Email marketing is better than ‘social’

I recently read an article on www.wired.com titled Email Crushing Twitter & Facebook.

The gist of the article was that in spite of Facebook and Twitter being heavily supported and advocated by marketers, it is actually the older, more ‘traditional’ methods – such as SEO and email marketing – that are more effective in the business world.

Don’t get me wrong, Facebook and Twitter have their place in business to build a brand, create exposure and connect with your audience – but it has yet to be proven that they help with sales.
Email marketing on the other hand continues to perform well as a means of generating sales.

Over the last four years, online retailers have acquired almost 7% of their new customers from email marketing – four times as much as in 2009.

In a period when Facebook and Twitter have exploded, Facebook contributes to well under 1% of all customers and Twitter does not register at all.  It’s fair to say that these platforms have yet to work out a way to work for businesses.  

Google on the other hand is light years ahead in acquiring customers – over 15% of new customers come through organic search on Google, and close to 10% through paid ‘search engine marketing’ (SEM).