Email is still the best online marketing channel.

What? Isn’t Tik Tok and Twitter all the rage?

Well, these sites certainly get all of the attention, but the reality is, there are many reasons why email marketing should be your number one priority:

Social Media as  a whole has a short lifespan

Social media and social networking are here to stay. But will Facebook and Twitter continue to dominate forever? Possibly not. Look at what happened to AOL, Friendster, MySpace, etc. While they were all once great services, something better came along and people jumped ship. What happens if these social networks just aren’t very cool one day? What if people get sick of Facebook’s endless changes?

You Play By Their Rules

Let’s say you’re running a promotion, and you  accidentally break one of Facebook’s promotional guidelines (Which is very easy to do by the way). They don’t like it, so they take down your business page. Have you ever tried calling Facebook’s customer service? You can’t because they don’t take calls. They can and will do what they want. You’re building on their land.

Which brings us to the next point…

You Don’t Own Anything on Facebook or Twitter

That data is theirs… not yours. You don’t own anything on Facebook or Twitter. All that time and energy is wasted on something you don’t have any ownership of.

Email Has the Best Return On Investment (ROI) Hands Down

Countless studies have shown that the ROI of Email is still the best by a long shot. In fact, it’s not even close to Social Media. According to a recent study by MarketingSherpa (an online market research company),

“Email marketing can be amazingly efficient. B2C marketers report an average 256% ROI from the channel — pulling in $2.56 for every $1 invested.”

We’re not saying to avoid building an audience on those social networks. They’re incredibly important communication channels. But they shouldn’t necessarily be your #1 priority, and instead should be part of your online marketing plan, incorporating other channels.