There has been such a clamour towards getting on social media in recent years that many small businesses and new start-ups have either been ditching email marketing if favour of social media or have never really gotten into it in the first place.

Let me give you something to think about – nearly half of all smartphone users check their emails first thing in the morning as soon as they awake.

Think about that for a moment. Yes, that’s a massive amount of potential customers right there.

Over the years we have become immune to the hard-sell of marketing emails, this is why social media has become a more effective way of marketing through taking a subtle approach of relationship building and trust. Although email marketing has been around for decades now, lessons can be drawn from the new kid on the block by taking the subtle approach too.

Many people will simply skim through their inbox to check emails in the morning and don’t really have the time to take the bait of an email offer no matter how well-crafted they are. However, if the desire is there then the email will be earmarked to be revisited after breakfast or at least after a first cup of coffee.

Mix and match marketing

There are some emails that do get the balance right. A delightfully crafted and well thought out email can convince us that we are choosing to click through all by ourselves without any pressure or hard-sell tactics. The same kind of reasoning we use when we write content for social media.

Why should a small business owner have to give up email marketing for social media marketing when a clever combination of both will work well together and complement each other perfectly. You can use social media content to engage and inform your followers while also encouraging them to sign up to your email newsletter. At the same time, you can include more useful information in your email newsletter and encourage readers to click through to the product or service in mind as well as follow you on social media.

Backing up your message through social media as well as through emails can help to keep your company in your clients or potential clients consciousness for longer. A quick scan of their emails via their smartphone before breakfast puts the seed into their head. Later, they will revisit your email to gather more information that will lead to them clicking through to your offer or further information.

Or, when they have more time to spare, they will check out your social media page to find out more information about what was in your email headline, where you would hopefully have put up what they are looking for. Having an obvious link on your social media sites to sign up to your email list will encourage your followers to sign up for alerts or regular newsletters, which will lead them back to your product or service and social media sites …..and thus the circle goes around.

The persuasive and friendly approach in emails are now what are taking the business world by storm. So less of the ‘buy our product now’ and more of the ‘hello my friend, how are you doing? – I have something interesting to tell you…’

From spammy to savvy

Imagine how quickly you could grow your social media presence and drive your engagement if you could reach just a small fraction of the millions of smartphone users who scan their emails each day.

Gone are the days of spammy emails with their headlines screaming at you from your inbox. Instead we should be communicating with our readers instead of spamming them. As customers, we cope very well with email marketing every day, even when we are on automatic pilot absent-mindedly skimming through our inbox. But the reason why marketers continue to bombard us with email marketing messages is simply because they work!

According to data from convinceandconvert.com, 44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email. Think about that for a minute. 44%!

People can spend hours per week browsing their emails to see if there is anything of interest for them to read about, or to discover something new and exciting. Where an old-style marketing email will leave today’s savvy shoppers cold, a clever and informative message will entice the reader into clicking through to find out more. So by encouraging your social media followers and fans to sign up for your email alerts, you can give your business a lot of potential new leads.

Many small business owners don’t have the time to spend on crafting informative and engaging email messages, and in most cases also don’t have the budget to be able to afford to employ a full-time marketing team. Because of this a small business owner or manager is missing out on potential sales opportunities on a daily basis.

A lot of businesses who are time-limited will usually focus what little time they have spare on building their social media profile and awareness, which is no bad thing at all. However, with a bit of clever combining with email marketing, they could greatly increase their reach and engagement.

Outsourcing their social media and email marketing to specialist marketing companies can often be far more cost-effective and budget-friendly than hiring in permanent staff. If you are looking at outsourcing your social media activity, why not talk to us at Lobster. We can craft a solution to suit your needs – book a free consultation today!