Social Media Strategy vs. Email Strategy

Scott: I’m Scott, and with me is Rosie. Today, we’re comparing two powerful marketing tools—social media strategy versus email strategy—and breaking down how they fit into your brand.

Rosie: Whether you’re wondering where to invest your time or how to integrate these tools for maximum impact, you’ll leave with clear takeaways to help boost your connections and conversions.

Scott: When it comes to deciding your social media strategy, you need to find where your audience is really spending their time and how effective social media is at connecting brands with them. According to Sprout Social, over 5.4 billion people worldwide use social media, and an average person now juggles almost seven different platforms each month. Sprinklr’s latest stats show 58% of consumers discover new brands on social, well ahead of search or TV.

Rosie: Organic reach is shrinking due to oversaturation, so paid ads are now expected to hit $276 billion in spending this year alone. TikTok leads for organic engagement, averaging 2.5% per post, while Instagram’s carousel posts outperform images and videos for engagement. It means a lot of different brands are posting on social media at once, and it could be a lot of different brands for the same field. So you’ll see five different plumbing posts from five different plumbing companies all in one search about plumbing. So organic reach, as in just you see it on your for you page or for your personalized feed, it’s less likely that somebody’s business is going to appear on your feed because of how many ads, how many posts get sent out.

Scott: So that’s kind of the and volume thing and we used to talk about short game versus long game in terms of search engine optimizations and natural on-page content optimizations things like that. Organic is more of the long game because you want to have relevant content Google comes through does it straight but to your point whether social media website development even email marketing everything is so saturated with these campaigns now that without giving yourself a little bit of boost at it’s just it’s not likely to come to the top of the list. So if social media marketing is so popular, is email marketing as effective for personal connections and delivering ROI? Well, industry studies found that email open rates average between 15–26%, and ROI can reach $36 to $68 for every $1 invested, which is much higher than most social platforms. This data highlights the strong effectiveness and value of email marketing compared to other digital marketing channels.

Rosie: Unlike social channels, with email you own your list, control your message, and personalize using segmentation, automation, and sender data. Personalized subject lines boost open rates dramatically, and automated emails provide timely, relevant content that keeps subscribers engaged.

Scott: Is there a way to combine social and email for bigger results, or should you focus on just one? Sprout Social points out that nearly half of consumers interact with brands more on social today than six months ago, but they still sign up for email lists to unlock exclusive offers and deeper relationships.

Rosie: Demographics matter: Gen Z starts discovery on social (41% use it as first stop), while older groups rely on email for updates and purchases. The best-performing brands use social contests to grow email lists, and then use those lists for ongoing engagement while repurposing the best content cross-channel.

Scott: You talked about Gen Z, the older group, I guess I have to identify any older group. In both cases though, email is still going to be more effective across Gens for those discounts, exclusive offers, that sort of thing. Correct?

Rosie: I would say that’s debatable because I’ve seen a lot of coupons or deals or events on social media rather than through email. I’d say that email confirms those details while social media is introductory, kind of like what I was saying where social media is more of a discovery while email is kind of that permanence of, oh yeah, here’s the deals.

Scott: So some of the trends that we’ve seen with social media posts speak to both discovery as well as the discounts. So that’s where we start to see the countdown timers, time-limited offers, you now, kind of the really, in my words, almost high pressure clickmate where it’s like, do it now or don’t do it at all, because it’s not going to be here again. That seems to resonate more with Gen Zs in terms of reaction and spin, because I think they have a lot more confidence in that, because that’s what you’ve kind of grown up with is the hey, I saw it on social, click bye. Do you see a way to influence the older generations in similar fashion that may not be directly through social?

Rosie: Well, there’s different formats such as print marketing or promotions. So you see signs and logos and promotions unconsciously every single day, you see tons of them. So just seeing like a t shirt that has somebody’s brand logo, that’s automatically somebody incentivizing, hey, I trust this company and up to a their logo or to use something with their logo on it. Same thing with seeing posters or billboards on the side of the road. You see, oh, somebody spent money and is putting it physically up. They’re committing to it. I would feel like, oh, I might want to commit to it. Or seeing a company at an event because there is that personal connection and you can put a name to a face. And that’s how I would feel about older generations if they are not connecting with a brand through social media, it’s through that in real life relationship.

Scott: Right, so kind of like that, most people aren’t willing to invest in a company or others that aren’t willing to invest in themselves. So when you look at things like even emails, much. I hate to say it now. It’s got more of a shelf life because you can kind of save it to a folder, come back to it later. Anything that’s in print, anything that you see in real life, billboard, that sort of thing, they may be short-term campaigns, but they’re not immediate like social media where it gets here one moment and gone the next. So looking at those factors, there’s a great investment that’s been made. There’s a commitment that’s there, I think is a word that you use. But events to me seem like kind of a common denominator between the two because it’s time limited, it’s much shorter than all of these other print campaigns, and it’s experiential. And that’s what I think a lot of people buy into is the experience. You see something on social media, whatever that post is, a lot of times, you recognize, you identify, or you aspire to whatever that experience is, and then you get the offer and you’re like, oh cool, I’ll do that.

Scott: Today, we compared real usage and ROI stats from platforms like Sprout Social and Sprinklr. The numbers show social is great for discovery, but email still leads for conversion.

Rosie: In our next episode, we’ll dig into paid ads. Don’t forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and check the show notes for all the sources we mentioned.