Ashad Rehman
The Internet is all about attracting new customers and turning them into loyal, paying clients. When it comes to quickly grabbing attention and driving conversions, two strategies stand out: email marketing and social media marketing.
These are the go-to tools for any business owner looking to boost brand visibility, generate leads, and drive profits. But what happens when you’re strapped for resources?
Should you invest in social media, or is email marketing the smarter play? If you’re torn between the two, this article will guide you through the decision-making process.
So, which one will bring in the big bucks—social media or email marketing?
Let’s check it out.
Email Marketing vs Social Media Marketing – How Are They Useful in Their Own Ways?
If you want to connect with your end customers and communicate with them one-on-one, then email marketing is the ideal choice for you. As a brand, you send them offerings through emails, and if they like what you’re selling, they will quickly hop on a call with you. It’s the fastest way to attract users and get connected with them so you can quickly convert them. That’s not the only benefit of email marketing—you can also use it for various other tasks. You can inform clients about upcoming promotions, new product launches, and share other relevant details about your business.
On the other hand, social media marketing is great for increasing brand awareness. It allows you to quickly grow your audience and attract new followers. By sharing useful tips for social media campaigns, people can learn more about your business, follow your accounts, and engage with your content through comments, likes, and shares. Over time, your content becomes more visible to a larger audience, increasing your chances of getting more engagement. As more people become familiar with your brand, it eventually grows, and your audience will start taking action in other ways, such as signing up for your newsletters, visiting your website, or even making a purchase.
How Email Marketing Make Prospect Engagement Worthwhile?
Engagement comes in many ways, especially when we talk about email marketing. To help you understand how it fits the puzzle, here are some ways how email marketing can help businesses engage better.
Let Your Subscribers Know About the New Products
Launching a new product and not sure if it’s going to be a success? Well, with email marketing, you can greatly increase your chances. However, to make email marketing effective, you need to have a complete subscriber list. Start by sharing all the details of your product within your emails, including its benefits and launch date. To make your emails more engaging, you can also include pictures and add a link to your landing page. These efforts will help your customers make an informed decision by allowing them to learn about the product first-hand before they decide to pre-order and get it dispatched to their place.
Share Promotions & Offer More Discount Coupons
It’s unlikely that anyone would turn down a good deal, especially from a brand they follow. If you’ve built enough credibility for your business, then sending out an email with a subscriber-only exclusive discount on your products and services is the next logical step. When you keep your subscribers in the loop and stay in touch with them through consistent newsletters and promotional emails, they’ll always be on their toes, especially when there’s an upcoming sale. Such emails work wonders during the holiday season, particularly when you include giveaways. It’s one of those perks that you can’t miss!
Get Valuable Feedback & Insights on Your Brand
When you know how the audience perceives your brand or what they think about it, it becomes relatively easier for you to tweak your brand. Let’s say, that if your business is well equipped to help you understand what they like and dislike about your business, it becomes easier for you to refine your business strategy and meet your client’s expectations in the most effective manner. Email marketing is one of those tools which helps you gather quick feedback on your customers. You can simply start by emailing subscribers survey forms and collecting information from them in order to learn more about what they want!
Deliver Content That Educates and Engages
There’s a misconception that emails are supposed to be sales-oriented. However, this notion is not entirely true. We all want to send out informative content, that positions your brand as an authority in your market sector. For example, is there a blog or content on your website that’s not performing all too well and it’s just lying around there without any use? You can always pick that content up and change it into a shorter email content, pushing it to your respective customers.
How Social Media Help in Making Engagement Effective?
In the world of social media, the rules are different. Social media is not just about crafting posts; it’s about creating engaging content that resonates with your audience. It’s also about strategically using hashtags to amplify your reach. With every post, you’re not just sharing information—you’re placing your brand in front of countless potential customers, increasing your visibility and opportunities to connect.
Social media doesn’t just build awareness; it opens the door to social prospecting—a powerful way to research, identify, and engage with your ideal prospects. This modern approach to relationship building goes beyond traditional marketing. By understanding how your audience interacts—whether they like, share, or comment on your posts—you gain invaluable insights into their preferences and behaviors. The following knowledge helps you to better connect with them on a deeper level eventually nurturing relationships that can ultimately convert daily visitors into long-term loyal customers.
So how does social media contribute to a brand’s success?
Here are some techniques that you can implement to boost your likes, comments, and shares.
Start with the Basics
As humans, we have an instinctive urge to respond when asked even the simplest of questions.
As a social media manager, you can leverage this natural curiosity to spark engagement by asking your audience basic but powerful questions about your brand, service, or even the challenges they face.
For instance, if you’re looking to grow your following and your brand specializes in football merchandise, you could ask questions like:
- Which team do you support?
- What type of merchandise catches your eye?
- What drives your passion for football?
These questions do more than just start a conversation—they create a connection. By tapping into your audience’s interests and preferences, you encourage them to engage with your brand, creating a community that’s more likely to convert into loyal customers.
Showcase Your Brand’s Best Content
Have you recently written a blog post or shot a video that puts your brand in the limelight?
Don’t let that valuable content sit idle—share it with your audience on social media!
By adding a link to your latest blog post or creating a social post about your video, you keep your followers in the loop and bring your brand to the forefront.
Go deep by discussing the important details within your captions. Give your audience insights, one they definitely don’t want to miss. There’s no harm in encouraging your audience to share thoughts on content.
Always motivate your audience so they leave a comment on your social post as it will eventually boost engagement and establish a stronger connection with your followers.
Every comment, like, & share brings your brand a step closer to becoming a success.
Don’t Forget Special Discounts & Freebies
Social media is a powerful tool for sharing limited-time deals and promotions.
Think of it like this… you have a product that’s selling like fire in your brick-and-mortar store, but when it comes to online shopping, sales aren’t as good as expected. So you want to give your followers a chance to purchase it online and therefore, you put it up at a significant discount for a week.
This sense of urgency will eventually drive action and increase the likelihood of conversions.
You can add some eye-catching images of the product and can even include a direct link to a dedicated landing page. When you make the choice effortlessly for your audience to claim the deal, it not only amplifies your reach of promotion but also turns social media into a dynamic sales channel.
Choosing Between Email and Social Media Marketing
Choosing between email and social media marketing isn’t always an easy choice to make.
This decision truly depends on what your marketing goals are.
Ask yourself, what’s your aim:
- Is it building brand awareness?
- Is it reaching a wider audience?
If that’s the case then investing in social media is your best bet. Social media offers a dynamic platform where your brand can engage with potential customers in real-time.
However, if your priority is building relationships with new and existing customers to drive conversions, then email marketing is the best option.
It allows for personalized communication and direct outreach.
As a result, you get a boost in sales and earn customer loyalty. As you weigh your options, leverage the pros and cons of each approach. See how it aligns with your overall marketing strategy.
Audience Preference
Knowing where your audience spends their time is key to choosing the right marketing channel.
For example, if you’re targeting a younger demographic, platforms like Instagram might be more effective, allowing you to engage with them through visual and interactive content.
On the other hand, a B2B company offering professional services may find that direct emails and LinkedIn are more effective for reaching decision-makers and building professional relationships.
When you’re more well aware of your audience preference, you can maximize your reach and achieve better results. Whether it’s through social media, email, or a combination of both.
Marketing Strengths
It all comes down to what types of marketing content you typically share.
When you explore different content types, you know which content type offers you what strengths.
Written content, like blogs and newsletters, thrives in email marketing, where you can deliver detailed information directly to your audience’s inbox. Meanwhile, videos and visually stunning graphics perform exceptionally well on social media, where quick, engaging content grabs attention and encourages shares.
When you align your content strategy with each platform’s strength, you connect better with the audience.
Potential for Combining Strategies
Many successful brands have found that the key to effective marketing lies in combining the strengths of both email & social media marketing. This combination will keep your audience engaged.
Social media platforms offer a dynamic space where your audience can actively engage with your posts, while email provides a direct line of communication, allowing for more personalized interactions.
You don’t need to bombard your audience with daily emails or social media posts to see results.
Instead, aim for a balanced approach that lets your audience naturally gravitate toward your brand. By strategically integrating both channels into your marketing strategy, you can create a cohesive experience.
What Does the Data Say About SMM vs Email Marketing?
All talk and no data leaves the audience skeptical.
If you want to further decide whether you want to choose email marketing or social media marketing, here’s some data-backed research that will definitely convince you which is the right solution.
Based on Audience Size
Email marketing only expands as much as the size of your mailing list.
The larger the list, the greater will be your chance of converting more customers. Let’s say if you have a handful of subscribers and you want to organize a list, you will have to go the extra mile & invest your efforts more into scraping data off the Internet and organizing them as a subscriber’s list.
However, with social media, you might have to do the same, but at the same time, you’re working on building a followership. It can definitely be a good starting point for your list-building activity.
Based on the monthly active users for each social media platform in 2024, Statista shows:
- Facebook stands at 3.064 billion
- YouTube stands at 2.504 billion
- Instagram stands at 2.000 billion
Just because social media platforms have billions of users, it doesn’t mean they can all see your posts. Every platform runs on different algorithms, and post visibility mostly depends on the audience size, post engagement, and audience interest in that particular post topic and everything.
ROI – Email vs Social Media Marketing
According to a study by the Data & Marketing Association, email marketing delivers an average ROI of $42 for every $1 spent, making it one of the most cost-effective marketing channels. This high ROI is largely due to the ability to target a specific audience with personalized messages, leading to higher engagement rates. Email marketing benefits businesses with tight budgets.
On the contrary, social media marketing can offer substantial reach & brand visibility, particularly among the youth. However, its ROI is more variable, depending on factors like platform, audience, and ad spend. A study by HubSpot found that social media marketing has a median ROI of about 28%, with paid social ads often requiring a high investment to achieve comparable returns to email marketing.
Based on these data-backed insights, email marketing generally offers a better ROI, especially for businesses with limited resources. If your goal is brand awareness and engagement, social media marketing can be a valuable strategy.
The Bottomline
When it comes to email marketing and social media marketing, they both have their own strengths and each can be very effective in their own ways.
Email marketing is great for sending personalized messages directly to people. This practice definitely helps in building loyalty and driving more sales.
Whereas, social media is perfect for increasing a brand’s visibility and connecting to a larger audience. If you want to get the most out of your marketing efforts, we advise you to consider both.
They are both worthwhile in their own ways. At Branex, we offer email marketing as well as social media marketing for our customers. Which option are you looking for?
Let us know and our experts will offer you the best help!
Joe Clark
