Why Email is STILL the King of Customer Relations

Keeping up with all the latest trends in digital marketing is always a daunting task. While social media and other third-party platforms offer significant reach with their massive audiences, they also come with substantial risks and limitations. Email marketing, by contrast, continues to demonstrate its enduring value, providing stability and control that are crucial for effective customer relations.

Navigating the Challenges of Third-Party Platforms

Businesses are often tempted by the broad reach of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. However, relying heavily on these platforms can lead to instability due to several inherent risks:

Changing algorithms: Without warning, an algorithm update can significantly diminish your content's visibility, undermining your engagement and reach.
Policy shifts: Platforms frequently adjust their policies, potentially restricting the types of content you can share or the ways you can engage with your audience.
Limited data access: Third-party platforms generally provide less access to crucial audience data, hindering your ability to tailor and refine your marketing strategies.

These challenges are compounded by recent legislative developments that threaten to reshape the digital marketing even further, such as the potential TikTok ban in the U.S. and Canada's Bill C-18.

Legislative Changes Impacting Social Media Strategy

U.S. Legislation on TikTok

The U.S. government has been considering legislation that could lead to a ban on TikTok. This action stems from concerns over data privacy, national security, and the extensive influence of platforms owned by foreign entities. For businesses, a ban on TikTok could disrupt established marketing strategies, particularly those targeting younger demographics who are prolific users of the platform. The potential ban highlights the precarious nature of relying too heavily on any single third-party platform for customer engagement.

Canada's Bill C-18

In Canada, Bill C-18, also known as the Online News Act, aims to require major digital platforms like Google and Facebook to compensate Canadian news publishers for using their content. This legislation has lead to significant changes in how content is distributed and monetized on these platforms. For instance, in response to this bill, Meta has blocked Canadian news content on its platforms rather than comply. Such a move has drastically affect the visibility and reach of content for many Canadian businesses and publishers.

The Bias Towards Paid Content and Its Business Impact

Platforms like Facebook and Instagram have increasingly engineered their algorithms to prioritize paid content over organic posts. This shift fundamentally changes how content reaches users and who gets to see it. For smaller businesses, this creates a formidable barrier as they are often outmatched financially by larger corporations with more substantial marketing budgets. This discrepancy creates an uneven playing field where money, rather than quality of content or customer engagement, drives visibility.

For small businesses, this bias towards paid content means that they must often invest disproportionately in ads to achieve comparable reach and visibility, diverting resources that could otherwise be used for product development or customer service. This reliance on paid advertising not only increases their marketing expenses but also makes their traffic acquisition less predictable and more volatile.

Free Speech Concerns on Social Media Platforms

Instagram has repeatedly faced accusations of "shadow banning," where users report a mysterious drop in their content's visibility without any formal notification. This term encapsulates suspicions that the platform's algorithms or moderation practices might subtly suppress certain content, impacting creators, influencers, and businesses dependent on the platform for visibility and engagement. Although Instagram denies deliberately shadow banning, the lack of transparency in how these changes occur leads to speculation and dissatisfaction among its users.

Critics contend that these moderation tactics could indirectly censor free speech, as they may affect how and what content is visible on the platform, potentially sidelining critical or unconventional voices. This ongoing issue highlights the significant influence social media giants hold over public discourse and underscores the need for clearer guidelines and more transparent operations to build a trustworthy environment for all users.

Centralized Control and Its Risks

Elon Musk's acquisition of X (formerly Twitter) has led to significant changes in content moderation and sparked controversy. His decisions to reinstate banned accounts and suspend critics have raised concerns about bias, inconsistent enforcement, and the platform's commitment to balanced moderation. These actions have fueled debate about the potential risks of concentrated power in social media and the need for transparency in decision-making.

The situation at X highlights the ongoing challenges surrounding free speech, responsible platform management, and the impact of centralized control on online discourse. The long-term consequences of Musk's leadership remain uncertain, but the current landscape underscores the complex interplay between free expression and the need for policies that protect users and foster healthy public conversation.

Embracing the Stability of Email Marketing

Given these uncertainties with third-party platforms, email marketing offers a far more reliable alternative. Email allows direct communication with your audience & customers, enabling personalized interactions that build trust and loyalty. Email marketing continues to hold a pivotal role in digital marketing strategies for these reasons:

Control and Ownership

With email marketing, the data belongs to the business, not to an external platform. This ownership means that businesses can decide when to send emails, who receives them, and how they are structured, without interference from external algorithms or policies. This control extends to data management, allowing businesses to maintain and utilize comprehensive customer data without constraints imposed by third-party platforms.

Targeted Personalization

One of the strongest features of email marketing is the ability to segment audiences based on detailed criteria such as past purchases, site activity, or demographic information. This segmentation allows for highly personalized communication strategies. For example, businesses can send customized offers, content, and product recommendations tailored to individual preferences and behaviors, significantly enhancing the relevance of their messages and boosting user engagement.

Predictable Reach

Unlike social media, where algorithms can unpredictably affect the visibility of content, email marketing provides a stable and reliable method of communication. When you send an email, it lands directly in the recipient’s inbox. This direct delivery ensures that marketing messages are seen by the audience exactly as intended, without the risk of being filtered out or lost in a crowded social feed.

Cost-Effectiveness

Email marketing is known for its high ROI. It generally requires lower operational costs compared to other marketing channels like paid advertising or high-cost social media campaigns. The direct nature of email also cuts down on the need for intermediaries, allowing businesses to invest more in content quality and customer relationship initiatives.

Higher Engagement Rates

Emails can be designed to include links to content like polls, videos that engage customers more deeply than a typical social media post. By engaging customers directly, and measuring engagement through UTM tags in links, businesses can encourage more profound interaction, whether it's directing them to a website, inviting feedback, or promoting sales.

Measurable Impact

The effectiveness of email marketing can be directly measured through metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and revenue generated per email. This measurability allows marketers to fine-tune their strategies based on concrete data, optimizing campaigns in real-time to achieve the best results.

Long-term Relationships

Email marketing facilitates the development of long-term relationships with customers by providing regular updates, valuable insights, and hyper-personalized offers that cater to the needs of the individual. This ongoing engagement helps build brand loyalty and customer retention, key factors in business growth and sustainability.

Securing Your Digital Marketing Future

The ongoing changes in the regulatory and technological landscape underscore the importance of having a diversified marketing strategy that includes robust, owned communication channels like email. As platforms like TikTok face potential bans and as regulations like Canada's Bill C-18 introduce more variables into content publishing, email remains a powerful tool, ensuring direct and uninterrupted access to your audience.

For business leaders, enhancing your email marketing efforts is not just a tactical choice—it is essential for maintaining control in an unpredictable environment. Is it time for your organization to prioritize email marketing to secure and personalize customer relationships?

Want to know how to transition your social followers to email subscribers?

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Mohamed Hamad

Mohamed Hamad is the founder of Third Wunder, a Montreal-based digital marketing agency, with 15 years of experience in web development, digital marketing, and entrepreneurship. Through his blog, The Scratchpad, he shares insights on digital marketing and design trends, and the lessons learned from his entrepreneurial journey, aiming to inspire and educate fellow professionals and enthusiasts alike.

Beyond the Algorithm: Why Email is STILL the King of Customer Relations