With the rise of social media networks and with platforms such as Facebook crossing over a billion users, you probably think that email marketing is dead.
But while it might be tempting to put all your efforts into social media, consider this fact: even with the popularity of social platforms, email marketing still has an ROI of $38 for every $1 you spend!
It might not be the new style, but email marketing is far from defunct.
You do not, however, have to choose between the two strategies; you can market through both email and social media. But if you had to pick one, email is the obvious choice.
There are five significant ways in which email marketing is excelling beyond the results offered by social media.
Email Marketing Is Superior
While that ROI statistic is still sinking in, let’s take a look at how the original method of digital marketing is still the king of the internet.
Keep in mind that you’ll need to build an email list before you’re able to leverage email marketing. After you’ve chosen hosting for your blog or website, set up a place on your homepage and in other relevant areas for readers to sign up for your newsletter. You’ll have a list of subscribers before you know it!
1. Email Marketing Offers a Wider Reach Than Social
A recent study performed by Marshall Mason at Social@Ogilvy discovered that organic reach on Facebook posts has completely crashed. In fact, the study even went so far as to say that without money to boost the posts, organic reach would eventually hit zero.
Take a look at this chart from the study:
In contrast to Facebook, email messages are much more effective at reaching your audience. In fact, studies have even shown that a message is five times more likely to be seen in email than on Facebook and that email is 40 times more effective at bringing in customers than Facebook or Twitter.
2. Email Marketing Offers Better Lead Generation
When people join your email list, they do so by entering their information voluntarily. Those decisions alone showcase an interest in your brand and your content. The opposite is true with social, which promotes your content via posts or advertisements.
Email marketing is unique in requiring this base level of interest. By allowing people to opt-in, you’re bringing new leads into your fold.
Furthermore, social media is filled with digital noise. Twitter, for example, generates over 500 million tweets per day! Cutting through that noise is next to impossible.
Meanwhile, the only competition you’re facing with email marketing is the other messages in the customer’s inbox. There will be other messages there, but not 500 million of them.
The odds of people seeing your content through email are much higher than they are through social media.Click To Tweet3. List Segmentation Offers Higher Conversion Rates
Unlike social media, email marketing allows you to decide which members of your email list see what content. In a practice called list segmentation, you can separate your email subscribers based on various factors. These include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Demographics, such as age, location, and gender
- Buying practices
- How long they’ve been subscribers
- What type of content they would be interested in (informational, promotional, etc.)
According to DMA, segmenting your email subscribers and sending targeted email has been proven to contribute up to 58% of all revenue. Everything, from open rates to click-through rates, skyrockets when you organize your list and create targeted emails for the different types of subscribers you have.
Social media offers something similar in the way that ads are targeted to users, but it’s not nearly as effective as email list segmentation.Click To Tweet4. Email Marketing Offers Better Engagement
The direct nature of email immediately offers a more personalized experience than an ad on Facebook or Twitter does. As technology continues to develop, innovators are becoming ever more adept at customizing clients’ experiences with email.
A perfect example of this developing technology is the use of autoresponders, which have been known not only to create more personalized experiences but also to accelerate your conversion rates.
Using autoresponders, you can immediately send exclusive messages to customers when they take an action, even if you just want to say “thank you” when they’ve made a purchase.
In terms of engagement:
- 74% of marketers say that targeted emails increase customer engagement.
- Personalized emails improve click-through rates by an average of 14%.
- Open rates are highest when companies send two emails per month.
The targeted nature of modern email marketing represents huge potential for engagement and conversions when compared to social media.
5. Email Has More Active Users Than Social Media
When we hear that Facebook has over 1.65 billion monthly active users, that’s certainly impressive. What’s even more impressive is that 54% of them are using the service on mobile. We know that mobile is quickly becoming the way of the future, but how does email stack up?
Pretty well, actually:
- The total number of email accounts worldwide is expected to cross 4.3 billion by the end of 2016.
- 92% of online adults use email and 61% use it on a daily basis.
- U.S. companies send 1.47 million emails per month with the global average being 1.38 million.
Final Thoughts
While email marketing is absolutely more effective than social media marketing, the two can co-exist. For example, you can use social media to bring more people to your email list.
Still, email marketing is a powerful tool every business should be using. It simply offers more engagement with less effort.
Let us know in the comments which type of marketing gives you the best results !