In spite of the fact that most of the businesses, small and large, rely on the combination of Instagram and email marketing to promote their products and brands, there are many who are still apprehensive about it. They wonder whether or not these two can intersect. If you too fall under this category and are yet to reap the benefits of this integration, go through this article to get all your doubts cleared.
Most of the marketers today like Gramista and others use this combination simply because:
- They can send the same promotion on email as well as Instagram and even better, across all other different social media channels.
- The additional benefit is that the users can also get customer comments about the products helping them to judge whether it is good or a bad investment to make.
This combined effort creates a much better impact and influences the buying decision of the users, often ending in a positive note.
However, things must be done correctly to make email, and Instagram works together in a better way to drive traffic, leads, sales, and eventually build brand awareness and loyalty among your target audience. Yes, even if you think that both email and Instagram marketing are at opposing ends of the spectrum, these two can undoubtedly work well together if done correctly to benefit your marketing campaign.
Looking at the stats
There are some impressive stats from different studies and researches that will further establish the fact that integrating Instagram with email will prove to be the smartest move given the market scenario of today. These reports show everything from the number of users to the open rates of emails, from the click-through rates to the performance of the Instagram posts.
As for the number of users, the sequential order of the major social media platforms are as follows:
- Facebook over two and a half billion users
- Instagram more than 111 million active users and
- Twitter about 255 million active users per month.
With these stats, it is quite natural that most of the business marketers focus a large portion of their marketing efforts on social media, especially Facebook and Instagram.
However, the stats on email usage, according to Radicati, shows that:
- The total number of email accounts worldwide is more than 3.9 billion and
- It is expected to cross 5.9 billion by 2019.
If you want to put all these figures into perspective, there are more than three times more email accounts as there are Facebook and Twitter accounts combined.
From the marketing perspective, this is very good news given the fact that the level of engagement in emails is much higher than when social media platforms are used as a standalone channel for business marketing.
You will be surprised to know that the organic reach on Facebook, the social platform with the highest number of active monthly users, is just about 6%! This is the actual percentage of users that actually will see your posts in their Newsfeed. On the other hand, email marketing messages have a 20 to 30% range on average, which means your messages are five times more likely to be opened in comparison to Facebook.
Which is better
This question can give rise to a never-ending debate, and therefore, the easiest way out is to use both as a combination.
According to Smart Insights, for most of the marketer’s email, marketing is the number one choice, but the margin is only by 1% when compared to other options such as:
- Social media marketing
- SEO and
- Content marketing.
In their research report, when they compared all forms of marketing with email, they found that:
- 35% of marketers suggested email marketing is the most effective digital media channel to them
- 34% claimed social media as their most effective channel and
- 32% of marketers said content marketing is their number one choice.
Ideally, there are different reasons for such variance in choices among the marketers when it comes to choosing a marketing channel. Some feel social media platforms are the best to grow audiences and to encourage them to become their email subscribers. In contrast, others think that email marketing is best to nurture leads to turn them into paying customers.
Therefore, when you need to choose between the two, you must consider your purposes and goals of your brand. Social media marketing is better to expand reach and engagement while email marketing is better for driving sales.
Find the right balance
The key here is to find the right balance between social media and email marketing. You should not forget or ignore any of them completely. You must do quite the opposite, consider combining both for your business benefits.
There are several ways in which Instagram and email marketing go hand in hand. For example:
- It encourages your social followers to opt-in to the email list
- It allows you to include social buttons in your email signatures
- You can upload your email list for your custom audience.
This means that email marketing and Instagram is not an ‘either/or’ option. On the contrary, these are the two channels that will definitely complement each other during your marketing campaigns.
With the hype created about the ever-changing world of social media, email marketing still reigns supreme if you consider to get closer to your customers and sell your products to them over and over again. Email marketing will let you have more control over:
- What you send out?
- Who sees it?
- When do they see it?
With such excessive control on your business, nothing can go wrong. Right?
Also Read – How Online Fax Services by CocoFax Send and Receive Fax via Email
Conclusion
The ongoing battle between email and social media seems to have no winner. Therefore, in today’s digital world, the most practical thing is to use both of these channels in your marketing strategy. If you can use these two in sync, it will give you a mighty tool for your leads, sales, and revenue-generating activities. This will ensure more profit for your business and provide you with a compelling advantage over your competitors.
