COMMENTS
This is an interesting read. I agree with what you have said. E-mail seems to be old news now especially with the ability to message on social media platforms.
Let's face it email marketing is just not as sexy as social media. I think decisions like Ben & Jeryy's made are flawed. Email is still a viable marketing tool, the key for marketers is to explore ways to combine social media and email to deliver
relevantcontent about your brand to people when they are
receptive. That's the winning mix.
If you would like to get our complete study from eROI you can grab the PDF here <a>http://www2.eroi.com/integrating_social_mobile_and_email
I believe most users think of email and spam as one. It is important to use email in a way that it doesn't end up being spam and the result with the consumer will be more productive.
The suggestion that your email list should be an "opt-in" list eliminates a lot of the spammy aspects of email. I also think frequency is extremely important and that this should be one of the priorities as you build a marketing model for email.
Permission based e-mail still has a place as part of overall marketing strategy I believe again it all depends on your target market and how they prefer to get their information. We tie ours into our social sites and vice versa and is still something that a lot of our small business clients prefer at least in Rural Arkansas.
The survey does not really say if social media give a better response than email marketing. It is interesting to see how many marketeers offer the option, however what decides what is more efficient is left out: which one does the target audience respond to when they get a combined email/social media message? That would be the interesting to measure.
Social media will not likely kill off email marketing, although there are countless annoying newsletters that really need to die their irrelevant death.
Smart and tuned in marketers will use social media for frequent, non-invasive, communication with their most interested fans and customers and email newsletters much less frequently than in the past and only for important updates, special notices, or communication with their customer base at large.
Email marketing is still overused and abused by many which is giving it a bad reputation and developing negative attitudes toward anything that looks like a newletter in the inbox - unless it is one of your favs. You can become a fav by having great and relevant content, managing your frequency carefully, and using social media like Facebook and Twitter for your more frequent updates.
Those that continue to flood our inboxes with weekly or even monthly newsletters that are not news will become the dinosaurs of the web and eventually sink to Spam level - the equivalent of the cockroach.
Bill Grunau
This is an obvious note. We know that many businesses are integrating with top social media networks to make market their business, but Businesses trying to market through social media should remember that social media marketing is not something that can be tailored over night! It takes time and effort to see any results!
Was this study conducted via Facebook?
Email campaigns are a numbers game, especially when they are used for "cold calling" new prospects. A small per centage will engage, a per centage of those will move along the sales funnel and a per centage of those interested will close. Integrating social media with email campaigns is a good way to increase the numbers. It can be even more impactful when campaigns are reaching out to existing customers and champions.