December 8, 2009

Back to Basics: E-mail Marketing

Dec. 8, 2009 at 02:44 PM | By Kate Malone | Comment Count

A few weeks ago, the Oxford University Press announced that the word “unfriend” is the Word of the Year for 2009. Not only does this show rise in significance of social media, but also indicates a shift in how we approach social media. And it brings up a whole new category of socially awkward situations- I asked my friend how his Thanksgiving break was and he replied that it was “fine, except for running into an old classmate that I recently defriended on Facebook.” The reason for the defriending? Apparently my friend just periodically cleans house on this friend list. This struck me as odd as he still has over 750 friends- but regardless, I know he’s not the only person I know that does this.

As this past year has been a constant downpour of innovations in social media and technology, we often find ourselves overwhelmed. As with many many large movements, there are often counter movements- like this New York Times story examining a small subset of the population rebelling against cell phones. Now, some marketing experts are saying that email marketing will make aresurgence in 2010 as more people see it as a gateway into social media access. According to a Harris Interactive survey, people are more reluctant to give out their social media contact info than their email address. Tim Schiegel of ShareThis.com, notes that although email has a much smaller reach than social media tools like Twitter, it has a far greater impact and creates more conversions. Another email marketing expert predicts that Facebook will work with marketers to help them build up their email lists by allowing an option for them to ask for a person’s primary email address.

It’s true that email is becoming less popular, with people aged 19-29 saying text messages are their preferred way to stay in touch with their friends, but 87% of people still say that email is their preferred method of communication, especially when receiving marketing communication. Many say that although they may not open all messages from marketers who contact them, they’ll often save messages they think they’ll want to revisit in the future- something more difficult to do over social media. It’s important to remember that not every communication with your constituents needs to be flashy and delivered via Facebook, text message or Twitter.