Email Marketing or Social Media? Businesses Need Both

There’s a lot of focus on online referral marketing these days.

But what about email marketing?

If you dig beneath the surface and get beyond all the blogs on social media and excitement about the latest tweak or innovation happening on the social web, you’ll discover that marketers actually prefer email marketing over social media marketing.

Don’t get me wrong. Social media marketing is important.

Yet, email marketing is also an important component of a business marketing strategy. In some ways, it’s more important than using social media.

Email marketing is a vehicle for product and service launches and a way to communicate directly with your customers and clients absent a third party platform.

Whenever I do a social media audit, I always include a review of a client’s website and one of the items I discuss is email marketing and whether there’s a lead magnet to entice website visitors to sign up for an email list.

Consider These Email Marketing Statistics

Campaign Monitoroffers this support of email marketing:

• Email marketing generates $44 for every $1 spent. Think of Joel Friedlander in the self-publishing field. If you are on his email list, you receive his blog updates via email as well as his marketing emails, which pitch the many products he sells as part of his toolkits and templates. He’s an excellent example of what can be achieved with email marketing. Or sign up for a variety of social media experts’ newsletter list. What you’ll notice is how much selling they do via their email marketing programs.
• Email ties all of your marketing techniques together. You can use email marketing to send blog updates, encourage people to Like your Facebook page, and communicate specials and discounts. Email marketing is nimble that way.
• Email connects with more consumers than social media. More people use email than social media.

OptinMonster also has data on email marketing. If we compare email marketing to social media and for that comparison specifically use Facebook in our examples, you’ll discover some interesting facts.

• 58% of adults check email first thing in the morning vs. 11% for Facebook
• 91% of adults use email daily vs. 57% for Facebook
• 66% of adults make a purchase as a result of email marketing vs. 20% for Facebook

Collect Addresses for Your Email Marketing Program

What does this mean for you? I have a few tips for you.

1. Sign up for an email marketing application such as MailChimp (that’s what I use), Constant Contact (I don’t like it, but plenty of people do), or AWeber (many people love this application).
2. Establish a newsletter schedule and stick to it. If you don’t want to send newsletters – and I don’t blame you for deciding this – then collect email addresses through your email subscription application. You can do this with MailChimp, AWeber or a number of other apps. The idea is to collect email addresses. Don’t use an RSS feed subscription program that doesn’t allow you to identify who’s subscribing to your blog because that would be pointless, and a huge waste of an opportunity.
3. Use your email list to send quality content to your readers on a regular basis, as well as calls to action for products or services.
4. Offer the best giveaway you can create. It can be anything from a tips sheet to an ebook.
5. Don’t ask people for more than their first name and email address. The more information you request, the less likely they will leave an email address for you.
6. Never use the word subscribe. You’ll notice that for my free free Facebook Strategies tips sheet, my opt-in language is Send Me The Tips!

Are you wondering now whether you should even bother to use social media?

Yes, use both.

Email marketing is great for selling but guess what’s better at nurturing relationships with your customers and expanding the reach of your business? Yep, good “old-fashioned” social media.

With email, you can speak directly to your clients.

With social media, you can answer questions, share content daily, connect with colleagues and industry leaders, and find new clients.

Remember, email is for your current subscribers.

Social media is for taking relationships a few steps further and for finding new clients.

Number of People Using Social Media Keeps Growing

The above graph is from Statista and demonstrates how social media is expected to grow. The numbers are in the billions.

The company states:

“Social network penetration worldwide is ever-increasing. In 2017, 71 percent of internet users were social network users and these figures are expected to grow. Social networking is one of the most popular online activities with high user engagement rates and expanding mobile possibilities. North America ranks first among regions where social media is highly popular, with a social media penetration rate of 66 percent. In 2016, more than 81 percent of the United States population had a social media profile. As of the second quarter of 2016, U.S. users spend more than 215 weekly minutes on social media via smartphone, 61 weekly minutes via PC, and 47 minutes per week on social networks via tablet devices.”

Back in 2014, Pew Research Center noted that Facebook was somewhat of a “home base” for online adults using social media. At the time, it was the most popular site and often overlapped with the use of other social media platforms.

That hasn’t changed. Today, Facebook has 2.2 billion monthly active users, more than any other social media network.

Email marketing continues in importance while social media use is relentless in gaining ground and expanding its influence.

When developing your marketing strategy, make sure you incorporate both email and social media marketing into your plan.

Frances Caballo is an online marketing consultant and the author of six books on social media. Click here to schedule an appointment with her. Writing a book can serve as the best possible business card you can possibly have and establish your authority in your field. Once you publish your book, learn to market it by visiting my other website, SocialMediaJustforWriters.com.