There are an awful lot of online businesses out there that have been operating mass email campaigns for years, using all sorts of fancy email tracking software and analyzing statistics to hone their marketing efforts to a science. But lately, with the proliferation of social media platforms, many are moving to ease up on email marketing in their effort to embrace Facebook as a primary means of communicating with their customers. As it turns out, this can be a terrible idea.
Let’s get one thing straight. For a company to participate in social media as a way to market themselves is not the terrible idea – but scaling back their email approach or dropping it altogether is. You might ask why. Here’s the reason.
First, Facebook is not an email service. Although Facebook users who have an @facebook.com email address are capable of receiving your messages, the fact is that Facebook is an extremely limited interface that could wreak havoc on your abilities to market to your customers. And second, email marketing remains the most successful online marketing tool around. For this reason it’s imperative that if you’re planning on cutting back the frequency of your mass email campaigns to focus on social media, you should seriously reconsider.
The smart money says it’s best to use social media sites like Facebook in addition to your already existing email marketing campaigns. There are even some features in email tracking software programs that make it simple for you to integrate your company’s social media profiles into your marketing efforts. Before you go making drastic changes, remember this: integration is key. Taking any other approach isn’t stupid – it’s insane.