Email marketing company profits from engagement marketing

GraphicMail, a global specialist in the provision of permission based email and mobile marketing services, recognized the need of a small but highly innovative company to diversify its marketing portfolio beyond Google Adwords and other paid media. Rather than focusing on thousands of unknown clients, they decided to capitalize on engaging with their markets, not only through their client services program but also in their marketing approach. Currently serving 6,000 clients - including mainly small business owners as well as major brands such as Europcar, Siemens and Shell - and spread across 17 countries in a franchisee network, GraphicMail operates in a competitive industry, yet understands the importance of a web strategy for customer engagement and brand awareness.

In February 2010, GraphicMail shifted its marketing focus on synergizing their Adwords with their search engine optimization campaigns, and also started engaging their clients via social networks, promotions, viral cartoons, email newsletters, intensified blogging, free product webinars, review media and article submission both as commissioned expert articles and media releases. 2010 has seen an increase of 24% overall traffic increase from organic searches, with a conversion rate of double the one generated via PPC. Direct traffic (direct brand name input into searches) has sent 151% more visitors in March 2011 compared to the same month in 2009. Yahoo organic has increased by 401% in the last two years. While in 2009, they have seen comparatively as many visitors from referring sites as in 2011, 2011 figures of 14% traffic from referrals still compares well given the far more competitive waters the company is navigating in.

Says Barbara Ulmi, head of marketing at GraphicMail: "Following the success of our SEO work, and with social media playing an increasingly important role in search marketing, we are now actively using our SEO benchmarked keywords across our PPC campaigns, blogs and social media platforms, ensuring GraphicMail stays high profile, relevant and an industry leader. We have also conducted a global brand survey among our current customers and are pleased to see strong brand identification."

An increase of valuable customer testimonials and case studies (reflecting high customer satisfaction) also stemmed from a simultaneous improvement of their core email and mobile marketing products. This gave them the confidence to roll out their own affiliate program, which is based on new customer referrals. Says Nicholas Eckert, new business developer at GraphicMail: "Our clients have been referring us to their peers, colleagues , friends and their networks for quite some time now, and we thought it's time to show our appreciation in hard cash. Clients who promote our email marketing service on their site, blog or in an email are rewarded with $50 for every referral that signs up for an account. Their unique code within the API will keep track of their referrals automatically and then it's money in the bank! "

2011 sees GraphicMail engaging not only in referral marketing, but also with reputable third parties in their industry in order to broadcast joint webinars, participate in virtual conferencing and workshops, and the publication of white papers.