Maria Jones, Digital Marketing ExpertCurrent conventional wisdom is that email marketing is dead. Well, anyone who believes this is dead wrong, because the numbers prove otherwise. By the end of 2017, email users in the U.S. alone will grow to 245 million. Worldwide, the number of email users will grow to 2.9 billion by 2019. Gmail boasts over 1 billion current active users, around the globe. A Campaign Monitor Survey in 2016 showed that you are six times more likely to get a click-through when you use email as opposed to a tweet.The Ideal Business RomanceClearly, email is not dead. You just need to get creative with your email marketing to get more out of it. By fusing email with Instagram, for instance, you can harness the power of one of the most versatile marketing tools available today. Instagram boasts around 700 million monthly active users with over 400 million logging in daily.Marrying email marketing with Instagram is a no-brainer for savvy marketers looking to boost traffic, increase conversion, build their brand, increase brand awareness and improve the bottom-line in a highly competitive business environment. This marriage works by incorporating social elements into your emails.By adding images and visuals into your emails, you will increase the chances of meeting your business objectives. Instagram is an image-heavy, hash-tagged platform which can easily blend into your email marketing campaign.While the numbers clearly indicate that Instagram stands out as a marketing force today, there is always the question of doing it right. If you already have an active Instagram account for your business, then you are ready to get started.True, millions of emails are ignored, and you need to be creative to boost click-through rates (CTR). A HubSpot Survey shows that that Instagram delivers more engagement per follower (58 times more) than Facebook and an amazing 120 times more than Twitter. By inserting Instagram images in your emails, you are going to boost engagement.You can also add live social feed to your email marketing templates. This makes it possible to include Instagram visuals, which are very popular with users. Over 40 billion videos have been shared so far on Instagram. This is reason enough to add these videos in your email blasts.You can also boost your email marketing campaign by optimizing your Instagram account profile to make it easier for users to sign up. In essence, you are converting your Instagram followers into leads, using an easy sign up form. The form should allow you to gather unique insight into the users for target marketing purposes.You should nurture your leads with relevant content, which must be based on customer insight. As you build your email lists, it becomes easier to target the right people with the right content.Email still reigns in online marketing, even with an onslaught of other creative digital marketing tools. As email is core to your business, integrating Instagram will boost your brand, increase traffic to your site, enhance visibility and boost sales.[author]About the Author: Maria Jones is an expert in digital marketing with over 19 years’ experience in the industry. She has written widely on techniques for getting followers for Instagram and other social media networks.[/author]