Integrating Email + Social Media Image Credit: Adotas.com Email + Social Media: The Horse Goes in Front
Social Media marketing is something of a hot topic at the moment, and because of that fact, many people believe that email marketing is dead. Conversely, and far to the contrary, others suggest that email is still more valuable and offers more conversion than social media ever will.
At the end of the day, people will argue for their favourite promotional method, often without providing any real facts. If you want to know what’s really best for your business, keep reading to see Social Media Marketing and Email Marketing go head to head. We’ll cover pros, cons, benefits, and basic tactics of each and then give you a basic summary.
Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Social Media Marketing, otherwise known as SMM (which we will use for the rest of this post for the purpose of brevity) is quite literally what’s in fashion at the moment. Everyone is involved and everyone is doing it, even if they happen to be doing it wrong.
Because dozens of businesses have gone viral almost overnight with social media and many more use programs to convert fans and followers into customers, it’s definitely not something you want to ignore.
The basic pros of social media marketing include that it is the easiest and fastest way to get your content and business out in front of as many people as possible. If you have something great to say and say it in an engaging way then people will listen.
Social media:
- Builds Customer Relationships
- Creates Earned Sales Through Offers and Deals
- Builds Your Company Brand
- Helps You Find Out What Your Customers Want
However, SMM is very easy to abuse for those who do not know what they are doing or who simply don’t care. Buying followers, fans, and likes can look good to new fans, but it eventually creates a downward spiral and a very low engagement percentage because these fans are most often not interested or even real.
As a result, SMM is only valuable to the company willing to put in the time and the money to network, promote, and gain active, interested fans.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a much older form of promotion and involves sending emails to people who opt-in via a contact form. Emails can be written in advance (drip marketing) or sent out with news, new products, and alerts to customers based on the sales method and the consumers preference.
Email marketing has the ability to convert more people
than social media because subscribers have directly
indicated an interest in products, services or sales.
While social media fans are only saying that they like or have used a brand, email subscribers are saying that they want to buy from a brand. For that reason, someone who signs up to a newsletter to receive sales and deals is a great deal more likely to make a purchase than a social fan looking at the same deals on Facebook or Twitter. The main benefits of Email Marketing include:
- Targeted Consumers
- Higher Conversion (studies show roughly 12 percent higher)
- Your Subscribers Will See Every Post
- More Customization and Personality
The main disadvantage of email marketing is that it is limited to the number of people who choose to sign up for the mailing list. Another disadvantage is that a poorly written newsletter or email will be flagged as spam and filtered by the users email address.
Because subscribers often find repetitive, overly promotional, and too frequent emails annoying the best practice is to hire a quality company that specializes in email marketing, like SocketLabs.com.
SMM vs. Email Marketing
At the end of the day do you choose an email marketing platform or a social one? While you might be tempted to go with the option that looks like it is best for your business, you can probably get a lot more success by going with both.
Social media and email complement each other in that you can use your Social to build a brand reputation and brand engagement, and even to promote your newsletter.
With your emails making more sales, you can promote less on your social (which often leads to better social engagement) and focus on selling through your newsletter while providing helpful information and tips on your social.
SMM and Email are both very valuable forms of marketing and you shouldn’t discount either. However, an email subscriber is more valuable to you as a business than a social fan or like (or even ten social fans), and you should keep this in mind when allocating your time and money towards either program.
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Thanks for this! I found your information to be really useful. Especially the email marketing portion, I learned quite a bit and it helped put me in the right direction.
I’ve always been curious on how to get the email list to begin with.. what if you don’t have any contacts to go on? I find social media easier in that aspect but I do feel that email marketing is more direct.
Hi William,
What you do is put an email capture form on your site in a prominent place – some even use pop-ups which are universally hated, but work. Often something is offered free to get the subscription. There is an example of this at the top right of this blog. Look for the orange and black box that says Small Business Success with the video. Those subscribers receive an autoresponder series on basic marketing strategy. That is attached to Priceless Possibilities. See growmap.biz for details.
There is also a subscription area for receiving blog posts. “Look for Don’t Miss Your Path to Growth!
Enter your email for updates”. Subscribing there automatically sends new posts to your email address. Those are handled by FeedBlitz. You can read about them at https://growmap.com/feedburner-alternative/
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..4 Creative Ideas on Viral Social Media Content Marketing from Caterpillar
I never look at promotional emails. Whenever they pop up in my inbox I immediately delete them, so for me the best option would be social media marketing. I feel like receiving an add on Facebook is like receiving a postcard whereas an email is like receiving a sealed envelope.
Hi Donald,
That is an interesting insight. Makes me wonder how many others feel that way. Some people ignore ads on Facebook and that is why many only share videos and images.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Why Low Cost Focus Destroys Economies ~ Small Business Improves Standard of Living
Hi James,
No, they’re not really the same. SMO = social media optimization while SMM = Social Media Marketing (although some may also use SMM for social media management).
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Why and How to Select Keywords and Where to Use Them
SMM is very easy to abuse for those who do not know what they are doing or who simply don’t care.
Social Media marketing is working much better for me than Email Marketing. Anyhows, thanks for sharing your views on both 🙂
I just read a post the other day stating that increasing your email list is the single most important thing you can do. I think this is not an either/or thing. You need both as your article argues. Thanks for this interesting and thought provoking post.
It’s really a great debatable topic. And, definitely very confusing to choose any one of them because email marketing and social media both are beneficial.
I never use email marketing,all letters end up in spam folder anyway.Social marketing can be very powerful but focusing more on SEO can get you long way.
Great stuff Roz. Adding calls to action take a little bit of effort, however it can make a big difference to click through when you combine it with a good image. I already use scheduling for other social media, however hand’t considered it for Pinterest so I’ll be checking out Reachli and Pinstamatic. Cheers, Nic
I Like Email Marketing 🙂
It very Great to Earn More Money.
Current, I don’t Know how to make money form Social 🙁
Great post! Many people think that email marketing is no longer effective nowadays and they couldn’t be more wrong! Today when Google is updating their ranking algorithms more and more often, an email list is actually more valuable than anything else since you can get de-ranked from one day to another!
Cheers 🙂
Nice post but i think that Social media marketing is more effective then Email marketing. People do not open Emails now a days while they are aware of Social networks and they keep on using Facebook and twitter so there are more chances that people like these networks.
Thanks
I’m amazed so may people think email marketing is dead (or on it’s way)
Combine email marketing and social media marketing in the right way (along with SEO and content marketing) and you’ve got yourself one awesome marketing strategy.
One shouldnt be seen as better than the other – they are all very important cogs in the marketing wheel.
thank you for the useful information. I’ll prefer the Social media as compared to email marketing as email marketing is limited . well describe the difference ..very knowledgeable.
Respected George Torres Sir:-
George Torres sir first of all i would like to say you a wonderful thanks because of of share this amazing post for us. And the main credit goes to SMM(Social Media Marketing) point from my side. And sir updates more these kind of knowledgeable post for us.
-:-:-:-Thank You Sir-:-:-:-
I tend to like both marketing strategies, however, social media takes the cake. As you mentioned, the reasons I like social media is because of the power of sharing. If something were to take off, hundreds, if not thousands of people could potentially see your brand. However, with email today, there’s a good chance if someone likes something, they won’t forward it to anyone they know. Also, the other problem with email marketing is the restrictions that they have with mass emails. I’ve found so many of my emails landing in the spam folder.
I believe that there is now a trend that will soon eliminate the email marketing strategies. It is important to have social media marketing, on the other hand, for the reason that you can connect with billions of active users.
I would say for email marketing, it’s will be your OWN asset, because we get to keep and is able to control it. While social media such as fb, twitter etc, it’s not your own site and they may banned you or the sites just go away with no control.
What do you mean that about businesses that go viral overnight? Does that even happen anymore?
I use SMM+email marketing strategy —> more powerfull+profit !
hello admin
I agree with your suggestion, and of course should be run seo marketing seriously and diligently .. and then marketing with photo meme look interesting .. hahaha thnks for sharing thx for this nice and ultimate read
Email marketing is good but not everyone is capable enough of doing it, but that’s not the case with social media marketing. Almost any person can learn it with proper approach.
So for me, its social media marketing all the way!
Hi George
Good post to understand Social Media and Email Marketing. As we know that Social Media is made for maintain relationship and Email Marketing is made for drive revenue….And both have their unique functions in the online world. Both together is very very useful to build a brand reputation, brand engagement, and brand promotion.
Hi George
Thank you for this great article. I like the way you approach the subject and the recommendation made. I particularly like this paragraph where you said “Social media and email complement each other in that you can use your Social to build a brand reputation and brand engagement, and even to promote your newsletter”
Thanks again for sharing such valuable information. You have done a great job with this article.
Keep up the good work!
Regards,
Gerard
Besides all the facts you mentioned here, I think both are not perfect, however using them together can produce good results.
Loads of insightful stats, I was, however, mostly interested in statistics about testing and they are, in fact, largely alarming. Hopefully, next “state of inbound marketing” will show that more than only 20% of marketers a/b test their websites.
A great post between the two channels. Yes, they each work, but work great together. I always say — use social to nurture the relationship ad email to drive revenue.
Email marketing is still alive but for me social media marketing is more fast and more effective today.
Thanks for sharing this Gail & George. Social Media and Email definitely have their unique functions in the online world. I treat SMM as a great place to meet and find out more about your audience (clients, friends, partners), while Email serves better as a platform to provide the hard core help. Those who resonate with your SM help will eventually find away to join your your Email list, where you can offer the help that is best suited for them.
Hi George,
Good Comparison between Social Media and Email Marketing.
I got may ideas by reading this post :). I completely agree for this point ‘However, an email subscriber is more valuable to you as a business than a social fan’. Email subscriber is more valuable while considering a business.
Thanks for sharing this
I think email marketing is definitely not dead.
Social media marketing is one thing that is way better than any other. However email marketing is good but not everyone is capable enough of doing it, but that’s not the case with social media marketing. Almost any person can learn it with proper approach.
So for me, its social media marketing all the way!
People should have good experience, before they are starting with either SMM or Email Marketing. Because the ultimate aim of both is to increase traffic and promote things. So it should be done in a careful manner.
Social media will always win I think – even though it’s faster paced, people are unprepared to see a product they might like. Really like an impulse buy at the supermarket!
Seriously the way you write your posts is simply amazing, i am very impressed by you, i want to say the words and the knowledge you put in the post both are very impressive, i want to thank you for sharing such a great post and want to say i going to subscribe to your posts.
Email marketing is definitely not dead. I find both are important and have a place. The key is choosing the proper strategy and audience at the right time.
hi thanks for this article this was very informative at least for email market strategies so nice one
Most of the email marketing methods are considered as a spam, if you want to use this metod you need a great newsletter for success, but in our days this has become a second method, because the social media are more powerfull.
Thanks for the article
I too go for social media as in email marketing, the sales letters go as spam. And it’s very important to have a very interesting letter to grab the attention of the reader. Sales letters are not very interesting and people are tired of cliches.