With the increasing popularity of social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, you might be forgiven for thinking email marketing has had its day. The reality however, is that email is still going strong and continues to play a key role as part of a successful online marketer’s arsenal.

There’s no question that social media marketing (SMM) has changed the marketing landscape by bringing businesses and consumers closer together. Best practice SMM activities rely on ‘pull’ rather than the more traditional ‘push’ marketing techniques, such as email. In this article we’ll look at how email is as strong as ever as it evolves to successfully accommodate both promotional techniques.

Email Still Cost Effective
Once called the internet’s ‘killer application’, email has understandably taken a back seat to the new and shiny SMM applications – but the benefits that originally made email marketing an attractive marketing tool still apply.

A well executed email marketing campaign continues to be one of the most cost effective ways to share promotional messages with your customers. Especially when compared to excessive costs associated with offline marketing channels. The key to achieving return on investment with email is working a little wiser.

Overcoming Email Marketing Challenges
One of the negative issues that plague email marketing is the spam problem. The prospect of wading through unsolicited emails each time users log in to their inbox understandably puts people off using email. This has led to users setting up multiple email accounts in order to discard ‘throw away’ accounts when they become oversubscribed.

The issue then is not the avoidance of email as a route to market – but of publishing relevant content in order to develop a positive relationship with subscribers. Successfully engage your customers and you can be rest assured your emails will get noticed, and acted upon.

SMM and Email Working Together
Instead of thinking of SMM as ousting email as a promotional channel, think of them more as a ‘dynamic duo’. Used effectively, email and SMM can complement each other and help elevate your promotional messages to hero status. Combined successfully, email and SMM will help:

• Positively reinforce your brand;
• Acquire new customers;
• Retain existing customers;
• Be a great way to launch new products, competitions and more.

Adapting your email marketing efforts to accommodate Web 2.0 trends will strengthen your marketing strategy and enable you to successfully deliver your most important messages to a receptive audience.

In conclusion, email marketing is not dead, but instead continues to be an extremely efficient route to market – and at a cost that makes it a viable option for any SME.

If you would like help to integrate your email and SMM activities, please contact us to find out more.