In the meantime, social is strangling email marketing

This week I was on a panel at the Integrated Marketing Summit in Atlanta. It was a debate format and the title of our session was, “Can email and social live happily ever after?“  My main point on that topic was that social is making lazy email marketers even lazier, because now they are distracted by this thing called “social” so they’ve got their already-ROI-proven email campaigns on auto-pilot.  So in a way, social is killing off email.  But that’s beside the point (though I’m happy to debate that if anyone is interested).

Seems that @simmsjenkins, resident email badass (I believe that fyi) had this to say:

“they’ve got their already-ROI-proven email campaigns on auto-pilot. So in a way, social is killing off email.”

You gotta do better than that logic if you are going to lob another anti-email grenade out there.

So rather than letting this debate take over the analytics post, I’m moving it here…

I think a social “network” is something you enter into mutually with other people.  It’s a community.  Twitter is a 1-to-many relationship.  You can’t join my Twitter network.  You can follow me, in which case you can receive my updates.  But just because a lot of people follow a person and receive their updates, that doesn’t make them a “network”.  It’s no different than joining my email newsletter list.

Here’s an example.  When you go to a conference and hear someone speak, do you have a social relationship with them?  No, of course not.  That’s Twitter.  Sure, you can raise your hand and ask a question during the Q&A, but that’s about the extent of your relationship.

Facebook, however, is a social network.  It’s a relationship that two people mutually agree to enter into.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I’m on a panel next week at the Integrated Marketing Summit in Atlanta.  The topic is, “Can email and social live happily ever after”.  I’m starting to come to the conclusion that they are two completely different things.  I think the real question might be, “Can your brand.com website survive in the social web.”

I know most of you reading this think Twitter is very much a social network.  Let’s debate.

* full disclosure, I had this debate a while back with @ivey.  I doubt he has the stones to jump back into it with me.

Simms wrote an article for ClickZ and he asked me what my thoughts were on the future of email.  No surprise, I was more bullish on the ways we can reach people via social than email, but it’s still one of the best (if not the best) communication channels today.

You can read the whole article (link above) but here’s what I said:

“It’s my opinion that email marketing is both the most effective form of marketing and at the same time the least maximized. Because email is inherently effective, marketers get away with poor processes and little innovation and still are able to produce better ROI than their other marketing efforts.”

and

“In 2010, you’ll start seeing marketers pushed to evolve their email practices by consumers growing use of social networks in lieu of email. I see social being a big threat to email but at the same time being the impetus that marketers needed to stop taking email for granted.”

What do YOU think?

Marketing has seen tremendous change over the past five to 10 years. Take a closer look at direct and digital marketing specifically and you’ll see a clear shift. Marketers are beginning to combine the opportunities made possible by the principles and disciplines of direct marketing with the accountability and engagement that are possible with digital marketing. We call this shift iDirect – where the blurring of the lines between these disciplines is being used to garner greater customer engagement that leads to measurable and dramatic gains in ROI.

Read more.

• NO MORE SPAM!*
• Due to the limit of 140 characters, those rambling, long-winded emails we all get would be no more.  People would get to the point.
• People would be forced to actually talk to each other rather than relying on email.
• Brands would be forced to be direct with their email communications – “Hey, we have a new product called Product XY, check it out”, “We’re having a sale on forklifts, buy 2 get 1 free”.
• Unsubscribing becomes oh so easy.
• NO MORE SPAM!
• Your marketing budget would suddenly drop (no more creative costs, distribution costs, etc.).
• Email would become what it should be, a direct marketing channel rather than a branding one.
• Tired of designing email to render on all platforms, text vs. html, etc.?  No more.
• All your messages would get through as there would be no more CAN-SPAM rules because…
• NO MORE SPAM!

Let me know if you have any additions!

* Ok, ok, so perhaps there is a tiny sliver of spam possibilities with Twitter.  But still.

I know its spam because I’ve never signed up to receive any news from the guy.  Amazing to me in a time when Obama was praised for his work in digital media to help drive his campaign, that McCain was sending out spam.  Anyone still wondering why Obama won in a landslide?

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McCain Spam