You’d be a fool to believe that email marketing is dead. In fact, quite the opposite is true. While social media is quickly becoming a very viable internet marketing solution, it can never quite replace email marketing lists as an effective tool for any home based business opportunity seeker who wishes to grow their internet marketing business—quickly and effectively.
Email marketing continues to be effective for many reasons. One of those reasons is the simple fact that the email addresses that you are able to add to your email address database are ones that are obtained because the recipient actually WANTS to hear from you, and wants to know more about your offers and promotions. This is a huge difference that sets email marketing apart from virtually any other internet marketing solution, and truly gives you an edge on your online marketing strategy. Think about it, any other internet marketing solution that you may use, including social media, content marketing, video marketing, pay per click advertising, or anything else requires you to first convince the person seeing the advertising that your company has something to offer. When it comes to email marketing, the recipients are already aware that you have something great to offer—and they want to become involved and know more. You have already conquered a huge step in the online marketing world, just by having them be willing recipients of your messages. Now, all you have to do is convince them to buy. You are one step further, or more, in some cases, down the buying or sales funnel just by having the recipient willingly provide you with their email address.
With that said, it is important to remember that email marketing is still only one part of your overall online marketing strategy. But, let’s take a few minutes to discuss the differences and similarities between email marketing lists and social media networking, and think about the pros and cons, and how to use each one best to further your goals as a home based business opportunity seeker or internet marketing specialist.
Improve Your Communication Skills
Using email marketing is very powerful because it allows you to directly connect with the recipient and develop a relationship. While social media also allows you to communicate with your audience, it is a little bit different because you don’t truly know who sees your messages, posts, tweets, or whatever, unless they actually click through and you are tracking the analytics. With email marketing lists, it is easier to track open rates and click through rates, and know how effective your email marketing campaign is. This can help you make quick adjustments to your online marketing strategy because you can easily measure the efficacy. Your communication skills are critical when it comes to communicating directly with your email marketing list.
More Clicks Means More Profits
Your email address database members are statistically more likely to click through on your offers or links because they have chosen to use your bulk email opt in to connect with you and learn more. Yes, you can get lots of clicks from your social media network, and this group of people is comprised of people who follow you or choose to connect with you, but it is dramatically different from your email marketing list. The same message sent out to your social media contacts might generate 100 clicks, whereas the email marketing list message has the potential to generate perhaps 1000 clicks because you are sending it directly to those who want to receive your information. You can often expect that a large percentage, hopefully a majority, will open your message and find out what’s inside. If they act further, and click through, then you are really on your way to increasing conversions. This is different from social media in several ways, but one primary way is that social media clicks often stem from curiosity, whereas email marketing list clicks often stem from true interest. Perhaps an issue of semantics for some, but if you pay attention to the click through rates you will find that it is a true difference, and one that separates email marketing from social media, and shows how much more powerful an effective email marketing campaign can truly be.
This article is not intended to show that social media is ineffective in any way. However, there has been quite a bit of criticism about email marketing, and how effective it is. The intention of this post is to show that email marketing continues to be extremely effective for home based business opportunity seekers as a tool for connecting directly with a target audience, and getting results quickly. Social media does work, but the wheels of the social world may turn a little more slowly, because you have the added step of trying to convince the viewers of your posts, tweets, etc., of the value of your campaign and the value of becoming a customer of your company.
As you develop your online marketing strategy, make sure that you are incorporating a variety of solutions that are going to work together and be effective at creating subscribers, customers, followers and ultimately, conversions. Everything that you do is aimed at getting conversions, and making profits. Otherwise, why would anyone be interested in becoming an internet marketing specialist in the first place? It doesn’t make much sense to invest the time and effort that it takes to build a website if you are not interested in seeing profits from that business venture.
Focusing on your email marketing list before focusing on your social media efforts may be a wise idea, and one that gets you more conversions. Use your social media networks to try and gain subscribers, but make sure that the contacts on your email marketing list are getting your best offers and promotions, and that they are truly seen as direct contacts and valued customers. There is a place for both solutions, email marketing and social media, but combining them effectively is important.