Social media is great – it helps businesses connect with their customers and it provides attractive spaces for displaying content. Business email solutions, however, are simply more affective than social media marketing (although both should be part of an overall strategy).
Here’s why:
1. E-mail marketing is a direct line between the brand and the customer. So long as that e-mail is opened (and improving open rate is possible), they’re going to see the content. This is much different than posting something online and hoping that the audience sees it at some point.
2. If you can’t stand social media or you haven’t seen much come from it, you can swap out one or two platforms for quality e-mail marketing. Your audience can still share your content on their social media accounts even if you don’t have one – you’re providing the content via e-mail, which is all that’s necessary. You can even include “Share” buttons in your e-mail to make it a cinch for readers to spread the word on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc.
3. People are more protective of their e-mail address than their Twitter handle (or other social media accounts). On social media, your customers may collect friends and “Like” pages incessantly, but they’re probably not paying attention to a majority of posts on their feed. E-mail addresses aren’t given out as carelessly, though, which means that when a customer receives your e-mail, it’s something they actually want to see. This makes engagement rate higher on e-mail than on social media.
4. Businesses are in competition with fun, frivolous posts on social media. While you may head to Instagram or Pinterest for some easy browsing, most people aren’t checking their e-mail to find the latest funny cat video or silly note from a friend. People go through their inboxes for information about the things they care about.
5. E-mail is more universally used. There are more people online who use e-mail than there are who use social media. In essence, you can reach more people if you focus on an e-mail marketing strategy rather than just a social media strategy.
E-mail marketing doesn’t have to stand alone, but you should definitely have newsletters as part of your overall strategy. With e-mail blasts, you can send targeted information to specific segments of your audience.
