Social media marketing is here to stay. No doubt about it. However, it is critical to not forget its non glamorous big brother that continues to deliver exceptional results at a fraction of the cost - E-mail.
This article isn’t to say that one must be dropped for the other. It is to emphasise how we can use these different mediums together for businesses to achieve their targets and build long lasting relationships with their customers.
Why Is It Important To Create One Cohesive Strategy?
Two reasons:
71% of internet users believe that ads are more intrusive than that 3 years ago.
79% of internet users feel like they're being tracked by retargeted ads. (Haven’t you freaked out when ads pop up for the product you were just thinking about?)
The fact that majority of users feel bombarded and tracked shows you got to do whatever it takes to not be considered as “one of those companies”
So what does a company do in such a scenario?
Use Social Media And Email Together To Create Magic
Generate Interest And Engage
Your Social Media channels are not a marketplace. So stop treating it as a place to push products on your customer. Instead, use it to engage with your audience by sharing content (both organic and paid) that adds value to their lives. Content can be blogs, pictures, videos etc. Anything that aligns with your brand. Invest in social media to bring customers into your family.
Insert Clear Call-To-Action (CTA)
Insert a clear Call-To-Action. You can do a stellar job on content but if there is no clear CTA to engage your customers, all is in vain. Use CTAs to get customers to sign up for your mailing list and collect their email IDs.
Social Media and E-mail used in tandem can lead to amazing results!
Run Email Campaigns
Once your customer signs up…You’re in! Now you have the opportunity to build a one-to-one relationship with your customers at a fraction of the cost of what you would invest in social media. 77% of users prefer to receive promotional messages over email as against 4% on Facebook and 1% on Twitter. This means you can get away with the occasional “salesy” email as well! Just don’t overwhelm them with an overload of information.
Convert
The numbers displayed up top are self explanatory - Don’t treat your social media channels as a market place. Your customers don’t like it. These conversion numbers become even more damning for social media once you factor that organic reach is low in the first place whereas email has a inbox placement of almost 85%.
“Invest in social media to reach new audiences. Insert clear CTAs - In this case, getting them to subscribe to the mailing list. Once they sign up you have an opportunity to build a long lasting one-to-one relationship.”
What do you think about cohesive multi medium digital marketing strategy? Let me know in the comments.
Shomik Roy is a business strategist and marketer. He is also an MBA student at the Schulich School of Business, Toronto. Shomik’s area of expertise lies in marketing strategy and scaling up sales & operation networks.