What do Unilever, Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Lush have in common?
In 2020 or 2021 they have all put their social media advertising on pause to take a stand against hate speech and misinformation. More recently Facebook has been under fire for it’s business practices leading some companies to close their accounts with the social media giant or pause making any posts or buying ads.
That leads me to ask you, what would happen if you decided not to use any social media accounts? How would you communicate with your clients and customers? Every company has to review their own values and the values of the providers they choose to support and then make an educated decision.
When you use social media accounts, you really haven’t captured your audience because if the platform goes away, where’s your client list? Your database of your customers, followers and prospective customers? It’s lost.
Consider Adding or Strengthening your Email Campaign System
My recommend is to look again at email marketing vs social media. Look at your email database. I always recommend businesses and nonprofits use a third party email provider so you can comply with CAN SPAM laws and allow followers to unsubscribe at any time. I am most familiar with MailChimp and Constant Contact, but there are many email providers and lots of blog posts comparing them on the Internet.
If you don’t have an account with a third party provider, I suggest you start researching which one will fit your needs and your budget as well as integrate with your website. Many times I put a button (or link) on a client’s website so anyone on their website can subscribe to their emails (capturing your prospects). To entice people to subscribe, you can offer a free gift like a PDF with tips, educational information, fun facts, do’s and don’ts list, whatever you think would be meaningful to your audience. When they subscribe, they get your free offer automatically.
When you have captured your client’s email address, you have it. You can always download your email list and upload it to another provider. They key is, it doesn’t go away like your social media followers could. In fact, your emails stay in your client’s inbox until they read them, whereas posts may be off their radar in just a few hours as they slide down their social media feed.
Something to consider
I just wanted to share this idea with you as something to consider for your nonprofit or business. If you already have a system set up, great! Take some time to review it and make sure you are keeping your subscriber list up-to-date. If you don’t have a platform to manage your email campaigns, consider adding one in December so you can hit the ground running in 2022 and share your message with your clients, customers and prospects.
As always, if you would like some help getting this implemented and integrated with your website, let me know. We can import email addresses from a database if you have one, even if that’s just your accounting software. You have to start somewhere!
Here’s a link to the Resource page on my website. I provide a little more info about MailChimp and Constant Contact and explain how they are different, costs, etc.
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Reach out to me with your email marketing vs social media questions!
