Sometimes I think that in all of the 'Social Media is cool' and 'It's about the relationship' (both comments I feel are true), it's easy to forget what really matters at the end of the day – conversion and ROI.
Yes, it's lovely to have 10,000 followers on Twitter, thousands of people reading your blogs, a million 'likes' on Facebook etc – but if you're about to go bankrupt that's not a lot of consolation, is it?
I speak to people every day who are getting good ROI on Social Media, so it surprised me to read that, according to this article:
Email marketing is twice as effective as social media when it comes to conversion rates
I was ready to wade in vehemently, but then read the rest of the article:
Mary Spio, partner at Gen2Media, which works with a number of high-profile music artists, suggested that many marketers at the company see double and triple the conversion rates with direct email compared to social media activity.
Speaking to Marketing Vox, she referred to two hypothetical artists, commenting: "One, let's call him/her Artist A, is a Latin musician with 20 million views on YouTube but little inclination to pursue direct contact with fans via email. The other, Artist B, has said from the beginning it was all about data collection and wanted direct access to the fans."
Well of course they're getting a better conversion rate from email marketing that Social Media if Artist A has no-one speaking to her fans via Social Media (and I presume the 'no email rule' also means no Twitter or Facebook interaction) and Artist B is only using email marketing. It's not a like for like comparison for a start, and let's face it, Artist A isn't exactly using Social Media well, eh?
What Artist A and B both need to realise is that marketing in 2010 is about a number of different channels, not just relying on one. I'd suggest that if Artist A started speaking to her fans (or had someone to do that for her) and did some direct email campaigns, and Artist B dipped a toe into Social Media, both of them would see sales rise. What do you think?
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Tags: email marketing, social media
