The One Expert Social Media Marketing Tactic the Professionals Never Share

Online marketing is something that no one person could ever fully understand. There are simply too many variables in play. You have to contend with Google’s constant algorithm changes. You need to adapt to the changing strategies of your competitors. When you start to build up significant website traffic, your work still isn’t done because you only earn money when your traffic converts.

Social Media to the Rescue?

Over the past several years, social media has come into its own as a significant provider of profitable web traffic for many online businesses. On the surface, social media looks like an online marketer’s dream. Facebook alone has nearly 2 billion active monthly users, and that’s just one social media website. Capitalize on the user base of any social media website, and you’ll generate more sales than you can handle.

For most businesses, though, the dream of a flood of social media users opening their wallets to buy is just that — a dream. In reality, filters on social media websites such as Facebook prevent your followers from seeing your content much of the time. Unless you want to pay to expand the reach of your posts, most of your potential customers will never see the content that you put on your social media profiles. While social media marketing is ultimately worth the effort — if you have plenty of resources, at least — social media isn’t the reliable source of free traffic that you’d like it to be.

The One Expert Social Media Marketing Tactic

If you’re here, it’s because you’re trying to improve your social media marketing skill. You’re looking for the secret to unlocking the enormous potential of social media. You want to learn the one marketing tactic that all of the professionals and marketing bloggers keep to themselves.

We’re going to share that tactic now.

The truth about social media is that your followers won’t actually contribute much to your company’s bottom line unless you can form relationships with them elsewhere. Organic reach on social media is so poor that many of the people who visit your social media pages will follow your company — and never see your content again.

The one social media marketing tactic the professionals never share is that your single goal for each of your social media followers should be to move them — as quickly as possible — to the one outbound marketing platform that you control fully: email.

You Can’t Market to People You Can’t Reach

Many social media networks — most notably Facebook — use content filters to automatically decide which posts should appear on users’ feeds. Filters are ostensibly good for users. Since there’s too much content on social media for any individual to read, the filters limit the volume of purely promotional material that reaches users.

Although they may be good for users, content filters are even better for social media companies. If you want your material to break through the filter on a social network, you’ll need to pay to boost your content. The content filter has been great for Facebook’s stock, but it has also limited companies’ access to their own followers. Organic reach on Facebook dropped 52 percent in 2016 alone.

Why Is Email Marketing Better Than Social Media Marketing?

You own your mailing list.

There’s no denying that a social media presence is a powerful marketing and communication tool for a company. When you build a profile on social media, though, you’re on leased land. The social network owns the content that you post and controls your access to your followers.

When you build a mailing list, it is your own property. The content that you post is yours as well. Individuals may choose to remove themselves from the list, but no social network can take the list away from you. The list is yours. Within the boundaries of the law, you can market to your subscribers as you choose.

Email marketing has better reach.

For marketers and social media users, the biggest problem with content filters is that they remove choice. A social media user can choose not to read a message that appears in his or her feed. If a message doesn’t reach a user’s feed, though, an algorithm is making the choice for that user.

Email marketing lets a subscriber choose whether to open a message or not. Although some subscribers may not open your messages, they’ll at least have the opportunity to read the subject lines and decide. The open rates for email marketing are often remarkably good. More than 20 percent of your subscribers will typically open your messages.

Email marketing delivers better returns.

Maintaining and marketing to a mailing list costs almost nothing compared to the returns that email marketing brings. If you use an email marketing platform to manage your mailing list, you’ll pay a small monthly membership fee. Sending messages usually costs almost nothing. Because email marketing is so inexpensive — and its reach is so great — marketers earn an average of $38 from each dollar spent on email marketing. Email marketing is also 40 times more effective than social media at turning leads into customers.

Explore the Benefits of Email Marketing Now

Trident Orlando is a full-service digital marketing company with packages starting at just $299 per month. Our services include:

Full management of your mailing listBeautiful signup forms for your websiteOne professionally written monthly newsletterCustom templates to give your newsletters an extra touch of professionalismMobile device supportLead acquisition to keep your mailing list growingSyndicated content from leading online sources

Get started with email marketing now, and get the most from your social media followers and other leads. We’ll help you build your campaign and show you how to begin migrating your contacts from social media to your email list. Contact Trident Orlando now to learn more.