Is

EMAIL better than

social?

7 reasons why you should focus on email

to GROW YOUR BUSINESS...

The Joy Society • Is email better than social 2

EMAIL UPDATES ARE A BETTER USE OF YOUR TIME

If you had to choose between sending an email and updating your social media platforms, which would you choose?

Often, when you’re growing your business it can feel a lot easier to post on social media as it feels faster.

However, when we look at the amount of people you’re likely to reach (and importantly the “quality” of that relationship), email is more effective.

Let’s say you have 600 subscribers on your email list.

On average, any one email you send will be seen and opened by between

20 and 40% of your community. So between 120 and

240 people.

If you have 600 followers on Facebook or Instagram, do you

know how many people are likely to see each post?

It can be as low as 2% through to about 15% on a popular image

based post. So between 12 and 90 people.

Worst case scenario, that’s 12 people (social) compared to 120 people (email). So you’d have to post 10 times as often to social media to equal the reach of email.

That’s a big difference!

VS

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The Joy Society • Is email better than social 3

The fall of Facebook reach?

As Facebook continues to tweak its algorithm (the computer brain that decides who sees which posts), you can be sure we’ll continue to see a decline in the organic reach of Facebook Page posts.

It’s been steadily falling since 2013 (see the graph below by social@Ogilvy).

What does this mean?

Your business-related posts are likely to be seen by less and less people. Not so cool, but it’s the current reality of the social media landscape.

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YOU OWN THE EMAIL LIST

One of the main benefits of building an email list is that you own it.

Even though you set up your social media platforms, like Facebook or Instagram, and you decide what to share, you don’t own this “digital real estate”.

The owner of the platform, such as Facebook, decides who sees your posts and it can shut your account down at any time, if it feels you’re violating its terms of service.

Gary Vaynerchuck, a leading voice in digital media says:

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We agree! Email is much more stable. It’s been around in its current form since the 1970s and has historically been very slow to change.

Plus, as you own the list you can decide exactly who is going to receive each email. You can even segment your list (for example based on what someone has purchased from you in the past) and send more personalised emails, improving the relationship you have with your community.

With social media you don’t have this level of control. You load it up to the platform and the platform owner decides who sees it.

“There is also massive benefit to email that not everyone realizes. Email is your own list

and you control it.

There is no organic drop. You’re in control of the creative. The delivery is agnostic, thus

allowing you to market it at scale without being affected by the platform.”

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EMAIL SOFTWARE REPORTING IS MORE ACCURATE AND USEFUL

Whilst you can see some of the behind-the-scenes data of your social media platforms (such as reach and engagement), it’s not nearly as detailed as email software.

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Whilst this information is kinda useful, it only really tells you what to post more of, and doesn’t show you exactly who clicked or liked the post.

Compare this with email messages, if you’re using something like MailChimp, a popular email software provider, you get highly detailed information. See the next page for examples.

This is what Facebook shows via the Page Insights screen:

Source: https://blog.bufferapp.com/facebook-insights

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MailChimp reporting overview

Below is an example of the reporting available in MailChimp. It shows the open rate and link click rate (and can even be synchronised with your online sales system to track purchases generated from each email update).

Source: https://kb.mailchimp.com/reports/enable-and-view-click-tracking

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MailChimp reporting for one subscriber

The amazing thing is, you can also view each individual subscriber on your list. Right down to which emails they open and links they click on.

MailChimp also rates your subscribers with little yellow stars, so it’s easy to see the most active and engaged members of your community.

You can then send updates to just these highly motivated subscribers who love your stuff.

...Nice, hey?

Source: The Joy Society MailChimp Account

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YOU CAN CONTROL WHAT IS SEEN AND THE ORDER

Social media posts are kinda like little boats, floating down the river.

As new people find your page, they catch up with the most recent posts first and then scroll down to check out your history.

You have no control over which post they pause on or whether they even take the time to have a look around and find out more about you.

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With email you have much more control.

You can design a carefully thought out sequence of emails for your new subscribers to receive one after the other. This is called email automation and it’s free with any new MailChimp account, with less than 2,000 subscribers.

As new subscribers join your email list, they receive one email at a time, drip-fed to their inbox.

Rather than these new subscribers only receiving your weekly or monthly email updates, for example, they can receive a carefully considered “welcome sequence” of say five or six emails.

This can help strengthen the connection you build with your community, in a much more strategically considered way.

This approach also has the added benefit of allowing you to “recycle” these messages over and over again, as each new subscriber gets the same messages.

This is a huge time saver.

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EMAIL IS MORE PERSONAL

Social media can sometimes feel a bit like a crowded supermarket. Lots of noise and different voices, with people rushing past, not stopping to pause for a moment.

Our email inboxes, by contrast, are more personal. You choose what to open and what to engage with.

When you decide to open an email, you will often read more consciously, a little more slowly - deciding whether to continue this “conversation”.

As you start to send emails on a regular basis, your community will get to know you in a more personal way.

For example, Marie Forleo a well-known business mentor in New York says

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“Subscribe to hear information I only share via email”

Think about the emails you’ve opened in the past couple of weeks. Did it feel like the person was speaking directly to you when done well, this is the advantage of email.

It can help you create a greater sense of connection with those you seek to serve through your business.

Ultimately, social media feels big. Email is more intimate.

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GOOGLE LIKES EMAIL

A huge bonus of sending out emails (with links back to your website) is that it helps improve the health of your website in the eyes of Google.

In other words, your website pages will seem loved and appreciated! Social media links aren’t valued by Google in the same way.

Google says that “social media isn’t a ranking factor” (Search Engine Journal, 2017), meaning it can’t directly help improve your website page rankings.

For example, if you were to get 20 clicks to a blog post from your Facebook page and 20 clicks to your blog via an email update, the email clicks would be more beneficial.

As Rand Fishkin, CEO of Moz and all round genius when it comes to getting your website to rank on Google says

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“Social media links are “backlinks” but don’t have the direct, rank-influencing impact

that other types of links do.”

So, if you have to make a choice between promoting your new blog post via social OR email, make sure you do email first!

Post your blog on social media as well, as it’s great that people will see it and perhaps share it, however, just know that this on its own is not helping your page ranking on Google.

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EMAIL SOFTWARE STARTS FROM FREE

The best news is, it’s free to get started using pro-level email software.

The system we love and recommend is MailChimp.

It’s used by millions of businesses around the world and is backed by an amazingly friendly and committed software and customer service team.

It’s Forever Free Plan is available for up to 2,000 subscribers and you can send up to 12,000 emails per month. After this you can pay-as-you-go by purchasing a block of email credits or switch to a monthly subscription.

There are other services around, which are similar, such as Active Campaign, Ontraport and Convertkit, however, all of these are paid services from the get go.

From US$9 per month for 500 subscribers or US$29 per month for 1,000

From US$79 per month for up to 1,000 subscribers

From US$29 per month for up to 1,000 subscribers

If you’re just starting out, don’t invest in the gorilla options like Infusionsoft or Hubspot - they are NOT required for emerging businesses and you’ll end up spending hundreds per month, which you could have invested elsewhere in your business.

These high-end options are designed for professional marketing teams and large companies who run daily email campaigns.

To find about more about MailChimp go to: https://mailchimp.com

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WANT SOME HELP TO MAKE THE MOST OF EMAIL?

If you’d like some help, either to plan what to say in email or to use the technology, have a chat to us.

We can help you learn how to grow your email list and to create the automation workflow and email updates to keep in touch with your community.

We’re able to help you: Set up your MailChimp account. Design your email templates, including custom graphic design elements. Plan your email messages. Write or edit your email updates for you. Schedule your emails or build out automated sequences. Analyse the reporting data to know what’s working.

Currently, there are two ways you can learn with us, workshops or one-to-one training.

Workshops:Attend a MailChimp training workshop, see our website for details.

www.thejoysociety.com.au/workshops

“I can’t believe I had access to a free tool like MailChimp, but wasn’t fully utilising it! Thank you for opening my eyes up to the power of it.”

Gillian, a recent workshop attendee who runs her own online business in the bridal sector.

One-to-One Training: If you’d like personalised support you can book in for one-to-one training sessions with one of our team. To find out more about these training options, please get in touch.

www.thejoysociety.com.au/contact-us

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Sources used in the creation of this guidebook, particularly for current statistics:

https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/11/07/facebook-statistics

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-stats-for-marketers/

https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/11/07/facebook-statistics

http://adage.com/article/digital/brands-organic-facebook-reach-crashed-october/292004/

https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/email-marketing-is-not-dead-heres-why/

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/facebook-declining-organic-reach

https://www.similarweb.com/blog/social-media-usage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udqtSM-6QbQ

https://moz.com/community/q/does-a-link-in-facebook-count-as-a-backlink

https://www.similarweb.com/blog/social-media-usage