I keep getting asked – mostly by nervous database marketers – if the increased adoption of social networks is siphoning off traffic from the email inbox? Fear not loyalists, email is thriving and still the best way to reach your customers. But the CRM landscape is changing, and savvy marketers do need to expand their definition of "the inbox" and broaden their scope so they can stay in touch with customers, regardless of the channel.
Overall time-spent-online continues to surge, and yes, much of that incremental time is spent in the social networks. But the rising tide is lifting all channels. After all, whether consumers are in their social media inbox, their email inbox, or their mobile inbox, at the end of the day they are spending more and more time in ‘the inbox’. And the email marketing industry has already given birth to some of the most sophisticated tools for ‘inbox marketing’, which can be adapted as the devices change. This broad approach is bringing the integration of email and social media, and is prompting a new discipline of database marketing. And, some companies (like Datran Media) have begun to help companies apply the marketing and monetization tools typically leveraged for email campaigns to their social marketing programs. This is important because marketers who execute campaigns across social networks want to target relevant audiences and are interested in click through and conversion metrics.
The exciting thing is, the social networks offer marketers another great opportunity to manager their customer relationships. Ask your customers how and from which channel(s) they want to hear from you. Then, make sure you have the tools to message to them intelligently. And to be clear, they still want to hear from you in their email inbox! As a matter of fact, a Ball State University study recently found that 18- to 34-year-olds are more likely to make purchases in response to ads in e-mails, as opposed to ads on social networks. And to be fair, most marketers continue to make bigger and bigger investments in the email channel. After all, it is still the #1 application on the web - both consumer and professional. Not surprisingly, Datran Media’s last annual survey found that eight out of 10 marketers cited email as the best-performing medium within their marketing mix and ranked its ROI as the highest across media channels.
So what do I say when my colleagues ask me if the social networks will replace email someday? I say, it’s about the customer, not about the channel. We are in a “multi inbox world” now and your communications need to be integrated in a way that promotes a seamless dialog across the inbox and device of your customer's choice.
