It is so simple, yet it has been overlooked for so long. Email is essentially the third online media channel, complementing search and display.

The dawn of the internet brought with it the promise of a virtual world where information and those seeking it, as well as buyers and sellers, would be connected online at the click of a button. The online revolution guaranteed to break down conventional barriers by removing several degrees of separation between us and practically anything we could ever want. 

Among the industries that observers predicted would benefit the most from the online convergence was the advertising industry. The virtual world offered endless possibilities for advertisers looking to reach consumers and a manner so up-close-and-personal that it generated tremendous buzz.

Marketers eagerly visualized the opportunity to introduce a product through a traditional channel like television and then immediately follow it up with an online message such as an email, hoping to blur the lines between the various forms of adverting to create a single method for reaching consumers.

Of course that hasn't exactly happened.

Sure, marketers have managed to combine marketing channels such as television and banner ads to drive traffic to websites, but it has been anything but a seamless integration.

So what went wrong?

Recognizing the power of 360-degree marketing
Efforts to converge multiple media channels have been less than stellar.  Lack of communication between marketing, sales and IT made it difficult to employ proper techniques that would enable various channels to respond and feed off one another. Lack of technology coupled with the fear of alienating the consumer with targeting mechanisms kept many marketers from achieving anything resembling true convergence.

For the most part, marketers have been sitting on the sidelines of the digital gridiron wondering how to leverage the combined effectiveness of the unique marketing channels available to them. In fact, the vast majority of dollars entering the interactive media industry is performance based, and still remains less than 6 percent of the whole marketing mix.

Today, with the continued growth of search and the increasing efficiency of online display advertising like rich media, the possibilities for driving revenue are endless. But not much thought has been given to creating a single method for bridging the power of both channels to create a long-lasting, multi-channel marketing program. Aside from using multiple channels to drive traffic to websites or build brand awareness, the promise of convergence has yet to come to fruition – until now. 

So what is igniting this trend? The answer has been in front of marketers since the birth of the internet: email.

It is so simple, yet it has been overlooked for so long. Email is essentially the third online media channel, complementing search and display. As a standalone channel, email is able to reach consumers through multiple touch points. It is the perfect channel for driving everything from customer acquisition to customer retention. With the ability to engage the consumer contextually and demographically, email serves as both a push and pull marketing vehicle. When you merge email with search and display, the results are impressive.

Why email?
With almost universal penetration – 97 percent of U.S. consumers according to Forrester Research – email is the most popular activity online. In fact, sending and reading email is more popular than watching television, according to a study released by Media Screen and Netop. With that kind of devotion, advertisers would be remiss not utilize email as a way of reaching their audience. 

Fortunately, most marketers are beginning to recognize the value of the email channel. In a recent survey by Internet Retailer, marketers shared their confidence in email:

• 64.7 percent of online merchants are conducting more email campaigns than in 2006;
• 94.5 percent of online retailers are building bigger opt-in email lists;
• Almost half of online retailers said email performs better or much better than other programs.

And it's not only marketers understanding the value of email. According to Forrester Research 's report "Email Marketing Comes of Age," consumers are finding the email channel to be an exceptional method for learning about new products and services:

• Consumers who buy products advertised in emails spend 138 percent more online than peers who don't buy through email;
• 29 percent of all online consumers buy impulsively immediately following an email offer, rather than waiting.

And according to the American Marketing Association, Mplanet:

• Consumers ranked email ahead of traditional media like newspapers, magazines and radio as a good way to learn about new products.  Email was ranked third only behind the internet and television

Using email to succeed
Alone, display and search offer a great way to introduce a product or service to a consumer. Adding email to the mix helps build on that relationship while managing your customers through the lifetime sales cycle. Email can be used to accomplish multiple objectives:

• Deliver transactional auto-responders
• Send free-trial conversion follow-up emails
• Engage consumers with email newsletters
• Increase revenue with paid sponsorships or third-party advertisements
• Reactivate customers with retention and win-back emails

One major brand's experience
With an impressive brand-building campaign running on TV and radio, a particular big-name brand wanted to drive a solid acquisition campaign to attract new leads and drive them directly to a sign-up page online. It began with rich media and banner ads running across the web. The brand later partnered with Datran Media to accomplish these online marketing goals by adding email to its marketing program.

The display ads drove interested parties to a landing page where they could sign up for a free trial. Upon registering, they instantly received a welcome notification from the brand informing them of their free trial. Of course, not everyone became members after the free trial expired. 

If the brand had been employing a standard display campaign alone, chances are these customers would be lost. However, because the brand incorporated email into the mix, many of these consumers remained an important part of the marketing program. Follow-up emails, newsletters, new promotion messages all helped win back many customers and drive new loyalty.

Today, it's no surprise that email is that brand's largest lead generator.

Michael Goldberg is the marketing manager at Datran Media. Read full bio.