Email Vs Social Media: Which One Is Better For Marketing?

It’s 2022, which means we’re currently in the middle of what many have referred to as the age of social media. And yet, many business owners and affiliate marketers continue to use email as a marketing tool. 

While it might be easy to write off email marketing as a thing of the past, its continued use (and success) in promoting everything from businesses to events proves that it’s not that simple. 

If you’re looking to grow your website or business, one of the first things you’ll need to decide is whether you’ll be using email, social media, or both for your marketing campaigns. 

We’re going to help you make that decision today by sharing the pros and cons of both marketing tools, along with our own conclusion. 

The Advantages Of Social Media Marketing 

Social media doesn’t just help us all to stay connected with our friends and families – it’s also an invaluable tool for businesses and websites to carry out their marketing campaigns. 

Helps To Build Your Brand 

If there’s one thing social media is great for, it’s building a brand. If you’re looking to get the name of your business out there, doing your marketing on social media is a great first step. 

The reason for this is that showcasing your logo (or your face) clearly and efficiently is easier to do via social media than by email due to the use of images.

Potential For Virality 

As we’ll discuss in more detail later, email marketing actually beats social media when it comes to how many of your own followers/contacts will see your marketing messages.

That said, it’s important to remember the success of your marketing campaigns doesn’t just hinge on your own followers – it also involves other people’s followers. 

One of the best things about social media marketing is that it allows others to share your messages to their own followers.

This means that your marketing campaigns have the potential to reach many more people than your current audience, and could even go viral. 

Paid Advertisement 

With social media, you can also make use of 3rd party data, which allows you to create targeted advertisements for your followers or customers. 

Using 3rd party data, you can send ads to social media users who are interested in what you have to offer, and this will maximize your chances of getting click throughs and sales conversions. 

Why Email Is Still Useful For Marketing?

Although many people would automatically say that social media is better than email for marketing based on the fact that people spend more time on social media than in their inbox, it’s not quite as simple as that. 

In fact, there are several ways in which email marketing still proves to be more effective than social media marketing campaigns, including: 

No Algorithmic Limitations 

One huge benefit of email marketing over social media marketing is that when you send an email to someone’s inbox, as long as they check their inbox and it doesn’t get filtered into their junk folder, they’re going to see it. The same is not true for social media. 

Take Facebook, for example. Research has shown that even if you have 2,000 followers on facebook, each post you put out will probably only be seen by a maximum of 120  people.

That’s because of recent changes to Facebook’s algorithm, which has really limited the organic reach of the platform. 

The bottom line is that when you use Facebook to share marketing content, you can expect just 6% of your followers to see what you’re putting out there.

When it comes to Twitter, the statistics are even worse. Out of 2,000 Twitter followers, only about 40 will see or interact with your posts.

Comparatively, 435 people out of 2,000 will open marketing emails you send them. The numbers really speak for themselves there. 

Clicks, Conversions, And Conversations 

When it comes to email marketing, it’s not all about who sees what and when. Arguably even more important than that is how many people take action on the marketing messages they see. 

People can respond to marketing campaigns in 3 main ways, which we like to refer to as The 3 C’s: clicks, conversions, and conversations. 

Usually, you’ll include some kind of link for people to click on when you send out a marketing email or put out a social media marketing post.

Whereas only 0.03% of Twitter followers and 0.07% of Facebook friends will actually click links, the clickthrough rates for email marketing are much better, at 3.57%. 

And that’s not all. After clicking on marketing emails and getting to the linked website, approximately 66% of people go on to make a purchase. This is a much higher number than the sales conversion rate for social media. 

It’s also important not to discount conversations as a form of engagement. Email marketing messages receive much higher response rates than social media posts.

So, even those people who don’t go on to click and make a purchase straight away on the basis of email marketing campaigns can be persuaded to do so through interactions started by the initial email. 

Using Both Email And Social Media For Marketing 

If you’re currently struggling to choose between email marketing and social media marketing, the good news is that you don’t actually have to choose one over the other. In fact, using both simultaneously can have some major advantages for your business. 

It’s true that email marketing beats social media in many categories. This includes the number of people who will initially see the content you put out as well as the number of customers clicking through and making purchases. 

That said, social media can offer advantages that simply aren’t there with email marketing.

For instance, social media platforms are more effective for building brands, and if you share a post on facebook, one of the few people who see the post on your page might share it, leading to a wider audience. 

For this reason, we highly recommend carrying out your marketing campaigns via both email and social media if you can.

This way, you get the best of both worlds and can combine the benefits of both types of marketing to reach more people and maximize your success. 

This is especially true if you’re just starting your business and want all the benefits of email marketing as well as the opportunity to get your brand name and logo out there quickly through shares and 3rd party data. 

Final Thoughts 

There are pros and cons to both email and social media marketing.

While the statistics certainly seem to point to email marketing as the more effective marketing strategy, there’s no denying that social media has some major advantages, including 3rd party data advertising and the ability to share posts. 

For this reason, we recommend running both social media and email marketing campaigns to promote your business or website.

This will help you to reach more people and will mean that you can get more click throughs and conversions while also getting shares and clicks from paid advertising. 

Both social media and email marketing have a secure and well-earned place in the business world today.