I was thrown into a conversation through the Understanding Marketing blog surrounding the concept of email marketing being better than social media… or vice versa.
I tend to agree with the editor over at Understanding Marketing when they say:
“So there’s a big conversation on which one is better. Here’s what I say – Who cares!? They both serve your audiences in their own way.”
I couldn’t agree more. There shouldn’t even be an argument over which medium is better. You should be using both mediums to develop your marketing strategy. Email has been successful over the years to drive valued buyers to a landing page, website, or phone. Social Media is used to build a brand, tell a story, and start a conversation.
They are two different mediums.. two different uses.. two different outcomes. If you are wanting an idea about how to combine the two mediums… Here is something to chew on:
1. Social Media is available to start building brand awareness around a specific product or service. It is also there to truly empower your employees and clients to talk about your company.
2. Email is the second tier of communication. Once a potential client buys into your conversation through social media.. Email can be there to deliver relevant and sales material to push the sales across.
These are just two uses for the HUGE mediums of email and social media. How do you combine both strategies?
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Great post. As a long time email marketer, I am making the transition slowly to social media, inserting links in my email to posts on my blog and relevant content elsewhere on the net. Today, I use social media, to drive visitors back to my site and invite them to sign up for my newsletter so the elements are interconnected by design.
While I love the immediacy of social media, I have to respect where my customers are and how they like to communicate, and so far, they are still an eMail audience. How do I know?
While traffic to my blog grows weekly, I have very few subscriptions ( a number to embarrassingly small to post here) in contrast I have a large (4,000) and fairly stable data base for my newsletter which indicates, at least in the short run, I can not afford to ignore this medium.
My strategy, will be to continue to direct links from my newsletter to my blog, invite my readers to subscribe to the RSS feed, and leave comments on the blog. I am pretty sure it will be a slow transition. The trick is to make your content accessible to your audience. Put information they want, where they want to find it, in their inbox or on their desktop, and they will return to you again and again.
Hi Kyle, Good post and you are exactly right. This isn't an either or discussion it about the right tools for the job.
I wanted to steer you to a post I did the other day called "Don't forget the original social media" http://blogging.compendiumblog.com/blog/blogging-...
There is still a huge population out there that relies on email as their primary means of online social interaction.
Chris Baggott
I like this. Especially because it pushes email back to where it should have been all along: as a closer. Once you have a relationship, then you can send an email trying to convert that person for one specific purpose.
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Kyle,
Thanks so much for commenting on our post and joining the "conversation." I hope marketers out there do pay attention to both mediums and take advantage of the unique benefits that each provides.
Chrisanne Sternal