Earlier this week I shared a Media Post article (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=105012#comments) called, Social Vs. Email: It's The Wrong Debate. This morning I read an article in my local community newspaper about business and social media that contained a tongue-in-cheek assertion that, "email is for old people. (http://coloradocommunitynewspapers.com/articles/2009/04/28/littleton_independent/news/30_hc_biz_tweet_li_ce.txt) ."
I'm a "synergy" guy. I recently sat with a client listening to an advertising proposal from a big radio outfit that included integrated use of air time and Internet. Walking away from the meeting, I was asked if the proposal had merit. It did. These guys were good. "If I could only afford one component," asked my customer, "which one should it be?" None. Your tactics should take each other into account, build on each other and mutually reinforce a consistent branding theme as part of an overarching strategy built to achieve specific goals. The National Football League just held its annual college draft. It's easy to tell who's better at it. Teams who draft a running back because its a sexy pick and one is available lose ground to competitors who target a speedy outside linebacker at a value-commensurate point in the process because they're converting from a 4-3 defense to a 3-4.
So, when small business owners start asking themselves about whether to make the financial investment in an email campaign or the time investment in social media, they're already heading down the wrong path.
Expert Analysis
Still, the question about the future of email is valid. For a perspective I haven't encountered on blogs, microblogs, Google alerts, etc., I interviewed Suzanne Norman, Director of Community Relations for Emma (http://www.myemma.com/). Emma is "an email marketing and communications service that's taken a unique approach to web-based software."
Swift Kick is not sponsored but believes in promoting its contributors. Emma on Emma:
We think it should be easy to use (goodbye, cluttered interface). It should be made for you (farewell, generic templates). And it should even be fun (see ya around, support phone queue). It's all about email marketing in style, and it's why 20,000 small and midsize businesses, non-profits and agencies have chosen Emma to power their email newsletters and campaigns.
Suzanne Norman on "the future of email:"
How is social media impacting email?
With social media, there's a new inbox. It's not just email anymore. For every social network you join, you'll have private and public messages to check and reply to. That means a couple of things for small businesses sending email.
One, we've all got more information coming at us than ever. For a small business to get their email message to stand out, it's important to have a good grasp of the best practices. That means knowing what your subscribers want from you and how often they want to hear it. It means adding a personal touch to your campaigns so they fit in alongside emails from Aunt Bernice and notifications about yet another weird high school friend who found you on Facebook. And it means offering value to your subscribers, whether it's with your own content, insider information, links to other people's stuff, a discount or a special offer. It's what consumers expect in exchange for giving you their information, not to mention their time and attention.
Second, it's a reminder that small business owners need to know where their subscribers are and join them there. If, in addition to checking email, they're spending time on social networking sites - and 67 percent of folks say it's the number one thing they do online - then it's probably worth pairing your email efforts with a social media strategy.
How can they work in synergy?
I appreciate that question. A lot of the chatter out there tries to pit email against social media in some kind of caged communication channel death match. But I think they're both at their best when they complement each other. And they do, quite nicely. Email supports notifications and alerts that drive me to the, ahem, eight social networks I'm a part of.
I see folks send an email campaign then post a link to it on Twitter to extend its reach. Just as common, I love to see companies who've added links to their Twitter & Facebook pages in their email campaigns. And I frequently see folks tweeting a link to their email signup page, asking people to go beyond the casual 140-character level commitment and get to know their message and their brand at a whole new level.
It's also important to remember that each channel has its unique strengths. Social networks help keep your messages personal, timely, short, and very sharable. Email gives you a chance to pair those messages with particular segments of your audience and gives you plenty of visual real estate to show off great design and branding.
How will I use email 1 year from now? 3 years? 5?
Email's tremendously influential, and it'll continue to be 1, 3, and 5 years from now. Whether I'm asking as a friend, colleague or marketer, I can ask for your email address knowing it's overwhelmingly like you'll have one. Habeas put out some numbers last year showing that 67 percent of folks prefer email as a communications channel over other online vehicles. And 65 percent believe it'll be that way in five years. So that's what the numbers are telling us about the general perception.
And I think the inbox is and will continue to be a place where consumers are expecting and liking promotional and marketing messages. There are some fantastic numbers from Epsilon and ROI Research showing that 84 percent of customers like getting email from companies they registered with, and half of them saved messages for review later.
As an industry, where is email/email marketing in its life cycle (introduction, growth, maturity, decline)?
You know, it depends on who you ask. We talk to plenty of small business owners who either haven't tried or aren't familiar with email marketing, so for some, there's a tremendous amount of introduction still to be made.
In terms of growth, here's a nice statistic from Datran Media. They surveyed marketing executives, and email led the list of channels they're expected to increase their spending on in 2009, with nearly 60 percent budgeting more for email.
In another sense, I think there's a lot of growth happening around a renewed sense of best practices among email marketers out there. They're understanding that their audiences are more media savvy these days, that they have more sources for information than ever. So they're forgoing the tired old "batch and blast" approach. They're starting to segment their big list and craft different messages to different groups. They're adding more personalized information, and they're doing it with a personal touch. And they're testing different versions of subject lines, creative and content to see what their subscribers respond to. It's an encouraging trend for email as a whole.
Without those smarter tactics, consumers will get tired of the same companies sending the same discounts over and over again, and email will lose a bit of its effectiveness. I'd encourage small businesses to invest in the strategy and tools that make a more refined approach to email.
Conclusion
The world of "shotgun" emails is for yesterday. Use a rifle with a scope. Target. Ready, aim, then fire. Skip or rush either of those first two steps and negate the effectiveness of the third.
Time and money are limited commodities. Do not throw a dart and hope a tactic works. Set goals, form a strategy, resesarch what tactics work with each other to yield the best results within that strategy, and move toward implementation. If you're trying to decide between social media or email, shift that thinking to how you might use both to make the whole of your campaign greater than the sum of its parts.
Special thanks to Suzanne Norman and Gina LaMar of Emma for their assistance and contributions to this article.
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