Email marketing may seem like a relatively old fashioned method of marketing compared to some of the newer ones nowadays, however it still has a lot of potential to reach its effectiveness. Email marketing is bread and butter marketing, it allows you to contact consumers in one of the most omnipresent ways to communicate online. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is a social media platform that can be used to build brand awareness and relationships with consumers. By posting engaging content and participating in industry discussions, businesses using LinkedIn can market to potential customers and partners. In this article we are going to highlight some of the differences and advantages of both LinkedIn and email marketing.

Automated processes allow you to send an email to thousands of people at once with the click of a button. One of the most powerful tools in the email arsenal is segmentation. With targeted automation, emails can be tailored to pretty much anything from specific demographics to where your prospect sits in the sales funnel. What’s more, you’re not blindly sending emails out into the wilderness of the internet. You can track open and reply rates, send at a time when your recipient is more likely to open and reply, track attached documents and a whole lot more.The biggest downside of email outreach can be summed up in one word: Spam. There is no `face’ behind cold emails. They’re impersonal. Even when your email makes it past the spam filter, most cold emails are deleted without being opened.

In this sense, LinkedIn Marketing can be considered a lot more effective. Within minutes you can generate leads while simultaneously consulting metrics which help you scale your approach to leads you missed the first time around. LinkedIn enables a  warmer, more natural approach. LinkedIn’s users in particular are open to connecting with new people and businesses. You’re welcome to approach them and in fact, they expect it. That’s why they have an account. It is also on a more personal level as you can see an image of the person that is trying to connect with you and can also see a little bit about their personal background making it more likely for the consumer to engage with what you are pitching. 

The question that hinders email automation marketing is the amount of time invested. Sales reps spend many hours managing inboxes when those hours would be better spent meeting customers and doing what sales teams do best. This is why we are here to help with your LinkedIn outreach. Here at StraightIn, we are able to send connections to your tailored target market where, through the power of personal messaging, we are able to organise a face to face sales call to try and seal the deal. This increases your chance of building a relationship with a client, as chatting to them through the camera puts them at ease, meaning they will be more likely to go ahead with a deal as they can listen to your pitch. Comparatively, with email there is a high possibility that it may be deleted and not even read.

So, does this mean that LinkedIn is the better option? Let’s take a look.

LinkedIn stats paint a bright picture. According to the LinkedIn website, it has nearly 740 million members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. In other words, you stand a good chance of getting noticed by the right people. There’s no sign that its popularity is waning. It also offers the advantage of speed. Unlike email, where sales teams spend time sourcing email addresses, LinkedIn is instantaneous. You simply find a prospect, connect and immediately send a message.

The Bigger Picture

In the end, the best way to connect and spread your company’s message is to use a combination of email and LinkedIn. This multi-platform approach will give you the best chance of success.

Reaching out to people on LinkedIn and building a relationship with clients is always more beneficial to initiate a deal. Then, once you are working with them, using email marketing in the form of a newsletter or market research on how you could improve your service will help create client retention and customer satisfaction, giving you a competitive advantage. Vice a versa, when an initial email is followed up with a LinkedIn message, the recipient is more likely to take notice. You’ve used foresight, initiative and research. It demonstrates that your email wasn’t spammy, it was personal.

LinkedIn doesn’t spell the end for email campaigns. When correctly executed, email can deliver great results. By ‘correctly executed’, we mean that 4 key elements of your outbound campaign need to be in place:

  • Targeting
  • Data quality
  • Email copy
  • Deliverability

These 4 elements aren’t as easy to execute as they look. Most companies concentrate on one or two of them, but few have the time or resources to commit to all four. Still fewer have the necessary expertise available for a coordinated multi-platform approach.