Why Email Marketing Is Still More Effective Than Social Media

Marketing

Nov 11

So much emphasis has been placed on social media marketing.

But marketing is not social media, social media is just one part of marketing. Another more effective marketing channel is email.

You may be thinking that email newsletters are spammy and ineffective- especially considering the mountain of emails that may be piling up in your inbox- but they’re actually the most effective online marketing strategy there is. Here’s why:

You own your contact list

If Instagram crashed or TikTok ceased to exist, you’d have no way of reaching the community you built. You can’t just move your followers to another platform, you have to completely start over. If Mailchimp were to go out of business, simply export your contact list and upload it to a different email platform.

Not everyone is guaranteed to see your social media post, but almost everyone is guaranteed to receive your email

Whether they open it or not is up to them. The average email open rate ranges from 25% - 41%, whereas organic Facebook reach is about 2.2%.

Email builds deeper connections

Your audience can get to know you more through email. As noted above, subscribers are more likely to open your email than they are to see your social media posts, and when you send your emails at a set frequency your subscribers are getting to know you and your business.

Furthermore, email is a longer form of content, giving you more room for pictures, text, and links, which leads to…

Email is designed for conversions, social media is designed for scrolling

Email is built for conversions, meaning you can include as many links as you want. Facebook and LinkedIn don’t promote posts with links, and Instagram only allows you the link in bio option. Because social media platforms want to keep users scrolling, so they’re not going to boost a post that encourages users to leave.

This is another advantage of email: Your readers are less likely to click away from your email than they are your social media post because social media is constantly pushing other posts.

Email marketing statistics that will convince you to start your list:

Email generates $36 for every $1 spent, a staggering 3,600% return on investment! Social media generates an estimated return of just $2.80 for every $1 spent.
I’ve heard from numerous marketing gurus that for every 1 subscriber you have on your list, you will make an extra $1 per month. (I cannot find stats to back this up, though.)
59% of respondents say marketing emails influence their buying decisions.
People are twice as likely to sign up for your email list than they are to interact with you on Facebook.
The average click-through rate for email newsletters is roughly 2.5%, whereas on Facebook the average is 0.9%.
Email outranks social media as the first task of the day with more than half of Americans checking their email first thing in the morning—before scrolling social, doing a Google search, or even checking the weather
73% of millennials prefer that communications from businesses come through email.
80% of business professionals believe that email marketing increases customer retention.

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Ain’t got time for email?

In Self-Employed School we emphasize a sustainable and effective marketing strategy that won’t dominate your days. There’s a lesson on content creation, which covers how to repurpose content across your blog, email, and social media posts.