Can Email Marketing and Social Media Live Happily Ever After?

There is a constant tug of war between email marketing and social media marketing. Since we’re all working with limited resources–time, money, attention spans–where should you put your love? I’d say there’s room at the table for both and they’re actually stronger together when it comes to cheering on your brand. I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts though at the end of this post.

So, have your heard that email marketing is dead? Well, research tells us it’s alive and kicking. According to the Social Influence Benchmark Report done by StrongMail. When it comes to conversions 36.8% came from email marketing as opposed to 3.2% from Facebook? Food for thought if you’re considering an email marketing campaign…

When it comes to social media marketing–it’s all about reach and sharing. Again, according to StrongMail’s awesome report we see that posting on Twitter will give you an average click-through rate of 1,837%. Hello!

So what makes each of these marketing forms so attractive? Well…

Email Marketing

• More control over your campaign- Email allows you to choose who is going to get your email and create various campaigns for different email groups. Want to segment your marketing based on your different audiences? Email is your ticket. Tailored campaigns let you be as relevant to mommy bloggers as luxury boomers.  
• Email lasts longer- Once you post on Twitter or Facebook, you are most likely going to have to repost again because of the constant feed of other posts. But with email–it goes straight into an inbox, where if it’s not deleted, will stay visible for your audience.
• Make your audience feel special- Ability to personalize your email campaign. Adding the name of the recipient right into the email is a great way to establish a connection with your audience and higher conversion rates. You can personalize campaigns based on the data you’ve collected about your subscribers. We’re talking happy birthday promotions, sales on products they’re jonsing, and even how to’s or complimentary swag based on past purchases. 

Social Media Marketing

• Share the love with millions of people- With 44% of people sharing content on Facebook and 29% sharing on Twitter, the reach and brand exposure you can get with social media is vast. The sky’s the limit!
• Engage more with your audience- Post, comment, reply, rinse and repeat. Social media allows you to connect with your audience in real time. Whether its good or bad, this is an opportunity for your company to build trust and loyalty.
• Target a different audience- Not everyone will respond to email marketing, but they might respond to your campaign on Facebook or Twitter. Who knows, they might respond to both! Both Facebook and LinkedIn also allow you to turbodrive your campaign with laser focused advertising attributes so you can focus ads on things like job titles, age, relationship status. 

This brings us to a pivotal moment. It’s time for email marketing and social media marketing to stop playing hard to get and finally get it on, seriously. I want to see little email marketing and social media marketing babies.

Here’s my point, both marketing tactics work and work well for that matter. Both are fairly inexpensive to implement and here’s the best part, you can test each one. See what works, but don’t discount one for the other or put all your eggs in one basket. Try it first!

There are many ways to merge your email marketing and social media marketing together. These day’s people are coding their emails for social sharing, adding social links to their email newsletter headers and footers and adding an email newsletter subscription form on their Facebook page. That’s just the obvious examples… think of how social promotions could be combined with email coupons and more. 

What are your thoughts on merging the two? I’d love your input!

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Related posts:

1. Social Media Map of Online Communities– Where Do You Live?
2. A Guerilla’s Approach to Social Media Marketing
3. E-Power to the Rescue: Kick-start Your Email Marketing
4. 8 Tools to Measure Your Social Media Relevance
5. Social Media Marketing & Privacy – Shhh… Facebook is Watching

Rachel's bent on helping organizations and individuals achieve their purpose. The Certified Professional Coach and Film Studies major found herself drawn to social media because of the way it helps organizations communicate openly and honestly. She says there are a lot of parallels between keeping it real and achieving your purpose. Her latest purpose? Earning a Master's in Internet Marketing from Full Sail University. When she's not working or studying, she's doing yoga or hanging with her cats--Napoleon and Pedro.

Published by Rachel Gamburd Comments:6 Comments
Published in Content Strategy, Digital Marketing, Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing