Did you know that email marketing is more efficient than social media marketing? Most businesses invest a large percentage of their marketing budget in social media, but it may not be the best tactic.
For many reasons, social media marketing can add value to any business. The right social media mix, with platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, can increase brand awareness and loyalty.
But what about email marketing? Though often underrated, it is a budget-friendly tactic that has the highest ROI (return on investment) of all marketing strategies.
In this blog post, we will look at why your business should invest in email marketing – also known as Electronic Direct Marketing (EDM). Let us start with a brief overview of the strategy.
What Is Email Marketing?
An email marketing strategy harnesses the power of email to generate new leads. It is also used to improve customer retention and customer lifetime value. EDM is cost-effective and promises to increase your conversion rates.
| Welcome Emails | Re-engagement emails | Lead nurturing emails | Transactional emails |
| Newsletters | Sponsorship emails | Dedicated emails (standalone) | Storytelling emails |
Common email marketing types
Email marketing can be aimed at both existing and potential customers. The process is pretty simple. All you need to do is build an email list and nurture it to increase your sales. Recent statistics show that more than 3.9 billion people read their emails every day.
So EDM is all about converting some of those users (your target audience) into customers. But how can it be more effective than social media marketing? Let’s find out.
8 Reasons Why EDM Is More Effective Than Social Media Marketing
1. When You Build An Email List, You Own That List Forever
Unlike your followers/connections and posts on social media platforms, email lists will always be yours. Regardless of the email provider, you can use email marketing to gradually build and grow your list of customers.
This is very important for professional marketers. Think about it. With social media marketing, you can only promote your products or services. Ultimately, you are waiting for your customers to take action. Some of your posts or ads may not even reach your existing/loyal customers.
That’s why your email list is a very powerful tool. It helps you reach your audience directly (one on one). Therefore, email marketing is a more personal approach than social media marketing. And that’s not all there is to it.
2. EDMs Are Cost-Effective
Cost is one of the main reasons why email marketing is preferred by small businesses. Suppose you want to create a social media campaign. For that, you would have to pay for things like ad placement, photoshoots, hiring an agency, and so on.
On the other hand, EDMs are simple to create and ultimately inexpensive. All you need is an email platform, a great campaign strategy and professionally written copy. For this reason, email marketing has an exceptional ROI of 122%.
Finally, with platforms like MailChimp, you can send up to 2500 business emails per month for free.
3. Email Marketing Nurtures Customers
Although email marketing is very effective at lead generation, the real kicker is investing in your target markets. Namely, with a nurturing campaign, you aim to build a deep relationship with your target audience.
Personalised and branded emails help you achieve just that. For this reason, EDMs are great for both B2B and B2C brands.
Since emails allow you to connect with your target audience in an organic way, you can inform them, help them, and support them.
4. Emails Will Always Be Around
Email is a stable digital marketing channel. As social media platforms come and go, email remains consistently popular. But why is this so important?
Well, what if you invest in building an audience for a social media channel and the platform loses its popularity after a while? Then, unfortunately, you’d lose all your hard work as users leave. On the other hand, email has been around for more than 30 years and keeps evolving.
So building your email list is a long-term investment that will not disappear after just a few years.
5. Remarketing To Past Buyers And Website Visitors
Another benefit of email marketing is follow-up promotion. And EDMs allow you to retarget previous customers and visitors to your website in more ways than one.
Newsletters, promotions, and loyalty offers are just a few of the types of emails you can share with your customers to keep them coming back to your business.
Returning customers are just as important (if not more important) than new customers. According to some studies, marketing that attracts new customers will cost six times more than a steady base of returning customers. That’s why building an ongoing relationship with past buyers is a great tactic.
6. eCommerce Abandoned Cart Emails
Similarly, email marketing is more effective than social media when it comes to remarketing to users that abandon shopping carts. If you own an eCommerce business, you know this problem well.
How many times have you seen your customers fill up a cart, only to abandon the site a few minutes later? The average cart abandonment rate across all industries is a staggering 69.57%!
But, with email marketing, you can bring those customers back to your website to purchase the products they left behind. There are many abandoned cart plugins that will automatically send a customisable follow-up email flow.
7. Drives Traffic to your Website
Let us say you have an SEO-optimised website with top-notch content. In many cases, that may be enough to attract new users. But what about your existing audience? How can you share your latest content with your customers?
Email marketing is the answer. It’s not hard to create an email that links to your newly published content.
Best of all, emails can (and should) include calls to action (CTAs). With engaging buttons, you can ensure that your audience takes action and revisits your website, which further boosts your SEO.
8. Online Users Prefer Emails Over Other Communication Channels
The final reason email marketing is more effective than social media has to do with statistics. If building a deep relationship with your audience is a priority for you, you should listen to their preferences.
If you think upcoming generations are shifting all their communications to social media, think again. More than 73% of millennials, prefer to communicate with businesses via email.
In general, email is still the most popular way to receive marketing updates from businesses.
Wrap Up
We know that social media platforms can expand your brand’s reach and generate leads. This article was not about underestimating the power of tools like Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest.
However, social media marketing is more expensive and risky than email marketing.
Still, it’s wise to keep a balance and use more than one marketing strategy. With the best return on investment, email marketing should be a key part of your overall marketing plan.