I know it's crazy and as a social media strategist, I want to preface with this blog post with the fact I love social media and believe it is 100% the most effective marketing tactic. Phew, now I am safe from what I am about to say.
Email marketing may be more important that we give it credit for. A new study from Pew Internet noted that on a daily basis, internet users check email 11% more than social media. 11% might not seem like a lot, but that is a hefty number. Think of it like this, if you got 11% taller, you would soar. If there was 11% more tumblrs like What We Should Call Social Media, we would never get any work done. If there were 11% more cat memes, we would all be so much happier. So in short, email is still rocking it.
With 80% of Americans using the Internet, we can all agree that the digital space is key in marketing. But the old adage still holds true: location location location. On the Internet, that means deciding which platform to put your dollars in to get the most bang for your buck.
Social media has taken the spotlight in marketing over the last decade and rightly so, but even without the headlines, email is still performing strongly. According to Econsultancy's email census, a vast majority of responding companies (70%) rate email as 'excellent' or 'good' for ROI. Exact Target also found significant pro email numbers - 66% of consumers have made a purchase after receiving an email vs. the 20% who made a purchase after seeing a post on Facebook. Forty four percent? That's a big difference!
Thinking about my own habits, I have to admit I fall into that 66% quite often, along with many friends. A few months ago, while filming an interview for our In The Den series, Charlotte Cooper, Director of Marketing for Women's eNews, spoke about the comeback of email marketing. Talk about full circle!
So in short, don't forget about email. It's easy to get swept up in the fun of social media during brainstorms and strategy sessions - but let's remember to add "Email Ideas?" to the agenda next time.