Social Media gets a tonne of praise. It’s a marketers best friend – letting you target incredibly fine-grained and specific audiences easily and cheaply. Social media also gets an equal or greater amount of criticism. After all, the audiences you can build today, might not be there tomorrow.
But there’s another problem that’s not often addressed with social media that we’d like to cover here. Sure, these platforms connect you with people. But it’s not one-on-one interaction. Rather, your updates and ads are broadcast out to a wider audience. Ergo, your messages often have to be watered down: you can’t get as relevant as you can with email or other direct channels.
Relevant messaging
Consider the following situation.
A client has just made their third order, and has now spent over $500 with your company. We all know that rewarding your loyal customers is great way to boost engagement and keep customers for life. So how do you do it?
It’s certainly an opportunity worth taking. But the only real way to reward customers for their financial actions is to do so personally, and in private. Social media – a public forum – won’t cut the mustard. And that’s where email comes in. Setting up an automated rewards program is easy and effective, and only really possible with an email marketing platform.
Similarly, what about celebrating customers’ anniversaries? If it’s been a year since they signed up for your email newsletter, or purchased a product, you might like to gift them with a spontaneous coupon code. Not only is this a great way to increase sales, but it will also show you legitimately care about their business. Again, social channels won’t do. Facebook can’t notify you that Customer A has been a follower for 365 days – but a platform like Klaviyo or Dotmailer will.
These are just two examples of ultra-relevant messaging. And the possibilities are endless. Birthdays, post purchase follow ups, replenishment reminders – by touching base with a customer one-on-one, with messaging that’s relevant to their own personal journey with your brand, you’re simultaneously building both revenue and better customer relationships.
Why is relevance important?
Relevance is key in modern marketing for a few reasons.
For a start, it shows each customer that you care about them specifically. You’re not shouting to a crowd of people that you love them all. You’re taking them directly. A personalised email will generate far better faith with a client than an update to a crowd.
Secondly, personalised messaging is much harder to forget. If you get in touch with a customer with something that aligns with their personal experiences, you can all but guarantee you’ll stay at the forefront of their mind for much longer than your last Instagram post did.
Last but not least, advertising – in particular, outbound advertising – is so prevalent in the modern world that many customers are experiencing advertising fatigue. By that we mean, people simply block it out. Just try and remember the latest deals you saw on those billboards on your way to work this morning. Relevant, personal messaging, on the other hand, rises above this miasma.
When is social better?
Social media does come out on top in a few situations. For example, certain messages, like a Black Friday sale, or new line of product, are suited well to a boosted social post because there is good potential you’ll also reach new customers. Done correctly, coupling lookalike audiences and sponsored posts can be great for reaching new potential customers.
That being said, once you’ve caught these new leads, getting them to subscribe for personalised follow up should be your first priority.
The final word
The heated war between email and social marketing will continue to rage for many years to come. However, in an age when social is becoming increasingly ‘pay-to-play’, and more and more people are blinded by advertising fatigue, your strategies should be looking to touch base with your customers directly. More than ever, we need relevant, personalised messaging in marketing.
If you’d like to see what sort of results you can expect from such strategies, be sure to checkout out case studies – or get in touch with us directly for a chat!