Email -v- Social Media

[browne2341]

Hi All,

First post - so hello to everyone.

I am considering stopping our email broadcast (200,000 emails a month with 82 clicks this month) and using the budget for social media. We are a debt agency and wondered what everyones thoughts were on email broadcast -v- social media adverts and posts and if anyone has changed and not looked back/worse response rate.

Experiences/advice would be much appreciated.

Anthony

 

[fisicx]

Who is your target customer?

 

[browne2341]

Great question - i should have put it in. Business owners - Construction, builders, plumbers, electricians, roofers, architects, surveyors - etc etc. Trade businesses.

 

[Paul Carmen]

This is too vague unfortunately, this type of analysis needs to be part of a planned activation based on a proper marketing plan. Asking what someone else has seen will just be asking for their bias and you'll get feedback on something that may not be relevant, or had issues in activation.

You need (or someone else does) to look at the reasons behind what you're doing and the offers and process behind your emails; e.g. what are they for, are these existing customers, what do you want/expect them to do, or are they spammy non relevant emails to 200,000 people or businesses who will largely ignore them.

For many industries email broadcasts/newsletters are not effective, as unless its a repeat, low value purchase, existing customers or people you've interacted with are already onboard or not interested.

There is also a big difference between social media adverts and posts. Unless you've built a large Facebook following socially, then posts will not be effective, and even if you have, Facebook's algorithm wont show it to that many people. However, an advert can be targeted by demographic, affluence, behaviours etc.

You really need a marketing plan and research undertaken to create it. You need to know where your potential customers are, then look at what they want, where they look and at your direct market competitors.

I'm not sure any trade customers will look on Facebook unless they are small one man bands, equally that type of customer is not going to be on LinkedIn regularly or a major Twitter user. It may be that they carry out a Google search, or talk to their accountant, without researching it you don't know...

 

[fisicx]

Great question - i should have put it in. Business owners - Construction, builders, plumbers, electricians, roofers, architects, surveyors - etc etc. Trade businesses.

If they have an outstanding debt to collect what their normal process? I’d have thought they would start with google. I doubt they will be on FB looking for help.

Email marketing can work really well if you have a curated list. Get the right contacts and the right message and you can get great returns.

 

[browne2341]

Yes i agree with google as well - if it can be targeted industries.

As like the emails, i would hope that the advert seen or posting would be ideal timing for the person viewing it to then get in touch.

I tested FB and got 191 clicks from £80.00 (but i dont know if any turned into clients)

 

[Paul Carmen]

Yes i agree with google as well - if it can be targeted industries.

As like the emails, i would hope that the advert seen or posting would be ideal timing for the person viewing it to then get in touch.

I tested FB and got 191 clicks from £80.00 (but i dont know if any turned into clients)

That's why you need a plan and to undertake decent research first, or get a digital marketing professional to create the plan, then set up campaigns and tracking for you.

Any campaigns with no goals and no conversion tracking are pointless, you just spent some money with no measurable or actionable outcome!

You should be doing proper research and testing to run Google PPC search ads too. You don't want banner ads, you want search and buying intent based ads.

These are based on targeting what customers search for that are relevant to you and the customer (with demographics and negative keywords layered on top); e.g. if they search for "help with unpaid invoices" you show up, if they search for "help with invoices" you don't...

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

The cost of sending 200k emails a month is almost nothing!

I would try to find out why they are not working and improve them.

Also, look at who is not/has not opened your emails and take them off of the list - they are not worth anything.

 

[fisicx]

I tested FB and got 191 clicks from £80.00 (but i dont know if any turned into clients)

Almost all of those will be people (or bots ) who click anything. Did you send them to a dedicated landing page that matched the offer in the advert? Why don’t you have tracking installed so you can analyse sources and actions?

 

[antropy]

Also, look at who is not/has not opened your emails and take them off of the list - they are not worth anything.

This is a good point, so many times we see people focus on the whole list and not cut down a list focusing on those email addresses you know will view the send out. Alex

 

[Paul FilmMaker]

In my experience of running my own campaigns:

1. Info from email campaigns is worthless. If you are sending emails to businesses with tracking embedded, 80% of them will be put into spam.

The reason is Outlook and 365 (when setup professionally) look for the tracking pixel and when they see it, dump the email straight into spam. On top of that, they strip the tracking pixel so no-one knows if the email's been opened. It simply appears no-one's opened it even if they have. Apple devices work differently so for example, someone looking at your email on their iPhone will 'trigger' the pixel.

So removing the tracking pixel will increase 'receive' rates considerably but you just won't know prospects have received it.

How do I track rates? Well, I have a video production house so unsurprisingly, I use video. E.g. I sent a message with a video link in to around 200 prospects. It was watched by 70 and it generated two customers. I can't figure out why it generated a couple of customers but it did so just putting it up here so you can see an example of something that worked:

I used the number of viewers as my way of seeing whether anyone was opening the message and taking an action (i.e. Watching the vid).


2. Email works better... with social. But I'd pick email over social

I'm about to create my social campaign for the New Year and it will produce awareness but email is what gets prospects to respond. It talks to them directly and personally.


So that's just my experience. If your 200,000 person email isn't getting results, then you need to look at your email. Going the social route won't improve in my experience.

 

[japhyryder]

If your emails are correctly alleviating customers paint points, and offer an easy path to conversion, they will work. So you need to check this is the case, and that the targeting is accurate

 

[John Toomey]

Before you drop email marketing totally it might be worth considering:

The message - Will it resonate with a potential buyer?
The offer - What's the offer and the CTA?
The audience - Does it marry with the persona of your typical customer
When - At what time of day will I stand the best chance of being noticed.

One of my customers utilised email marketing extensively during the pandemic and feels that it was one of the key reasons why they managed to have such a good year, while many have struggled.

One of the other things you may want to consider, when you have an opener or clicker is to either send them a postcard / letter (there's less clutter on their desk than their inbox) or pick up the phone to them.

Going down the social media route can work but you need to know what you're doing otherwise you could burn a lot of cash.

Good luck!

 

[Financial-Modeller]

Do you intend to deploy the same content that you are currently emailing, via social media, or do you intend to alter/update content?

In either case, why not continue to email your list concurrently rather than just stopping?

I guess you have an opportunity to engage with some of the recipients more via social media than you are now.

 

[Oporteo]

In our experience, it depends on your target audience.

Emails offer a personal touch from your business, whilst social media can be spread to a wider demographic.

Whichever of these is your target you should try to base your opinion off.

However, as a previous reply says, you run the risk of bots on social media giving clicks and impressions.

 

[Paul FilmMaker]

I just want to add that if your emails aren't working, switching the campaign to do the same stuff on social won't work either.

If you're sending an email saying 'buy my stuff,' well, that doesn't work. Do you enjoy being sold to over email? Do you jump onto social to be sold to? Different approaches work much better.

 

[gpietersz]

Also, look at who is not/has not opened your emails and take them off of the list - they are not worth anything.

How accurate is that identification? It depends on recipients allowing tracking pixels or similar. You are going to get quite a few false positives (positive = does not read) for people like me.

Unless you've built a large Facebook following socially, then posts will not be effective, and even if you have, Facebook's algorithm wont show it to that many people.

That is the biggest advantage of email. Most subscribers will at least see your email in their inbox, most followers will not see your social media posts.