Email marketing has been around for decades, but social media marketing has only caught on in the last decade. Which method should you focus on first?
Chances are, you already have experience with both methods. Email marketing involves sending emails to potential customers, often with the help of a third-party vendor like CleverReach or GetResponse.
Social media marketing is about building relationships with your target audience through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the like.
Each method has its pros and cons, but both serve their purpose well. If you want to start with either method, here are five things to consider before you sign up:
- The email addresses you collect through email marketing are yours; no one can take them away. With social media, you may have followers, but if your account is closed, you lose everything!
- Statistics clearly show that you can make much more money with each email address than with followers.
- Because email is a personal communication medium, you can build a better relationship than with social media, so email addresses are worth more than followers on Twitter and co.
- Email marketing can be fully automated, which is not possible with social media. There, you have to hire people to maintain the profiles and publish content on schedule.
- Social media is constantly changing, and you need to keep adapting your advertising strategies. Email marketing today works the same as it did 10 years ago.
It should come as no surprise that email marketing is better than social media. It's more profitable, less expensive, and easier to schedule. Still, don't forget that you can't ignore social media either, because that's where the potential customers are that you can integrate into your email marketing.
