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Why E-mail Still Matters to Pull Marketing

  

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 There's been a lot of talk in the internet marketing world regarding Ben & Jerry's ending their e-mail marketing efforts in the UK. Their decision to focus on promoting their brand through social media channels has polarized many.

Several gave virtual pats on the back to the two socially conscious ice cream peddlers for making this bold move. Others felt the decision to axe e-mail marketing was short sighted. As for me? For Ben & Jerry's giving up on e-mail makes sense given their extensive brand history and business model.

However going "social media only" with online marketing outside of your website may be a huge mistake for many reasons. Here's why:

The Fight for Attention

With Facebook and Twitter your business is fighting for the attention in giant streams of messages we all scan through in a day. Even within a company's individual profile page there are several different links and messages for someone to review and get distracted. There's no main focus - just hundreds of little "sound bites".

A well done e-mail marketing blast with a single call to action is much more effective at achieving a desired conversion goal than a tweet or a status update.

Customization, Personalization and Segmentation

While Facebook gives Pages administrators the option to target messages to certain connections there's no room narrowing down who your recipients are beyond age, sex, and location. With Twitter you can only mention someone's individual user name or send them a direct message. While it would be nice to send personalized messages to all your followers there's no quick and easy way to go about it in social media - especially if your social media connections are in the hundreds or thousands.

In a survey conducted by e-Dialogue, 64% of consumers want marketers to show that they know what types of products or services they like. Most e-mail marketing software platforms allow you the ability to personalize and target your e-mails based on user provided information such as name and purchasing history.

The more relevant the content is to the individual the more inclined they are to open and read your messages.

User Backlash Against Marketing in Social Media

Not everyone is happy about the commercial invasion of social media that's been occurring over the past few years.  Facebook originally started out as a way for Ivy League college students to get to know one another - now it has grown into a major means of communication for anything and everything.

There's been resentment among Facebook's earlier user base about this transition. Older Facebook users in the 40 and over age bracket (among Facebook's fastest growing user segment) aren't as inclined to consistantly check Facebook multiple times a day either as they are with e-mail.

Many individuals have gone as far as deleting their profiles off social media presence altogether. Choosing to not do e-mail marketing will make your marketing efforts more or less invisible to this segment of internet users.

Before You Decide to Pull the Plug on E-mail Consider This...

Just because marketing your business solely through social media seems like the cool hip thing to do doesn't mean it's in your best interest. If you're not seeing results with your e-mail campaigns then you're probably not building them with an inbound marketing methodology in mind.

While social media can be a great promotional tool for your business you can't completely disregard the value of being able to tactfully target and pull your audience back to you the way you can through e-mail.