For the past few years, social media has been in the limelight. Every online marketer is talking about engagement, virality, sharing, and connectivity. Yet with all of the buzz around social media marketing, businesses are in danger of overlooking a fundamental and proven marketing tactic: email.
Email is like the staid older sister of social media. While email may not seem as exciting and attractive as its younger sisters Facebook and Twitter, email is a reliable, measureable way to drive business performance.
Let’s take a look at some of the ways email marketing compares to social media marketing:
- Staying Top of Mind with Existing Customers – Both social media and email allow you to stay connected with customers. While Facebook and Twitter can be positive for building brand awareness and community with customers, this is not always the best forum for sales-based messaging. If you want to send out coupons, discounts, and more sales-driven communications, email may be a more optimal forum than social media.
- Offering Targeted, Relevant Messaging – You can target your paid promotions on social media, but you cannot target your regular updates and ensure the right users see the right messages. Email marketing programs, combined with customer data, allow you to sort your lists by demographic information or past purchase behaviors. If a parent buys a six month supply of children’s vitamins, you can trigger an email to go out six months later advertising more vitamins. Email also lets you personalize messaging so that it’s coming from a contact at your company and going directly to the customer. This one-to-one aspect makes customers feel valued.
- Upselling and Cross-selling – Email is an excellent channel for delivering more value to your customers by suggesting additional products and features that will enhance their initial purchase. This is something you cannot accomplish on social media. If someone purchases a bicycle at your store, then they’ll likely need a helmet, lock, pump or light to complete their purchase. Email is a great way to showcase these bicycle accessories and perhaps offer a discount on them too!
Smart marketers will continue focusing on email while testing new social media tactics. In fact, email and social media work really well in tandem. Remember to include icons and links to your social profiles in all of your marketing email templates. You can also include an email sign-up link as part of your Facebook business page. If you’d like to integrate email marketing and social media into your online presence, then contact Anchor Wave in Tucson at (520) 622-3731.
