A business is nothing without its audience. Without feet through the door, traffic to the website and people ultimately opening up their wallets, businesses wouldn’t remain open.
That’s why it’s so important to market, market, market. But it’s even more important for every action to be driven by purpose. While getting noticed is cool, getting noticed by the right people is what really matters.
So, email marketing or social media? Which one does your business need? Take a closer look at the pros and the cons of both and then decide from there #InformedDecisions
Why should you have a target audience?
Let’s first take a step back before we can take a step forward – let’s chat target audiences.
Your audience is everything and knowing your audience will help you decide whether your business needs email marketing or social media marketing. While every business would love the entire world to know about them, not every single person is their ideal client.
How can you determine your target audience?
Map out who you want your buyers to be, investigate who’s buying from you and then create a targeted audience from there. The moment you know who your target audience is, you’ll be able to determine where they hang out online and what type of content is best for them.
P.S: your target audience plays a massive role when it comes to where and how you market your business. If you haven’t already, do a target audience exercise so that you can make informed decisions later.
Social media marketing
What is social media marketing?
Social media marketing is the ideal way to meet people where they already spend their time. Stats show that the average user spends 3 hours on their social media accounts every single day. With the right content and strategy, you could get in front of these people whenever they log in.
Manage your businesses social media correctly, and customers won’t only engage with your brand online, but offline too.
What are the pros of social media marketing?
- You can target specific people
Remember when I mentioned the importance of a target audience? This is where that information comes in handy. Use the information from your target audience exercise to drive your online advertising campaigns and seek out the right people.
- Pick where to send traffic
Instagram is the perfect platform if you want to direct traffic to a specific page. Because there’s only space for one url, you can decide where to send people if they choose to click the link in your bio.
On the other hand, Pinterest is all about options. This is the perfect place to put out as much info and as many links as possible. Surveys show that 57% of Pinners intend to shop and buy when they log into their Pinterest account. Imagine getting your products and services in front of only a fraction of those people.
- Go on speed dates with your customers
Through social media marketing customers can get to know your brand better, but you can also get to know your customers better.
Put out bite-sized content multiple times a week, then listen to what customers are saying in the comments or DMs. You could learn a lot about what they do and do not like this way – hello free market research.
- Build better brand loyalty
Brands can sometimes feel like a friend. Customers can follow your story, engage with your content and save content to read again later. The more they see you online, the more you start to feel like a friend.
This goes hand in hand with staying top of mind, it’s hard to forget about a brand when they’re always seeing your posts whenever they log in.
What are the cons of social media marketing?
- People might not always see your posts
The good ole’ social media algorithm. While social media experts understand how the different pieces fit together, if you’re not optimizing your content for your specific accounts, then people might not even be seeing your posts because of the tricky algorithms.
- You need to pick the correct social media platforms
What kind of social media does your business really need? This question is more important than you think.
Every platform comes with its own perks and features that can be used to your advantage. If you decide on a social media platform that your target audience doesn’t use or doesn’t really benefit your audience, then not only are you wasting time, but money too.
Once you’ve decided on the social media platform for your business, setting it up correctly is the next big step.
- Social media is always changing
From small changes happening overnight to massively different alterations over a month, social media algorithms are always changing. What works today, might not get you the same results a few months down the line.
Staying up-to-date with announcements, keeping a close eye on your stats and maintaining a successful strategy is key to thriving on social media.
Email marketing
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is a form of direct marketing via email communications. But, it’s more than just a simple mail.
All emails should fall part of a goal-driven strategy that’s aimed at helping you achieve a specific objective. These can be once-off emails, weekly newsletters or automated sequences.
What are the pros of email marketing?
- It’s affordable
All marketing efforts are optimized when you use experts to drive the campaigns. But, email marketing can be one of the most affordable options out there.
There’s the upfront cost of building an email list, but once you have that audience, you don’t need to pay to keep them.
- Reach a large audience quickly
Depending on the size of your email list, you can quickly and easily reach a massive audience in one click.
Stats show that 99% of email users check their inbox up to 20 times a day. These numbers definitely work in your favour.
- Tracking is easy
Email is a great way to send specific people specific messages. With the right resources, you can segment your audience, check open and click-through rates as well as easily move people from one audience to another.
What are the cons of email marketing?
- Your emails could end up in spam
I personally receive dozens of promotional emails a day. Filtering through every sender and unsubscribing from senders I’m no longer interested in seems like a big task. The alternative? Simply mark as read or delete right?
We’re all guilty of this and chances are your audience could be doing the same thing.
- You’re emailing the wrong people
Having a large mailing list is fab, but it only really matters if those people are leads. Spending time, effort and money on uninterested people won’t get you the conversion you’re looking for.
Make sure that all your marketing efforts are goal-driven from the get-go. That way you won’t waste any resources on emailing people who don’t want what you’re offering.
- Email marketing can be limiting
As a business owner if you’re taking on the role of marketing exec too, then you could be limiting your business and the marketing efforts. It’s true that owners often wear many hats when it comes to their business, but there are certain tasks that you should always leave to the experts.
Now that you know more about email marketing and social media marketing, which one does your business need? Comment below and let me know!
