Entrepreneurs have been using email to communicate with their customers for decades. Social media has become a popular alternative to email marketing in the past few years. However, marketers and entrepreneurs realize that email is still more effective than social media at generating sales and leads.
Email still has an average user engagement rate of forty percent. Compare this to Facebook’s at four percent and Instagram and Twitter’s at one percent. Your success requires regularly staying in touch with your target audience to stay at the top of their minds. Email marketing is a powerful tool for anyone running a solo business, as it helps them build and maintain relationships with customers.
Here are four primary reasons why email marketing is more powerful or essential than social media:
Email Marketing Generates Higher Conversion Rates
The cost-effectiveness of email marketing makes it highly desirable for small business owners to use. Even if you personally don’t enjoy email, understand the stats. The average email open-rate is around forty-three percent. The click rates are approximately 3.2 percent. In comparison, the average click rate for social media is roughly 1.3 percent.
Email Marketing is More Personal and Direct
Email marketing is personal and direct, so it’s more effective than social media. Unlike other forms of advertising, email marketing messages are less likely to be blocked by spam filters, and emails are delivered quickly to inboxes. Email marketing also makes it easier to segment your market and only share certain information. For example, sending your new readers an email about who you are and a newsletter to your current readers. This allows you to diversify your communication and engage in many different ways.
Email Marketing is More Affordable
Email marketing produces the best return on investment than any other type of marketing out there. Email marketing campaigns are also not that costly. It’s much lower than running a successful social media campaign. The average cost per lead for an email campaign is one to two dollars, while the same metric for Facebook is roughly six to eight dollars per lead.
Email Marketing is Easier
Building a list with email is simpler, but it’s also more effective than a social media following for building a hungry list of buyers. This is because most people use email. It is estimated that roughly ninety-four percent of users on the internet have or use email. In addition, email is straightforward to understand and doesn’t require a lot of time to implement as social media does. However, depending on the social media platform you use, you will need to take the time to learn the distinctive features to maximize your results.
While this information is important to be aware of, that doesn’t mean you should ignore social media. However, it does point to not choosing social media over email marketing, as it can significantly impact your success as a solo entrepreneur.