These days, it seems like social media are everything. Other marketing channels appear pretty redundant when you have the whole world in a single social net to reach out with your offer. However, email marketing keeps its position in the list of channels that work perfectly fine. How is it so? Let’s find out.
Many people, especially younger generations, see email as outdated. You can register with your phone number with most services, and there’s no need to check it daily as you have messengers to talk to people.Many people use email only for work, relying on messengers, social media, and calls for everything else. However, the numbers don’t lie. In 2022 there were approximately 4.3 billion email users, while one of the social media’s behemoths—TikTok—had only 1.04 billion active users monthly in 2023.
With these numbers, is email marketing more effective than social media? Yes and no. Let’s dive further.
Social Media vs. Email: Pros and Cons
Starting with the audience, it’s not that simple to determine who wins now. Despite that you do need an email for most things done online and the above-mentioned numbers, we can’t get precise data on active email users vs. created accounts to estimate the audience. However, with email marketing, we mostly speak about a warm audience, so it’s a much smaller pull than you get with social media, though the number of users is higher in general. What is really relevant here, is an impressive ROI for email outreach which is claimed to be up to 45:1 with certain industries.
For new businesses, that don’t have a list of loyal customers so far, email as a marketing channel won’t work as well. Sure, it is possible to use email finding tools to try and create a very first subscription list. The cold outreach still brings some results, but they are so low it’s hardly worth trying for new businesses that customers know nothing about.
With social media, where algorithms do the job for you, new products can become visible quickly enough, and bring the attention of an interested audience. People who are already interested in products similar to yours will see your offer and the next step is up to them.
In October 2024, social media was used by 63.8% of the world’s population. That’s a huge number of people to market your product to. But you can only apply some general metrics to personalize the offer, i.e., using geolocation, interests, and some other parameters that vary for every social platform.
Consider the following example. For those selling info products, scrapping potential leads’ contacts from LinkedIn can appear beneficial, as it’s possible to detect professionals who work in your area and might need what you offer. With beauty products, however, the platform won’t bring the same result as a social media one that mostly runs on video content.
It’s different with emails sent to people who already agreed to get your updates. Email allows for segmented, personalized messaging based on previous behavior, as we are talking about customers who subscribed to the email list willingly. Email marketing works best when the audience is already engaged and expecting it. Social media, on the other hand, catch people in the moment. That’s why email marketing works best when it comes to customer retaining and building deeper relationships with the already loyal audience, which transforms into surprisingly high ROI.
However, the audience email marketing benefits from is rather tiny compared to what social media are able to offer.
Does email count as social media? In terms of number of registered users, maybe. In terms of activity, it certainly does not. Another important point to consider is geography. It’s worth mentioning that in some countries, email services don’t have the same popularity with users as in others. While ROI can still be high in those locations, the audience is minuscule compared to social media reach. Email marketing remains strong in certain industries, especially in Western markets, but in others, it’s barely relevant.
Is It Reasonable to Use Just One Channel?
While ROI comparison insists on the high efficiency of the email marketing strategy, businesses are not limited to just one method and there’s no need to oppose them. They work together perfectly fine and complement each other. Apparently, a significant number of businesses in various industries have been using it for quite a while now.
Marketing strategy hugely depends on the industry; for some, social media is just the first step in gathering an audience for future sales through email. Let’s see some examples.
Info products and education
For content-based businesses, social media can’t work as a main marketing place. With the attention span of a regular social media user, long-form meaningful, and valuable content won’t find its base. It is important to understand that most social media platforms were made for entertainment, and with all the fuzz that happens there, solid business accounts look awkward at best.
While many marketers insist on social media presence for their clients, they suffer with putting engaging content that will be able to stand out from the crowd on social media platforms. And the crowd in question is really huge, dancing, jumping, doing everything to entertain. It is possible someone will pay attention to meaningful content, but it’s better to be short.
Nevertheless, to spark the initial interest, info businesses can utilize social media with the next step being gathering email addresses and using letter format to properly explain their offer. For those who become clients, future emails are welcomed, as they bring more relevant information about the product.
Beauty products and services
While regular customers would love to have updates on new products and discounts to their emails, nowadays you need to show the product or the process in detail for people to choose you among competitors. The beauty industry benefits hugely from influence marketing done through social media. However, for a certain type of sales, email marketing plays a really crucial role.
With subscription sales, a personalized regular email goes a long way in selling products to loyal customers. While it’s easier to lure the audience in by showing what you sell, further marketing strategy should absolutely include email lists as a means to inform your customers about seasonal offers, promotions, and discounts.
Here, building a relationship with a client is very important, and emails serve this purpose perfectly. Analyzing past orders helps sell more by highlighting products or services the client already showed interest in.
Ecommerce, retail, and consumer goods
With this group of products, everything works. It is possible to create engaging content winning social media with physical products, and many retailers do this already. At the same time, once the product is bought, the company will use customers’ emails to constantly remind them of the assortment and discounts. For quality brands, that are likely to gather a loyal niche pull of customers, the combination of two strategies works great and brings a steady profit.
Those are just three examples of how industries get the best from both marketing channels. Are they enough nowadays? They can be, by why settle for less? Omnichannel marketing is on the rise and it provides businesses with means to never let their clients go. There’s no way a regular person is able to just search for the product and leave with it now; with omnichannel strategies the product will follow for a while. Once considered annoying, the approach is widely normalized now and it brings results by boosting visibility and giving customers more options to choose the company to buy from.
Conclusion
When building a marketing strategy, it’s worth considering that brand familiarity and reputation are crucial factors influencing customer behavior. To educate the audience about the company, social media are widely utilized by leaders of every industry. It’s possible to promote business values and show the production process telling about the product in detail, and demonstrating it in use via social media format. It brings brands closer to the customer and generates trust as social media users are well-informed about what they’re buying. That works well for both sides.
With loyal clients, a deep trustful connection comes to the fore which is easier to achieve with email marketing that considers previous buyer’s behavior, tastes, and preferences. With the email marketing company done right, the letter is perceived as a useful reminder rather than another attempt to sell. Check SignalHire blog for more information on how to search for leads, build marketing strategies, and utilize modern tools to give an effective boost to a new business.
Using both marketing channels, businesses are able to find and multiply their audiences really quickly. Furthermore, a well-tailored combination of them can do more than just sell. It can help build and maintain special relationships between a company and a customer. Such an approach is beneficial for both businesses and customers and brings better results than either strategy used separately.
