Email Marketing Vs Social Media 2023
The battle for people’s attention has never been more fierce and two of the most popular weapons at the marketers disposal are social media and email marketing.
While both strategies can be effective, each of these techniques has their own pros and cons. With digital marketing being such a fast paced and dynamic environment the characteristics that define these two very different techniques vary. On the one hand social media companies are often subject to regulatory concerns, constant algorithm changes and privacy issues. On the other hand GDPR and other similar legislations are changing the landscape of email marketing.
In this article we will be exploring the pros and cons of social media and email marketing in 2023:
Email Marketing Stats
– In 2022 the amount of email users globally is 4.3 Billion and is set to grow to 4.6 Billion by 2025
– 47% of marketers stated email to be their most effective channel of communication followed by social media is second.
– Consumers marketed to by email spend 138% more than shoppers who don’t receive email offers.
– The average ROI of email marketing is £42 for every £1 spent, the highest of any channel.
– 49% of email users stated they would like to receive weekly offers, news and deals from brands they like.
– 81% of small businesses rely on email marketing as the primary form of customer acquisition.
Social Media Stats
– 57% of consumers follow brands on social media in order to stay up to date with their products and services.
– 4.76 billion people around the world use social media regularly
– The average time people spend on social media per day is 2 hours 11 minutes
– The total spending globally on social media advertising is predicted to be £268 billion in 2023
Core Differences
Email marketing is a more targeted, measurable and cost-effective strategy compared to social media, but it is limited to the subscribers on the email list. As people need to give you permission to use their email address and contact them, this will result in a smaller reach than a social media account.
The beauty of email marketing is that not only does it have the ability to attract and convert new customers but it can also be used to nurture and strengthen relationships between brand and consumer with tailored communications.
Social media marketing focuses on developing and building your brand identity through visually appealing graphics and videos, the reach of this channel is larger than email marketing as gaining followers is generally an easier task then gaining subscribers to an email list
Take a Step Back
From a marketing point of view at first glance the reach and engagement of social media posts may appear greater than the reach of an email, however this isn’t an accurate representation. For example, the reach of facebook posts is only 6%. This means that the % of your followers that actually see the post in their newsfeed is only 6%.
Compare this to the open rates for a marketing email which is between 20-30% and you can see how the engagement and visibility of these two strategies differ drastically.
Click through rates follow a similar pattern. Email click through rates are generally around 3% when compared to the click through rate of a tweet which is around 0.5%. Meaning you are 6x more likely to get someone to click through to your website from an email compared to a tweet.
According to Facebook’s own data there are 1500 stories that they could show you on your newsfeed at any given time. So it’s no wonder that your posts aren’t being seen by your followers. The algorithm favours pictures of peoples friends and family as opposed to organic brand content as seeing this content keeps people on the app for longer. Social media companies have been decreasing the amount of organic brand content shown on followers’ news feeds for years in order to get businesses to pay for more sponsored posts and even then your content is still competing with hugely viral posts from Buzzfeed and LadBible.
On the other hand when a user opens their inbox every email has an equal chance of being displayed and being noticed, a far more level playing field. Email is perfect for contacting your customers directly and offers a more intimate feel compared to the mass messaging of social media. The one-to-one style of messaging is perfect to start conversations with your customers.
Wrap up
Your main take away from this article should be that social media and email marketing should be paired together in a multi channel strategy, both strategies are useful for different things and the failings of one are supported by the other
That being said, with such a big hype around social media at the moment, it may be useful to stop and take a look around at which strategy you should be focusing your time on. Email marketing is often overshadowed by its cooler younger brother social media however its effectiveness and efficiency still remain unmatched as stated earlier in the statistics.
If you would rather leave it up to the professionals then Inboxx specialises in direct email marketing campaigns for any industry. Our campaigns are designed to get you noticed by the people that matter, boosting your leads.
Contact Inboxx at:
Email: grow@in-boxx.com Phone: 0161 543 4461
