Why Social Media Is a Terrible Marketing Strategy
I hate to be a a party pooper, but seriously, if you’re focusing solely on social media to market your business, you need to change your strategy.
Why?
You should not be relying on making money through a platform that is not yours. It’s impossible to build a business empire on borrowed land.
So, here’s the deal. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, they’re great. We know that. They have value and they’re useful for your business. We don’t want you to stop using them to reach new audiences. There’s no denying how important social is. If influencers have taught us all anything it’s this, social media is powerful.
We just want you to think beyond your Instagram account.
Why Social Media Sucks
See, social media is is rented space. You don’t own your following on their platforms. If Instagram were to ban you or even worse, Instagram itself got shut down, where would that leave your business? If it would leave you completely screwed, then you have to start thinking about ways to grow your business another way.
Growing your business outside of social media has a lot of benefits. Not only do you stop comparing yourself to similar businesses on social media, you also let go of your addition to a perfectly curated feed.
The truth is social media alone just won’t cut it.
It won’t for the creative who just launched their design business, who is running through every podcast, blog, course and book she can get her hands on to increase her following and engagement.
It won’t for the small business owner either, who is unsure how building a social media following will affect their direct sales. What’s a preset anyways and why does it matter?
For both these businesses, thinking beyond social media is extremely important.
What you Need To Do Instead
Cultivating a following of highly-engaged and interested people is the key to building revenue for your online business. These fans are the ones who will splash the cash on your new launch. They’re the ones that will pay for your expensive service offerings. They’re the ones that will help you build real profit in your business.
Do you know what’s the best way to do this? No joke, it's with an email list.
Email marketing is about way more than pitching an offer. It helps build customer loyalty, nurtures leads, increases direct sales and builds brand awareness. Social media may be more powerful at generating leads for your business, but emails are still the best way of maintaining a relationship with your customers.
If you’re not convinced yet, here are some stats from the marketing experts at Hubspot that may change your mind:
Email generates $38 dollars for every $1 spent. That’s over 3800% return on investment (ROI)!
There will be over 5.9 billion active emails by the end of 2019
93% of business to business companies use email as a part of their marketing strategy
99% of consumers check their emails at least once a day
59% of marketers say email accounts for the biggest portion of their ROI
Based on this information, if you are not already leveraging the power of email marketing, you need to start! But you must be wary. If you do not follow email marketing best practices this can cause you a tremendous amount of trouble.
The Importance of Email Marketing Platforms
I was recently talking to my aunt member about her business. We are working on a video project together and she mentioned that she wanted to send it out to her clients from her Gmail account. This made my jaw drop to the floor. You can't send bulk emails from your Gmail account!
It is critical that you use email marketing software when sending out emails about your business. If you do not use one it can cause your emails to stop delivering, land you in your recipient's spam folder, or even cause you to get blacklisted. Plus, it can undermine the potential of your email efforts.
What are Email Marketing Platforms?
Wait a second. Let’s take a step back. If you’re like my aunt, here’s the lowdown on email marketing platforms.
Email marketing platforms are service-based software programs that are used by marketers/business owners/entrepreneurs for email marketing. The software can perform a variety of different purposes such as growing a list of email subscribers, designing beautiful email layouts and turning them into templates, managing and segmenting your email lists and analyzing the success of your email campaigns with analytics. Many email marketing platforms providers are free (to a certain extent), so you have no excuse not to be using one!
Why should you use one?
Email marketing platforms performs a variety of different functions. Some of the most useful and important functions will be outlined below.
Create better email designs: Most email services provide a large library of pre-designed email templates that you can use for your campaigns. You can customize these templates to suit the needs of your business and create a stunning email design with minimal effort. This ensures that your emails will display properly across all email clients—Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc—since the email service did the hard work of coding the email for you. Ultimately, it helps you save time when you design an email.
Manage your email list: Being able to manage your email list is huge, and most email services do it automatically. If a reader wants to remove themselves from your newsletter, they will be able to click on a link within your email and be removed. You do not have to manually do anything. There are also easy ways for you to have users sign up for your emails from your website or, yes, even social. These new emails are automatically added to your growing list.
Remain compliant: Email is not an unregulated space. Globally, many countries have their own rules concerning consumer privacy concerns and penalize email senders for violating spam rules. Specifically, in the US we follow the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and in the EU they follow GDPR. Some examples of rules that you can easily violate include sending out emails without an unsubscribe link or not having users opt-in when signing up for your email list. If you violate these rules, you can be penalized. Email service providers help you ensure that you stay on top of the regulations around email marketing so you don't have to.
Email Reputation: If you do not use an email marketing software, you put yourself at risk of being marked as spam when sending out bulk emails. Your emails can stop getting delivered, or you can even be marked as spam. This can cause your email provider or Internet Service Provider to shut down your email. Email marketing platforms help ensure that you are following the rules when it comes to email marketing and ensuring that your emails get sent and do not get marked as spam.
Analytics: You use analytics to improve your social media marketing, so why wouldn’t you for your email marketing as well? Email marketing software opens you up to new possibilities in your email channel. Imagine getting to see who opened your email, what subject lines work best and who clicked on the links in your campaigns. Email marketing software provides these insights to you, for free! This insight will make you a better email marketer so you send more effective and valuable emails to your audience.
Email Marketing Software Breakdown
There are two main email marketing platforms I would recommend to clients. The reason being is these are accessible and affordable options for businesses that are just starting out. If you haven't used an email marketing software before, these two make it easy to get started.
Mailchimp
If you are just starting out and do not have a big email list, Mailchimp is for you. Not only is Mailchimp the largest email marketing software out there, it's one of the most accessible. Here are the features that make Mailchimp great:
Automation: Mailchimp has email automation features, which, for example, let you send automatic emails when a person signs up for your email list. This can be really handy if you are invested in your business, but not fully invested in spending all your time sending out email campaigns. (More on this topic soon, I promise.)
Deliverability: Deliverability basically means the number of emails you send that actually land in recipient's inboxes. Using sophisticated software that ensures you are not sending out spammy emails, Mailchimp boasts a 80-90% deliverability rate.
A/B Testing: Mailchimp offers ways to check which variations of your emails resonate with your audience. You can test subject lines, email content, images, call to action and send time. With its free plan, you can test up to three variations.
Design: Mailchimp offers a variety of fully customizable and flexible email layout options.
Reporting: You can gain a lot of insights from your campaigns with the reporting features on Mailchimp. It provides detailed reports on click-through rate, open rate, bounce rate, and many more metrics.
Price: You are able to use a free account forever as long as your email list is under 2000 contacts and you send fewer than 120000 emails a month. Plus, if you outgrow the free plan, you can upgrade to the next tier for $30/month.
Flodesk
Flodesk is probably the most simple and clean email marketing platform out there. I recently heard about it from Jenna Kutcher, and have personally been loving it so far. Here are the features that make Flodesk great:
Automation: Automation is standard. It’s also incredibly easy to set up. No complicated steps here. Just straight forward actions that get you up and running in no time.
List Building: Flodesk comes with landing pages, pop-ups, embedded forms, segmentation and more.
A/B Testing: Flodesk makes A/B testing standard.
Design: Arguably Flodesk has the prettiest design templates out of any email marketing program I’ve ever used. If you want clean, minimal designs that you don’t have to code yourself, Flodesk is perfect for you.
Reporting: Detailed reporting exists in Flodesk.
Price: I love Flodesk because it’s pricing is so affordable. It has a 1 tier option priced at $38 a month which gives you access to its entire platform. That’s amazing! Even better, you can save even more using my link and get Flodesk for $19 a month forever. Email marketing just got a whole lot easier.
Mailerlite
Another great option if you’re just starting out is Mailerlite. It has recently popped up as a robust alternative to Mailchimp, and it’s easy to see why it’s such a good platform. Here are the features that make Mailerlite great:
Automation: Automatic campaigns are included in the free plan for Mailerlite. This is a huge time saver and will help you immensely as you start to build your email list.
Deliverability: MailerLite boasts a 89% deliverability rate.
List Building: MailerLite comes with landing pages, pop-ups, embedded forms and list management options.
A/B Testing: A/B testing is standard in the MailerLite system. You can test anything from the subject line to the time your campaigns are sent out.
Design: Mailerlite has a drag and drop editor for email campaigns. It also has templates that you can build your own campaigns off of, and a rich HTML editor as well.
Reporting: The reporting in MailerLite is extremely detailed. You are able to see campaign reports, surveys, click maps, opens by location and lots of other statistics.
Price: MailerLite is one of the most affordable email marketing platforms on the market. If you’re just starting out, your account can remain free until you reach 1000 subscribers, although there is a $10/month option to unlock all Mailerlite’s feature. From there it costs $15/month up to 2500 subscribers.
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is a popular option for small businesses. I've used it a lot with business clients in the past and it's an easy tool to navigate. Here are the features that make Constant Contact a great platform:
Deliverability: Constant Contact follows email marketing best practices and uses tools to boast a 85% deliverability rate.
Design: Constant Contact provides more templates for you to choose from for your email campaigns. This means you will likely find a template that suits your business needs.
Reporting: In the platform, you can find reporting features for opens, clicks, forwards and more.
Customer Service: If you are just starting out with email marketing software, having support is critical. Constant Contact offers a variety of support options including: email, live chat, and phone. They also have a robust knowledge base center with details about how to use the software effectively. Constant Contact also offers online and in-person trainings which can be beneficial if you've never used an email marketing software before.
Price: Constant Contact has a 60 day free trial period that does not require a credit card when you join. Afterwards, it rolls into a $20/month pricing model.
Klaviyo
Klaviyo is one of the most powerful email marketing platforms for eCommerce on the market. It’s a tool that is simple to use, but has a lot of features and functionality within it. If you are an eCommerce business, I would highly recommend Klaviyo. Here are the stand out features from Klaviyo:
Integrations: Klaviyo connects automatically with your online store. If your website is on Shopify, WooCommerce, or Magento, it will integrate seamlessly. Plus, if your store platform isn’t featured on Klaviyo’s list of integrations, you can use Zapier to set up a connection with your store.
Design: Klaviyo, like most other email marketing software, has templates that you can use to build your campaigns. It also has a drag and drop editor making email design a breeze.
Segmentation: One of the best features in Klaviyo is their segmentation tools. Using your store analytics, Klaviyo can break up your email list to create perfectly targeted segments for your next campaign.
Price: Klaviyo is free for the first 250 subscribers. From there it jumps up to $20/month for 500 subscribers and then jumps up to $30/month for 1000 subscribers after that.
Depending on your needs, one platform may be more beneficial than the other. If you're just starting out and don't want to spend money, Mailchimp or MailerLite offer all the features that you would need to get on top of your email marketing. In contrast, if you feel like you need more support as you go along, Constant Contact may be a better option for you. If you’re eCommerce focused and want seamless integration with your store, Klaviyo may be the best option for you. Remember, you can always try all the options for free to see which platform works better for you and your business’ needs.
Conclusion
So if you haven’t started building your email list, what are you waiting for? You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Social media should not be the only marketing effort you focus on. As we’ve seen above, email marketing provides a higher ROI and chance for you to really build a connection with your ideal clients.
Look out for more blog posts from me in the future with tips and tricks to maximize your email marketing efforts. I plan to write posts about email design, email analytics and more.
If you’re excited to start email marketing for your business, let me know which platform you decide to use in the comments below. I’m super curious to see which one is the most beneficial for your specific business!
