I’ve received an invitation to attend a panel discussion on social media marketing vs. email marketing. The discussion would be pit the the social media marketing experts against the email marketers to find out which is best.
The answer to me is pretty clear. While social media marketing has made huge inroads and received tons of press in the past year, it’s still no match for good old fashion email marketing. My numbers don’t lie. This blog’s biggest income earner is its email list.
I think the panel is going about this the wrong way. This isn’t an us vs them kind of thing. There’s no rule that say you have to be a social media marketer or an email marketer. Why not do both? Social media and email marketing works great together. To do only one would be like depending on Google for all your income. That’s not the smartest thing to do.
Most new bloggers are using social media marketing to help build their blogs, and that’s great. However, they’re really missing the boat if they don’t have a mailing list. A lot of this have to do with cost. Social media is pretty much free. Email marketing requires a service like Aweber, which cost $19 a month (there is a $1 trial). For many, this creates a mental barrier of entry.
I say mental because people think it’s costing them money. The truth of the matter is, it’s costing them more money by not having a mailing list. If you’re making money off social media, you’ll be making far more if you combined social media with email marketing.