Posts tagged as:

email

Social media outranks e-mail on mobile? Who could have guessed?

by Tim on October 13, 2010

According to Mashable’s report on a new study, mobile users find social media more popular than email. The quick detail:

“Mobile users spend 1.4 times as many hours using social networking sites than reading and responding to e-mail, according to a recent study by research company TNS. On average, users spend 3.1 hours per week on social networks, versus 2.2 hours on e-mail.“

I’ve suggested for some time that social and mobile are, increasingly, the same thing. And, I’m a big believer that e-mail is a social network in its own right. So, these numbers don’t come as a complete surprise. What I’m curious about is whether there’s an overall change in use or if overall use is steady and the amount of time spent on each media has shifted from e-mail to social.

Until I can chase that down, you can benefit in any case. Facebook offers great tools for producing targeted ads to potential customers and Twitter will soon introduce a product for small businesses to deliver adds on the social service. Your customers are clearly using these tools. Are you?

Are you getting enough value out of your small business website? Want to make sure your business makes the most of the local, mobile, social web? thinks helps you understand how to grow your business via the web, every day. Get more than just news. Get understanding. Add thinks to your feed reader today.

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Technorati Tags:
E-commerce, e-commerce, e-marketing, ecommerce, email marketing, Facebook, facebook, internet marketing, Mashable, social, social commerce, social marketing, social media, social strategy

Tagged as: E-commerce, e-commerce sales, ecommerce, ecommerce strategy, email, email marketing, social, social commerce, social marketing, Social Media, social media marketing, social strategy

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What happens when mobile meets e-mail?

by Tim on August 12, 2010

in E-commerce, Engagement, Marketing, Social Media, social strategy

A few months ago, I highlighted what I consider the forgotten social network: e-mail. Now Mashable has a great look at how mobile affects the way consumers use e-mail. The most fascinating finding?

“Last year, Nielsen looked into what impact social media is having on e-mail usage. The results showed that there is a strong correlation between those who are frequent e-mail users and users that are also active across social media.

In fact, the study basically showed that social media makes users consume more e-mail, not less.”

Google is famous for trying to get more people to use the web, figuring increased web usage leads to increased search usage which leads to increase revenue for Google. Sounds like something similar is going on here. Yes, as the study notes, some consumers use social as a replacement for e-mail. But, it does follow that consumers who use the Internet to engage with friends, family and brands will use as many channels as they need to do that.

So, how does this affect you?

Easy. Getting your customers to engage with you – whether via e-mail, social or on-site – is the end game. So, why would you take any single component out of your playbook?

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And while you’re at it, don’t forget to follow Tim on Twitter.

Technorati Tags:
E-commerce, e-commerce, e-marketing, email marketing, internet marketing, Mashable, online marketing, social, social marketing, social media, social strategy

Tagged as: E-commerce, email, email marketing, social, social marketing, Social Media, social media marketing, social strategy

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The forgotten social network

by Tim on May 26, 2010

in E-commerce, Marketing

For all the talk about the importance of social media marketing – and social is important – there’s one social medium that connects you directly with your customers, produces above average results, is easily measured and gets all-around love from its practitioners: email.

Email is still one of the most productive forms of media around. According to the Datran Media Annual Marketing and Media Survey, 39% of marketing executives named email their strongest performing advertising channel last year, ahead of search, offline, affiliates, social and so on. Why is it so popular?

According the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 89% of internet users go online to send or read email. It’s also the most common online activity regardless of age (search is typically either tied for first or is #2). So you’re likely to be able to connect with your customers regardless of their demographic. Microsoft’s Hotmail and Yahoo! claim to have over 360 million and 275 million active accounts, respectively.

In my own experience, email marketing frequently outperforms other media in terms of conversion and revenue per sale. It’s even inspiring innovative thinking in terms of meaningful metrics, such as Loren McDonald’s recent “EmailGeekonomics” column.

(On a side note, I loved McDonald’s mention of “Moneyball” in talking about developing your metrics. That’s exactly the kind of creative thinking you can use in improving your business, too. You can read my review of “Moneyball” here.)

The only downside of email marketing is getting your customers to sign up for it. In fact, many businesses I know fail to measure email signup as a conversion action on their site. Lucky for you that you’re not one of them, right?

I know I don’t talk about email all that often. Yes, we’ve talked about how to increase your opt-in list. But I think I’ve taken it for granted all these years, this little channel that keeps on giving. So, as you move forward with your social media marketing and with search, make sure you’re not treating your email list as your “forgotten social network.”

Thanks and acknowledgements: Hat tip to Mark Brownlow for links to the Hotmail and Yahoo! email account numbers.