Why B2B Email Marketing is a Clear Winner Against Social Media?

Who Is Your Target Audience?

Let's be honest, this is the most important question you need to ask even before thinking of the digital platform. While you can try and market a product to everyone, consumers have different needs and preferences. What appeals to one group of consumers may not appeal to another group.

For example, let’s say you deal with athletic products and services. The majority of your audience is women, say 60%. Now, will you send the same message to this segment as you’d do the male segment? STRONGLY NO.

To cater to that group, you’ll implement messaging around female athlete endorsements, inclusive models, and holistic health in your ads. At the same time, you’ll send men-oriented advertisements to the male segment.

Without a doubt, Understanding your target audience is essential to successful digital marketing.

For What Purpose Do You Use Social Media?

Let’s understand it from a user perspective-

Are users using Social Media to view and purchase your products?

The answer is STRONGLY NO.

Consider yourself when justifying this. What is your social media strategy? Are you there to look at the commercials and items to buy or to entertain yourself?

We are confident that it is the second. You will enjoy meeting new people and spending time watching reels, shorts, etc. On the other side, will you not be angry if you come across a brand that forces you to buy its products and advertisements? The reason is simple: in marketing, there are two key elements.

• Be where your consumers are.
• Pitch your product based on consumer behavior.

These two elements need to go with each other. However, it is quite difficult to link them with one another.

So, What Should Be The Strategy?

Social media attracts a more diverse and broad audience, including both consumers and businesses. It makes it a bit trickier to tailor messages specifically to B2B audiences, but great for brand awareness and brand loyalty. On the other hand, when it comes to B2B email marketing, we’re talking about engaging with professionals, decision-makers, and stakeholders within businesses.

So, what are we trying to say?

The point we’re trying to make here is that you need to know what you want to achieve through a particular medium. Let us be honest: it cannot be the same. To determine the purpose, you must first answer the second question, which is about consumer behavior.

Is there a definitive solution to the question of which is better for B2B marketing: email marketing or social media marketing?

Yes. If we’re specifically talking about B2B marketing for conversion and sales, hands down, email marketing has no competition. We have already witnessed over the years the incredible power of Email in building B2B relationships, nurturing leads, and ultimately bringin in more business. It would not be wrong to say social media is more suited for B2C marketing.

Why Email Marketing Is Better Than Social Media For B2B Marketing – The Reasons

Today's marketers must accomplish more with less. They must interact with their audience in a very individualized manner while staying under budget.

Marketers who can engage with their prospects and consumers in a highly targeted manner will be successful in returning ROI and income to the firm. Email marketing is the most enduring marketing category. While some marketing trends come and go, Email is still the most effective channel available to modern marketers.

We have listed out some reasons why Email is a better choice for B2B marketing:

B2B marketers prefer email marketing

According to one of CMI's research, 93% of marketers still use email marketing for successful branding and promotions. Additionally, 87 percent of businesses use email marketing to generate leads. With statistics like a 40:1 ROI, we know Email is important to sales. But it is more than that. Email can build relationships and provide the quality interactions and insights that lead to partnerships.

This makes it a great channel to maximize the effectiveness of your communications in several areas throughout the customer journey. Done right, subscribers can become leads, leads can be qualified, and eventually that can help you win a client and a lasting partnership.

Email delivers personalized messages

Everyone knows that Email lets you send personalized messages, but only a few know about the accuracy.

So here’s the scoop. When you send an email, about 90% of the time, it lands right in your subscriber’s inbox. But with social media, only a small 2% of your total followers see your post in their news feed.

Think about it this way. If you’ve got 10000 Facebook followers, only around 200 of them are able to catch a glimpse of your newest advertisement, unless you’re boosting the post. Compare that to sending an email to 10000 subscribers, where at least 9000 of them would actually see a new email notification in their notification bar or inbox.

In simple words, your message is a whopping 45 times more likely to be seen through email than on Facebook. That’s some serious visibility right there!

B2B marketers want conversions, and Email is the Picasso of it

Whether it’s leads, sales, memberships, or whatever metric floats your boat, the end game for marketers is to turn those potential customers into paying ones.

And guess what? Email is at the top of the ladder.

Consider this. The average click-through rate for an email campaign is around 3% of all the prospects you send it to. Now, compare that to the average click-through rate from ‘X,’ which hovers around a measly 0.5%. It is 6 times more likely to get people to click through from an email than from a social media ad.

Additionally, according to a survey by Moentate, around 4.2% of visitors from email marketing end up making a purchase. Compared to just 2.49% from search engines and 0.59% from social media, Email is the obvious choice for B2B marketers who want conversions.

Less cost and more profit

Email marketing offers significant cost-effectiveness and potential ROI compared to social media advertising. With minimal overhead costs and the ability to reach a highly targeted audience, email marketing allows B2B marketers to spend their marketing budget elsewhere for impressive results. Plus, the ability to track key metrics in real time means businesses can continuously optimize their campaign for maximum impact. Unlike social networks, where you blast status updates to everyone, regardless of their location, purchasing behavior, and intent, Email lets you get super specific with whom you’re talking. This ultimately affects click-through rate and sales numbers as you see it climbing higher and higher.

Email changing the game with Automation

One of the most useful features of B2B email marketing is the power of automation. With email automation tools and workflows, B2B marketers have been able to streamline their marketing processes, deliver timely and relevant content, and nurture leads through the sales pipeline with minimal manual intervention. From welcome series to drip campaigns, automation allows users to engage with prospects and clients at every stage of their journey.

Consider this: Automated emails achieved 84% higher open rates, 341% higher click rates, and a staggering 2,270% increase in conversion rates. As a marketer focused on lead nurturing and driving conversions - email marketing trumps all other communication channels for business.

More importantly, Email is not owned by third-party entities

The downside of social media is that they’re under the control of third-party companies. Recently, Facebook updated its algorithm where users see fewer brand advertisements, unless they’re paid. Similarly, Twitter became ‘X’ with significant changes to its policies. As marketers, you’re basically at the mercy of the platform.

That’s why B2B marketers prefer Email. It is an open platform. It is not owned or controlled by any single entity. There’s a whole bunch of email services out there, but not a single party has the power to make sweeping changes that affect everyone. So, when you invest your time and money into building an awesome email list, you’re building an asset that you actually own.

Use of market insights

Last but not least, email marketing lets you leverage data-driven insights. It helps you analyze key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and more. This enables marketers to gain valuable insights into subscriber behavior and preferences, which help them refine their messaging, segment subscribers more effectively, and deliver content that resonates more deeply.

Final Thoughts

Don’t get us wrong- social media has its place in the marketing mix. But when it comes to B2B marketing, it comes with its own set of challenges. The broad and diverse nature of social media demographics can make it tough to effectively target and engage with B2B audience. Plus, the constant stream of content can make it easy for your messages to get lost in the noise.

In conclusion, B2B email marketing is hands down the clear winner when it comes to connecting with your audience, driving results, and achieving your marketing objectives. From precision targeting and personalization to cost-effectiveness, greater reach, and higher sales, email marketing offers significant advantages that simply can't be matched by social media alone.