Social Media Marketing vs Email Marketing (Which Is Better)

Are you wondering which marketing channel to choose? Social Media Marketing vs Email Marketing? Email has always existed and thrived. So is social media. They will never disappear, but on the contrary, they are present anywhere in online marketing.

Between Email marketing and Social Media Marketing, which channel would you prefer?

In this article, I will help you discover the advantages and disadvantages of both email marketing and social media. From there, you can consider choosing the right channel to use.

But before that, Let’s find out together some basic terms.

Table of Contents

Is E-Marketing And Social Media Marketing The Same?

Are e-marketing and social media marketing the same? No. Though e-marketing and social media marketing are sometimes referred to as the same thing, these two are completely different aspects of a marketing plan.

While social media marketing is a subset of e-marketing, it is a distinct and increasingly important part of digital marketing. Social media platforms offer unique opportunities for businesses to connect with consumers, build brand awareness, and drive sales.

What Is Social Media Marketing?

What is social media marketing? It is the use of social media channels to communicate with consumers to establish brands, improve sales, and drive website traffic.

Social Media is one of the greatest community-building tools in history. Content shared via social media helps promote a business’s online presence, while content-generated interactions nurture its long-term connection with its existing customers. Potential customers.

The social media marketing approach sees each follower as an individual interested in the brand. Businesses should use social networks to expand brand coverage.

In addition, businesses can use data drawn from interactions to understand better their target audience’s tastes, needs and desires.

Such information will allow businesses to have branded content that is personal and relevant to the interests of consumers, thereby having more opportunities to turn potential customers into real customers.

What Is Email Marketing

What is email marketing? Also, like Social Media Marketing, Email marketing is a common type of digital marketing that involves sending promotional messages or advertisements to a group of people via email.

When consumers have more stringent requirements about the appropriateness of Email Marketing content and the approach of that email, the initiative and personal orientation of email marketing campaigns become indispensable when it comes to email marketing.

You can check out more about email marketing HERE!

Now let’s check out the pros and disadvantages of social media marketing vs that of email marketing.

What Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Social Media Marketing?

The Advantages Of Social Media Marketing (Social Media Marketing)

Social media channels like Facebook and Instagram enable businesses to connect with very large audiences.

According to Backlinko, Facebook currently has about 2.895 billion monthly active users. And Instagram recently reached 1.44 billion users.

Social media doesn’t have as many user accounts as email. However, it offers significant advantages. For example:

Social media helps to expand the reach and grow the audience.

Social Media Marketing platforms provide the opportunity to connect with new people every day. This happens when followers interact with your posts. And through here, all their friends are also highly likely to see it.

You can connect with your audience multiple times a day without disturbing them.

Social media has an edge when it comes to forming relationships with customers. You can post content multiple times a day as long as it’s engaging and provides value to your audience.

You get a lot of customer information without worrying about security or privacy.

Most social media channels automatically update user data when they log in or interact. These platforms are responsible for privacy and security compliance.

When brands run paid marketing campaigns, they get access to targeted audiences based on the platform’s existing database. For example, Geographical location, gender, interests… etc

With email marketing, you need to implement methods to collect customer information proactively. For example, Register on form, Survey, Directly collect data… etc.

You can write content geared directly to your audience.

When doing social media marketing, you will often use the best tools available to target specific audiences.

For example, in Facebook Ads Manager, you can choose who will see your ads. Facebook has hundreds of custom targeting on criteria like:

Location
Demographic
Interest
Behaviour ….

Disadvantages of Social Media Marketing

Social media has many advantages over email marketing. But it also has disadvantages like:

If you mention it at the wrong time, it can have a bad impact on the business.
It can get expensive when you add the cost of social management tools and paid advertising.
It often requires human capital to create quality content on a consistent basis.

We’ve covered the pros and cons of social media marketing in general. Next, let’s move on to Email marketing.

What Are The Advantages And Cons Of Email Marketing Compared To Social Media Marketing?

Advantages of Email marketing

Email marketing gives brands the opportunity to convert leads into sales by cultivating more direct relationships. Here are some notable advantages of email marketing over Social Media:

You can create segmented lists and remarket to customers.

With email marketing, your content doesn’t go to a generic audience. You can segment your subscribers by how they interact with your brand.

For example, you can build your own message to people who have purchased a specific product. Updates let them know about an upgrade or recommend some related product.

In addition, you can ask people what kind of information they want to receive, when to receive the desired message, etc.

You can check out our content HERE to learn more about segmenting email lists.

You can run A/B tests to find out which message types work best.

Email marketing allows you to test different headlines or content on a given campaign. For example, careful monitoring allows you to send the same message with two other headlines, A and B. You can discover which type of content connects best with your potential customers.

See more: A/B testing in email marketing.

You Can’t Deny Email Marketing ROI

Year after year, email marketing continues to provide a high return on investment for businesses.

According to the research and the demand for data (Source). Email Marketing’s average ROI is 4,200%. This metric is 4x higher than other marketing formats, including social media and paid search.

Disadvantages of email marketing

Email is not without its downsides. It requires more training. Email marketers need to know the following:

Marketing email writing skills

People preview your full messages and images/videos on social media before deciding to see more details. However, in email marketing, you only have one subject line to convince the reader to open the message.

How to write catchy headlines?
How to create marketing lists and segments for different groups of subscribers.
How to use email platforms to design, segment, signup forms, and publish…

You need to hone basic email marketing skills to get your target audience to stay connected.

Learn more:

Email Marketing done incorrectly will be considered spam.

Email marketing, when done the wrong way, will cause customers to judge you as spam. For example, the goods are sent in bulk without the consent of the recipient;

Email marketing is less expensive than social media marketing, but it does require training. To make sure your message is well received.

Learn more: Reasons why emails are sent to spam and how to fix it.

Which Is Better, Email Marketing Or Social Media Marketing?

Now, I have finished analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of Email Marketing and Social Media. Which marketing channel should you choose for your strategy? For the answer, consider a few factors:

Is your audience usually online on email or social media?

Most likely both. There will be more than 4.2 billion email users in 2022. Social media is 3.94 billion users. All ages, young or old, use email.

However, the use of social media varies by age and platform. For example, 44% of 25-to-29-year-olds use Linkedin, just as much as 17% of 18 to 24-year-olds.

If you are focusing on individuals, there is a very good opportunity if you use Email Marketing. However, having a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Snapchat account is not impossible. Before you prioritize a channel, make sure you have customers there.

Which channel do users prefer to subscribe to receive news from brands?

A survey was conducted to look at the impact of different advertising methods on users—for example, SMS Marketing channels, Email advertising, Google Ads, Social Media, … etc.

68% of people choose email as a means of subscribing to business newsletters.
39% of users prefer to interact with a brand by following them on social media.

Email Marketing often drives conversions more than Social Media.

Social media can show a lot of posts in certain time period. Amidst so much content, media platforms will give preference to money-backed content.

With email marketing, you take the initiative when it comes to communicating with your subscribers. There is no social media algorithm.

On Facebook, your posts only average 6.4% of your total followers. However, Email boasts an impressive 18% global open rate.

Email marketing is the #1 choice for marketers when it comes to meeting the goal of driving conversions. Social Media, Content Marketing, and SEO are also listed as top marketing interests.

Why Is Email Marketing Still The Best?

Why is email marketing still the best? Email marketing is the best marketing channel because of the reliability, control, and cost it gives organizations.

Email marketing allows businesses greater control over their message and audience reach since it is an owned media channel.

Although popular marketing trends like influencer marketing and gamification can be useful for engaging your customers online, you might need to stretch your budget to include them in your digital marketing strategy.

There’s no guarantee that you’ll reach enough people to see meaningful conversions. These tactics are other types of earned and paid media, which give firms less control and need more time and testing to show a profitable return on investment.

Email marketing offers additional options to interact and engage with clients at a lesser cost due to the 4 billion daily email subscribers.

The majority of clients even prefer email to other corporate contact methods, with weekly emails being the ideal frequency. Modern automation capabilities have made developing email campaigns more effective, and email marketing has maintained to provide one of the greatest ROIs of all marketing channels.

How To Use Social Media And Email Marketing For The Best Benefit!

You should combine Email Marketing and social media marketing together.

Marketers should use social media to grow their audience. And encourage fans to become email subscribers. Then email marketing nurtures those leads into paying customers.

Social media and email marketing have their own purposes. If you have to choose between email or social marketing, choose based on your brand goals.

Social media marketing is better when your goal is to expand reach and engagement. Email marketing is better at driving sales.

Conclusion

Now that we’ve gone through the difference between Social Media Marketing vs Email Marketing.

It is important you note that choosing between SMM and Email Marketing can be a tough decision, and you should examine the information written in this article before taking a decision.

While SMM may help organizations reach a bigger audience at once, Email Marketing can help firms create connections with new and current clients.

Both marketing channels have their advantages and disadvantages. Businesses should make use of both of them together to complement one another.

In short, the mix of SMM and Email Marketing is the most productive approach for businesses.

Good luck!