The “Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Fact Book” shows that by and large most marketing professionals say that email is outperforming social media two to one. I say of course it is because social networking should be driving people to your email lists. See the results and read more below!
Key findings:
- Search marketing delivers the best results (33%); search and email still constitute the core of a solid online media plan.
- Nearly everyone uses email, and this medium is repeatedly ranked as one of the most cost-effective (and effective) forms of marketing. Elsewhere in the Factbook, almost 50% of 623 email marketers report that sending emails at midday (10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) is the best time of day to do so. The start of the business day (6 a.m. to 10 a.m.) is considered second best at 31.5
- Mobile marketing is barely on the radar; it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next few years with mobile.
About the data: The MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Factbook, designed to be a comprehensive source of data and research for online marketers, includes chapters on email, search, and social media—with 144 pages of findings, including 110 charts and graphs from 60+ sources.
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OK so lets review the data, of course Email and Search are still huge! but does that mean social media is less important? That’s a big fat NO and here is why.
Social Media has the capacity to drive new contacts in realtime into your email lists. that’s it. end of discussion. social media is for relationship and trust building of course you will see higher direct revenue from email. but if you look list building via Facebook, Twitter, and other social media is far faster than any other format. (of course that’s only if you contribute content that is worth something but that’s a secondary issue.
look at the bottom line if you can drive growth for free—I repeat drive GROWTH for FREE and quickly via social media then it needs to be a key part of your strategy. Email and search are of course critical and have driven the Internet for years. you must do all of the above. Remember the process your goal in marketing is to move people into the seat of loyal customers and fans.
Social media connects you to new people who can be added to your email list and therefore the results will actually show as an email result in most cases. but I can without spending a dime gain roughly 50 to 100 new followers everyday on twitter. Then I can get about 30% of those followers to join my mailing lists via quality squeeze pages. You need to be doing the same! The results will be more sales from your email list. The social networks lead to bigger email lists. So remember to work the mix don’t depend on social media as the silver bullet strategy. Do remember that utilizing Social Networks and Social media for rapid list growth is cheap, easy, and worth pursuing!
