Since the beginning of 2010, a lot of companies have been investing in Social Media Marketing, deploying all the necessary efforts (and budgets!) to have a strong presence on major networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. However, very few of these companies invested in Email Marketing. In fact, a lot of them think that Email Marketing is dead, and Social Media is the only way to go. Wrong thinking… according to a research by StrongMail (graphic below), Email Marketing is still by far the best form of Online Marketing.

This graphic shows us that Conversion Rates are much higher (36.8%) when a message is delivered via Email. A Tweet only converts at 0.4%! This means that you would need a massive amount of tweets, and a massive amount of followers, in order to reach a comparable result as if you were to launch your message to a handful of email subscribers.

Some people still prefer Social Media Marketing, and let’s look at some reasons why :

• it is less expensive (in fact if you can manage your SMM initiative by yourself, it is entirely free!)
• it is more real time
• it generates increased interaction because the “no reply” line doesn’t fly in SMM.
• it is more likely to go “viral”

Now let’s look at why others prefer to use Email Marketing:

• higher visibility per post/message (a message sent in Social Media has a short life span as it will quickly get dissolved in the sea of other messages)
• more private/exclusive (users feel more concerned by a message in their inbox, than a message on a fanpage)
• Better Monitoring and Statistics (Especially if you use an external software like AWeber. The stats provided are very extensive and help you improve your campaign gradually)
• less prone to negative feedback. When you’re doing SMM, you’re always at risk of potential backlash from those who do not like retweets/likes from brands

The reality is, this debate shouldn’t even exist. It’s like asking a doctor if it is better to exercise or to have a healthy diet in order to lose weight. Both work together! You can achieve wonderful results by combining SMM and Email Marketing. For instance, have a customized landing page on on your Facebook Fan Page asking people to sign up to your Newsletter to receive tips and updates. Even better, offer them some kind of incentive to join (Free Ebook, Discount Coupon, Giveaway). This way your Fan Page will help you build up your subscribers database, and when it’s time to launch a promotional message or product update, make sure you launch it on all platforms! This way you get the advantages of both worlds and you are sure to have a maximum reach.

Services like AWeber are amazing for Email Marketing. For a measly $19 a month, AWeber lets you build/customize your own forms, follow-up messages & blog broadcasts to virtually an unlimited number of subscribers. Also, the admin panel gives you an unparalled stats dashboard, showing you how many people received your message, how many clicked it and how many conversions took place. We, at IronMonk, always recommend AWeber for all our clients interested in launching an Email Marketing campaign. Its user-friendliness and powerful features make it one of the leading Email Marketing Services on the web today.

Amine Rahal

Passionate about the world wide web since 1995, Amine has been working as a Web Developer, SEO & Social Media Marketing Specialist for several Organizations in the United States, Canada and China.