According to a report by Accenture, Social Media outreach is the present generation promotional technique to communicate and receive positive attention from the consumers and also influence them with their decisions when they are making purchases. Statistics show that every third consumer before making a purchase relies on updates in social media to make the final call. 
When we talk about social media, every organization needs to understand the requirements of the different generations our consumers fall into, like say; some are the Millennials whose age vary from 18 to 34, and they will have a different preference and views while purchasing an item when compared to a GenXer; whose age varies from 35-54. Thus, looking at such factors the sales and marketing team needs to work out their strategies accordingly.
The point I am trying to make here is that social media is slowly overtaking email marketing as an influencing medium. There was a time not very long ago when email marketing was a proven strategy for companies to leverage their sales. But that no longer holds good.
Let’s have a look as to why Social Media is outrunning Email Marketing in the buyer’s decision-making process.
Social Media is Preferred over Email Marketing by Millennials.
If we look at any advanced economy around the globe, we observe that half of the population who are engaged in online purchases are millennials. So it is quite obvious that their preferences pose a great influence on the sales and marketing strategy of any organization. What influences millennials to choose one product or service over the other? The answer is very clear. Now with the great popularity that social media outreach is gaining, it is quite evident that this medium is overtaking all other methods like email marketing at a very rapid pace.
Earlier, it was email marketing techniques that dominated every age group particularly the millennials, but with the progressive advent of social media, it has now reduced down to the 2nd spot on their preference list. Nevertheless, sales and marketing teams also need to keep improving their email marketing techniques and should not ignore them completely as both are popular and efficient means to keep in touch with the consumers.
Selling behavior Trends in Social Media
Social media presents itself in a new and creative way of building relationships with customers which is termed as Social Selling. These days, the preference for social selling is more in comparison with the traditional selling. Social selling is quite unique when compared with the traditional way of selling and we can see the difference by observing the ways the technique is used to find, relate and engage with people with the possibilities of sales.
In social selling, the concept is to use the social media network and target the decision makers to influence them to use a particular set of services and products. So, the first step is to find the decision makers, then try and relate with them by providing valuable insights on the social media platform. And finally, after a warm-up session with the consumers, through social selling, they try to engage with them through good feedbacks from happy buyers they have serviced and thus create an everlasting impression on the new potential customers.
In between the process of social selling, one major point to take care of is the content on social media. The content that a company or organization provides through their website and digital presence should be informative and very helpful and of excellent quality. Consumers also want responsiveness and expect high value service from trusted brands.
Social Media has higher engagement rate than Email Marketing
Email marketing covers the direct approach of keeping in touch with customers, because through emails one can only start up with a general conversation in a rather formal and precise manner. On the other hand, social media is becoming a valuable technique to come up with attractive promotional offers in large numbers. Social media boasts of a higher engaging audience compared to email marketing. This is so because present-day consumers are more attracted and are eager to follow social media content rather than those found in the e-mails.
What better examples could be given other than Facebook and Twitter, where research shows that consumers often believe in sharing and posting online content from such social networking sites rather than those found in emails.
Social Media brings better Brand Recognition compared to Email Marketing
Social media outreach is an ideal place to improve the value and popularity of a brand. With the help of ads, like in social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, they make it a point to keep the audience focused and interested in your brand and with frequent variations to the ads, a brand’s fan following increases dramatically over a period of time. Once consumers are aware of your brand and start trusting you, they are most likely to purchase items from your website. This is not as easily possible through email marketing as the engagement aspect is missing there.
I own a #VirtualAssistant company called www.mdsonline.co.in and can assist companies and entrepreneurs with digital marketing, social media outreach, lead generation, content writing, etc. Let’s start a conversation and take it from there. My email id is navinmirania@gmail.com
