Is it time to go back to email for engagement?
Before social media there was email. Email evolved from the early 1990′s to the early 2000′s. It was a great way to get people connected. People measured their engagement by the number of emails they received. Do you kind of remember that. It’s actually kind of funny if you give it some thought. Then email became more and more spammy and people took advantage of it and were sending all sorts of sales emails and emails with pop-ups. Then, emails would come with all types of huge advertisements. It got out of hand.
Then, the advent of texting and social media came around and people found others way to communicate. The younger generation has adopted these new forms of communication quite well and they use email on occasion. Now, our young kids are going to colleges and rediscovering the value of email communication with their professors and classmates. They still use texting and social media platforms, but they see the value of email too.
Some people were trying to make the claims that email was going away, but many of us still use email on a regular basis. More technology has been built to insure better email quality and valid email addresses.
Integration with social media
Look at the social media channels you use on a regular basis, which platform has the best email. Some would say gmail and GooglePlus, others might say Facebook. I would contend that Linkedin has the best use of email. If I receive an email from a Linkedin client, I open it because I am curious what people are saying or requesting because I know it is coming from a professional platform. On occasion, I will receive a sales-type of email that is sent out to a lot of people but those are really very few. Linkedin with its email functionality really is the platform that brings an integrated approach.
Email Strengths
With email, I am able to send a message to a client or prospective client and include my personal contact information on the same page. Providing contact information is still very cumbersome with social media. Do you tell people to check out your profile. Is your goal to only stay on social media with respect to communication with others?
In addition, email addresses are personalized. Typically, companies use emails which represent the individual. In the past companies may have gone away from this because of spam, but now it is critical that people know that their email is coming from a genuine person and not some automated response.
If email marketing is done through a service, people recognize this and are more in turn to read it knowing that it is coming from a source like Constant Contact or some other kind of service that plays by the rules.
Finally, (Biggest Strength) Mobile – People check their email all the time on their mobile devices. People I talk to are trying to find interesting information. They look at items like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Text Message but when they want to read something with more value, they turn to email.
With all the talk of engagement on social media, maybe its time to go back to email and work on developing better content through email as opposed to social media sites.
photo credit: Sean MacEntee via photopin cc
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