoke about the importance of brands having some kind of direct interaction with their audience, with their customer base. In recent years, we have seen an increase in the cost of advertising on big tech platforms, especially Google and Meta. A growing challenge for digital marketers is generating leads on these large communication platforms. It's difficult to convert organically, but even more so with paid advertising.
Meanwhile, social media algorithms have evolved significantly during this same period, and it's a fact that networks are delivering less and less content to brand followers. Therefore, generating engagement is becoming increasingly difficult. Mariano spoke about the imperative need for brands to communicate directly with their consumers, without intermediaries. The others present in the studio echoed this sentiment, also emphasizing the importance of frequent communication.
There are basically three ways for a company to communicate directly with its audience: telephone, direct message, and email. I won't waste time on the telephone, which, while still widely used and moderately effective for telemarketing, certainly isn't suited to communication that is as frequent as it is non-invasive. Yes, the company needs to communicate several times a week, but without intruding on or bothering its leads/customers/prospects.
We then moved on to direct messaging: SMS, WhatsApp, and direct messages on social media. While WhatsApp has become established as a direct sales channel since the pandemic, and its effectiveness at the point of purchase is indeed surprising (this was heavily emphasized by Alfredo Soares at the post-NRF event in São Paulo), it certainly isn't suitable for day-to-day communication between a brand and its consumer. It becomes intrusive in this way as well.
We've arrived at the ugly duckling of digital communication, the internet's "uncle at the supermarket," the old, boring, and slow email. Wrong. Email never died; and email marketing not only didn't die with it, but grew significantly alongside the growth of e-commerce and this post-pandemic world. It's the perfect bridge your company might be missing. Of all the methods mentioned above, it's the cheapest. But more than that, it's the most effective.
With the evolution of digital marketing automation, it's now possible to create relationship management strategies with a database that will communicate according to consumer behavior. And the great thing (excuse the pun) is that email is the central communication method, but it's also automated with SMS and WhatsApp. Everything is integrated.
If your website visitor abandons their shopping cart, they receive an email; if they visit your store, they receive a welcome email. On their birthday? An email. Did they buy something? How about a WhatsApp message with cashback? If they clicked on the website's blog, perhaps an email with more content? There you have it, direct communication between brand and audience is established. It doesn't depend on algorithms, but on the brand's own work. It represents the brand's own vehicle. Through it, the company can also exponentially increase its database, enriching it and thus generating even more targeted automations.
Email marketing continues to be the biggest "ROI" (return on investment) in digital marketing in the US and UK, and here in Brazil it's one of the most effective media for e-commerce, according to experts like Rafael Kiso.
And your company? Is it already using this bridge or is it still at the mercy of the turbulent waters of powerful big tech companies?
