E-mail Reigns As Most Effective Digital Tactic

E-mail is the most used and most effective digital marketing tool, per a recent report by Gigaom and Extole. In a survey of 300 digital marketers, e-mail was rated the most effective digital tactic overall by 56% of respondents, who cited its value in building awareness (41%), increasing acquisition (37%) and improving conversion (42%). Other tactics ranked in the survey included social media, SEO, paid search, content marketing, online display ads, referral marketing, mobile ads, video ads and affiliate marketing. Out of all tactics, e-mail was employed regularly by the largest number (86%), with that usage followed by social media (72%), SEO (70%) and content marketing (64%). While e-mail led the pack in overall effectiveness, most marketers attributed less than 25% of new customers to e-mail campaigns and reported that they used a multi-tactic digital marketing approach to fill the gap.  E-mail also was not the lead area for planned increases in digital program spending. Digital marketers said they expect to allocate more budget dollars to social media (38% plan to increase) and content marketing (28%) ahead of e-mail (25% plan to spend more) -- even though 52% admitted it is difficult to prove ROI for social media. For details of the study, see the MarketingProfs report at http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2014/25556/the-most-effective-used-budgeted-digital-marketing-tactics