Email or Social Media: Which is Better and Most Efficient?
With so many consumers on social media these days, you may be wondering if email marketing is still effective. In this post, we share some insights and forecasts for email marketing vs social media.
It is obvious that social media is worth utilizing. In fact, 83% of marketers say that social media is important to their business.
Marketers have even started to think about whether social media should replace email? the answer is no.
Not only does email have the largest user base overall, it also has the largest user base for different age groups. Conclusion: The majority of email subscribers are between 25-34 years, but email has the most users of all age groups.
Contents
Email vs Social Media Usage
Surveys report that the majority of consumers check their mail inbox the first thing they do before anything else online.
“Email-first people” are more likely to approach online interactions with the goal of finding discount offers, promotions or new product information.
These consumers believe that Social Media such as Facebook and Twitter are more appropriate for entertainment and to show support for brands, while email is more appropriate for offers and transaction messages.
What has the greatest reach: Email or Social Media?
Email reaches 79% of the people you send it to, ie recipients (Global, average inbox placement rate). Facebook’s organic reach has dropped to around 1-6%, depending on the total number of fans. This means that only 1-6% of your Facebook fans actually see your posts!
Why is it like that? It has to do with social media algorithms. Users do not see every single post, tweet, and pin from the people and companies they follow because there are simply too many updates that fit on an average news feed. On Facebook, for example, you can expect about 6% of your “Fan base” to see what you post.
But of course one should not underestimate the power or opportunities of social media when it comes to, for example, sharing. If someone shares your content, a certain number of their followers will see it too. Sometimes it can result in a lot more exposure than you would receive via email.
But that a post should become “Social media viral” is not easy to do, while with email there is of course also the opportunity to share and thus reach an extremely large audience. Combined with the following tips on avoiding one’s mail in spam that we have collected here.
Email Marketing ROI vs Social Media ROI
When asked what is the most important metric to measure the effectiveness of a particular channel, most marketers can agree that the total return on investment is the most important.
One reason why e-mail has higher ROI and is better at generating leads may be partly because customers who have been recruited via e-mail have a higher lifespan than those who have been recruited via social media.
On average, one in five marketing messages opens with a clickthrough rate of 3.57%, while on Facebook you can expect a clickthrough rate of 0.07%. The median ROI for email is 122%. Social media comes in a distant second place, with a return of 28%.
If you try to market as effectively as possible, email is clearly the way to go. Finally, no discussion of email marketing vs social media would be complete without mentioning the important point: ownership.
With email marketing, you completely own your list of customers. But with Facebook, Twitter or any other social media platform, your list can be removed from you at any time. If you read the terms of use for Facebook and Twitter you will find that your account can be terminated at any time as they wish. In other words, you do not have full control.
Conclusion
Right now, both social media marketing and email marketing are well worth your time and effort. If you have to choose one over the other, email marketing would be the better choice – it reaches more people, drives more conversions, and has higher ROI than social media marketing.
(But fortunately, you don’t have to choose between the two). The best online marketing strategy right now is a well-rounded strategy. Focus most of your energy on email marketing, but use social media and other strategies to complement your efforts, promote your brand image, and increase your membership base. The membership base is then used as a basis in your email marketing.
Simply put, you should use social media to drive visitors to your site, where you can convert your visitors into subscribers.
