E-mail vs. Social: It is not an either/or choice
Mar. 12, 2010 at 01:15 PM | By Dan Obregon | Comment Count
"E-mail is dead. Long live e-mail."
It’s been a common refrain since the marketers first jumped on the social media bandwagon. But does all the hype around social media really spell the end for e-mail as a marketing channel? We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, “Of course not.”
And this week, two separate reports seem to confirm that e-mail is indeed alive and well in this age of social media.
First, Brendan Regan reports on the FutureNow blog on a MarketingSherpa survey that finds buyers still want the basics when it comes to e-mail marketing. He writes, “f you are executing well on “the basics,” you’re in a much safer place and can confidently experiment with all the new “bells and whistles” that you could put in your marketing e-mails (e.g. video, social networking, fancy graphics, etc.).”
According to Regan’s assessment of the report, e-mail respondents also de-prioritized features like:
- more interactivity
- more graphics
- advanced customization
- less content
- advanced delivery timing,
- and social networking links.
Perhaps these e-mail recipients didn’t get the social media memo? Or, perhaps it's marketers that are misreading consumer cues? Because according to another report by econsultancy, many marketers are looking for ways to enhance their e-mail campaigns using various kinds of social media. MarketingVox reports, “The report found that more than a third of companies (37%) are using e-mail to encourage the sharing of content on social networks, and just under a third of companies (31%) say they are planning to do this. A fifth of companies (21%) are using e-mail to promote customer ratings and reviews, while a further 26% have plans to do this. The research also found that 28% of companies are using video content in their e-mails, as marketers increasingly use e-mail to build customer engagement.”
One thing is clear. E-mail is still very much alive and relevant as a marketing channel. But there are two forces that seem to be butting heads.
On the one hand you have consumers saying they’re not interested in social media tie-ins to the e-mail campaigns they receive and on the other you have marketers rushing to combine social media with e-mail.
Why the disconnect? Are e-mail and social media a match made in heaven, like peanut butter and chocolate, or an unholy union?
What do you think?
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