Email Marketing v. Social Media Marketing: Which Do I Use?

Don’t let the headline deceive you. Email marketing and social media marketing don’t need to exist in competition of each other. If done correctly, they can be used together to drive leads and build brand loyalty. They do appear to be at odds with each other, but there can be great result when using these.two channels together.

We’re going to look at how email marketing and social media marketing can be great tools separately; but also how when used together you can raise your marketing efforts to a whole new level.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is when you lead potential customers down the sales funnel by sending emails marketing your products or services directly to those who have subscribed to your mailing list. We at 3 Cats Labs subscribe to Adobe’s newsletters and receive product updates and promotional offers directly in our inboxes.

According to OpIn Monster, 3.8 billion other people do the same and 60% of them prefer to receive offers via email marketing.

If those figures above aren’t convincing enough, why else should you bother to use email marketing? It leads to sales, and about 66% of purchases by customers are a direct result of email marketing. Also, with an ROI that measures at about 4400%, it’s just too awesome to refuse.

That all sounds so good you’re probably wondering why you should even spend another second considering social media marketing. But WAIT! Keep reading because you don’t want to make a mistake.

Social Media Marketing

You can probably derive the meaning without explanation, but social media marketing is promoting a product or service on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and etc. To serve each channel most effectively, the content should be tailored to each social media channel. For example, on Instagram keep the captions short and tell a story on LinkedIn.

3.2 billion people around the globe use social media, so that’s great. However, it’s increasingly difficult to grow your brand reach organically through social media. The amount of people searching for new brands on Facebook has decreased by 11%.

The decrease in organic reach doesn’t mean that social media marketing isn’t a viable option. Social media allows brands to directly engage with their audience, and quality engagement helps develop brand loyalty.

There are channel specific perks to use in social media marketing like live videos and app-specific ecommerce options.

Integrating Email and Social Media Marketing

You don’t need to start tweeting your newsletter link or creating special sign up now Instagram graphics to share and hope people will sign up. You can use more engaging and eye catching methods that integrate both types of marketing and wont be intrusive to the customer experience.

Email Marketing v. Social Media

Social media marketing helps you increase brand awareness, attract new potential customers, and to define your brand. Email marketing strengthens and reinforces your connection with loyal customers. You can pair both email and social media marketing together to support a robust marketing strategy.

How?

An easy first step, which is often included by default by services like Mailchimp, is the inclusion of social media links in marketing emails. This gives your mail recipients the opportunity to interact with your brand in other ways.

Readers should be enticed into learning more about your products or services and if appropriate, how else to use them. Take a look at the above image taken from an email received by the 3 Cats Labs Owner/Founder from Airinium. The links invite exploration and the question below acts as further enticement to engage with the brand through social media.

You can also take a more holistic approach and not only provide the links to your social media pages but to also incorporate some social media posts into your emails as content. This more memorable method strikes a different tone and lets your email subscribers know that there is more to find in your social media feeds.

Alternatively, use social media to encourage those following your business pages to sign up to receive emails from you. Using this tactic you can boost your recipient list and also build a stronger relationship with your existing or potential customers.

Brands don’t need to choose one or the other. Develop an approach to marketing that integrates both email and social media marketing and allows for the two channels to feed off of each other and elevate engagement with your brand. When you’re scrolling through your email promotions and social media feeds, think about how they can better be used together.

Let’s Talk About Your Brand

shane@3catslabs.com | Call +65-3159-4231

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