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There’s been a lot of debate recently about the future of email: is it pushing forward stronger than ever or on the verge of extinction, about to be overrun by all-inclusive social networks?
As an e-marketing specialist, I find it hard to imagine the internet without email. No matter what you use email for, I believe that we, as online content consumers, will always need our inboxes to aggregate, create, organize, and search the hundreds of online data points we create daily as we navigate the web. Email is the only private online location where users can store and create content with very few limitations or restrictions. Where else can you manage your social networks, businesses, bills, family, friends, banks, job searches, and more in one location?
At ListEngage, we help our clients with email and social media marketing daily, so we see the benefits and drawbacks of each: email is a great relationship building tool but not a great prospect acquisition channel, while social media, if used intelligently, is ideal for prospect acquisition and qualification but lacks the “direct contact” that opt-in email does.
I’ve been really impressed with a company called Groupon lately, that seems to be using email and social media as a dynamic 1-2 punch for spreading their daily deals and messages. Click here to read more about the union of email and social media, and how Groupon is delivering a winning e-marketing TKO.
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Email continues to be the "Great Organizer" for users
According to a new survey published by Merkle, 71% of online consumers spent 20 minutes or more weekly exchanging email with friends and family in 2009, the same level recorded in the previous year.
With plenty of speculation that social networking sites were going to trample email out of the picture, some of the numbers in the report are truly powerful examples of how important email communication is in the average online user’s day-to-day. In fact, with the increased usage of Mobile Email and with most users linking their social networking updates to their personal emails—social networking is actually “breeding” a new brand of “Hyper Email Checkers”!
Here are some other great findings from the study:
– Nearly two-thirds (63%) of social networking consumers use the same email account for their social networking alerts and messages as they do for the majority of their permission, or opt-in email.
– Over 42% of social networking consumers are “hyper email checkers”– those who check their personal email account at least four times daily –compared with 27% of those not socially networked.
– 48% of social networking consumers spend 45+ minutes weekly with personal email, compared with 40% of those not socially networked.
and Mobile users with internet on their phone are even more likely to check their emails constantly:
– 50% of mobile email consumers are “hyper email checkers” too–compared with 32% of traditional email users.
FYI – Data was collected through Merkle’s annual “View from the Inbox” study, an online survey of 3,281 US adults age 18+ conducted during fall 2009.
Image was adapted from an original image by: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
My good friend Dave Wieneke recently asked me to partake in a “discussion” on the ethics of ghostwriting in social media on his blog. The idea was to get a few different opinions from within the blogging and social media space, and to see where people’s opinions lay on this recently hot topic. Now, without giving anything away, the first thing that seems apparent about this topic is that people are generally either very “pro” social media ghostwriting or very “anti”.
Here’s what I had to say on the subject…
“As an organization, when invited to work with a client, although we may not initially feel one way or anothertowards, let’s say, the medical device industry for example—we do feel strongly about the real-life people, friends, and partners that we support with our efforts. So, when a client asks us to engage their audience because they don’t have the expertise, the resources, or “bandwidth” to execute their social media strategy, we lend a hand.
In my mind, this new “digital ghostwriting push” is actually nothing new: popular brands have been doing it for years—via customer service “response” letters, pre-recorded phone calls, emails and direct mail pieces. This is just the latest version of busy people outsourcing their surplus work to others who they have trained and who they trust.”
With 2009 about to draw to an end, we here at List Engage just wanted to take a moment to congratulate our clients, friends, and fellow businesses on growing and thriving through the unprecedented economic climate of 2009– and to wish everyone a happy and healthy 2010!
With businesses looking to expand their eMarketing and social media budgets in 2010 — on everything from email marketing design and services to developing niche followers on Twitter — List Engage has something to offer any business, big or small. Why not make one of your resolutions to join us on the cutting edge of eMarketing success in 2010!
It turns out, that when consumers want to share something they’ve found online with their friends or family– like an article link, or a video– an overwhelming amount of people still use email as their primary form of sharing. According to the latest survey from Marketing Sherpa, while social media is gaining some ground, the latter still dominates as a sharing tool.
In email’s defense, there are plenty of reasons to use it over social networking sites: privacy, certainty of delivery, no length restrictions… to name a few. In the words of Marketing Sherpa, “When we look at media use over the last 15 years, we see a pattern of aggregation and adoption rather than replacement. Some media suffer in the exchange, but none are eliminated entirely. More commonly, their uses become more refined.”
So, while we may find a Facebook status update good for conveying a one-liner, or Twitter for “tweeting” our location it’s a lot less likely that social media will replace email for getting in touch with Nana, keeping updated on your bank’s latest policies, or interacting with potential clients.
To read the complete Marketing Sherpa study, click here.
Balancing a busy schedule isn’t anything new: for most of us, there will always be too much work, and too little day to squeeze it into. But nowadays we’re expected to run a business, pick the kids up from practice, and make sure to update our Facebook status? Social media has brought a whole new meaning to “managing your Social Calendar”.
Though there might not be a “magic bullet” to solve all your problems, we do have some tried and true solutions to save some sanity in the future. Here are our
Top 5 Ways to Tackle Your New “Social Calendar”:
1) Delegate: Debby from Marketing—you’re on Facebook Fan Pages. Carol from PR—you’re in charge of tweeting all company media coverage on Twitter. Ok, Go!
As List Engage rolls out the new ShareThis feature for all of our email marketing clients, the social networking world just got a whole lot closer. Now, with the click of a button you can instantly connect your emails to your social networks– and simultaneouly sync all that time, money, and effort you’ve invested in your email campaigns into your social networking efforts as well! And with the 2010 media buying budget looking to have email marketing and social media neck-in-neck on ad spending– now’s the time to make your marketing dollars work overtime.
To learn more, specifically about ShareThis and our other Social Forward features, click here.
Not convinced about the power of Social Media?
Take a minute to watch this video, and we think you’ll beg to differ.
In the past the question, “Are you on Twitter” was used as a code for “Are you hip to Social Media”? Not anymore. You’ve heard of Twitter, the buzz is everywhere—the Presidential campaign, Time Magazine cover stories, the Iran elections, your Dad’s Retirement Fly-fishing Club, etc…
So maybe you’ve put your marketing hat on, created a profile and tweeted for the first time: “Just trying to figure this twitter thing out.” And the response? Not exactly staggering.
For the average incoming user, marketing on Twitter is like standing by the freeway pitching your product at the top of your lungs-and hoping to get a lead. There’s too much noise, commotion, and distraction; even if one in a million people actually hears your message, they’re not exactly going to pull over and offer you their business. So why-if it’s so hard to gain followers or attention-is Twitter worth your time? The key lies in your “Engageability”-or, how well you brand, build relationships, and monitor the Twitter universe during your stay there.
Here are three very basic examples to help illustrate the point…
You own Slushtastic Slushies and there are a two other Slushy dealers in town. Neither of them come close to the supreme taste and quality of your slushies but Ken’s Slush-o-rama is right off the highway and Nana’s Slushy Shack is two blocks away from the Elementary school. Where do you get your edge then? Well, you have something that Ken and Nana don’t: The power of Twitter…
To read the entire Twitter Strategy Article follow this link…
A new study has looked in detail at how the 100 most valuable brands in the US work with 11 different social media channels and has discovered a correlation between social media use and financial performance.
When the researchers sorted the brands into groups with similar profiles, the ’social media mavens’ (those with the most social media breadth and depth) on average grew 18% in revenues over the last year. The least engaged companies saw an average decline in revenue of 6% over the same period.
The report’s author, Charlene Li, is quick to point out that “We are not claiming a causal relationship — but there is clearly a correlation and connection. For example”, she continues, “a company mindset that allows a company to be broadly engaged with customers on the whole probably performs better because the company is more focused on customers than the competition.”
The study found that companies that scored well generally have dedicated teams, however small, active in the social media channels they utilise, and that the most successful teams evangelise social media across the entire organization to pull in a broad range of stakeholders. These companies view social media as an indispensable tool to help them achieve results, and their approach is conversational. This differs from the approach of traditional communications and early corporate blog experimentation, says the report, which emphasises messaging and talking points.
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(Excerpt taken from Internet Retailing. To read more: follow this link for the entire article on the link between social media use and firms’ profits)
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