Email Marketing vs. Facebook Marketing

Internet Marketing Strategies, particularly Email Marketing, have seen an overhaul of sorts this past year.

Rising standards in Anti-Spam Compliance Regulations have forced most email service providers like Aweber, MailChimp and iContact to reevaluate their levels of “leniency” towards unsubscribe rates and spam complaints, and enforce stricter monitoring processes for all email communication, making it all the more difficult for bulk email account holders who regularly send emails to their email lists to avoid unprovoked suspension of their accounts, as email messages find it much harder now to steer clear of being marked as SPAM, even if they aren’t spam emails.

Ofcourse this is great news for email recipients who are praising their email service providers for their valiant efforts at battling spam, but it’s really bad news for Internet Marketers who rely on email marketing as one of the primary sources of revenue that fuel their online businesses.

Spam filters have matured to an extent these days that any emails containing “commercial” intonations at all are treated with more scrutiny than others, and its only when you’ve actually added the sender to your Address Book that there’s any chance of guarantee delivery for the sender.

More Internet Marketers everyday are moving to Facebook Messages as a means to aid their email marketing efforts.

Facebook Friends, Groups and Fanpages are remarkably effective for commercial communications and the Open Rates for Facebook Messages, Wall Posts and Notifications kick email marketing open rates in the nuts any day

Too many people ignore this, but when you add a friend on Facebook, you have the option to add the person to a “List” that you can create on the spot by clicking “Add To List”. This is EXTREMELY POWERFUL as Facebook allows you to send a message to entire lists!

In my opinion, there is no difference between having 5000 people on an email list or 5000 friends on Facebook anymore; they are both lists that get emails straight to their inbox, the former directly from you, and the latter directly from you but delivered through Facebook instead.

Results from tests I’ve conducted over the past few months have shown me 450% Higher Open Rates when i’ve used Facebook Messages to communicate with people who are also on my email list..

How amazing is that? 450% for me was absolutely crazy, I wanted to ditch email marketing forever, seriously

You might ask, “But how do I monitor open rates in Facebook Messages like I can in email marketing services like Aweber?”

Simple, but it needs just a little bit of work (only 2 steps) and here’s how I do it (the same way that Aweber, MailChimp and iContact do it btw..;)):

1. Every message I send has an image itself or a URL with an image source at the end, so that when someone opens my facebook message, the image is displayed.

2. The number of times that image is requested from the server where it’s hosted, is the number of “views” your facebook message has received. So whenever someone opens my message, I don’t need to go anywhere but to my server logs (e.g. cPanel Traffic Stats) to see how many views came for the image being viewed after I sent the message, and that number of views (though not unique) is a very good estimate of how many times the message was opened.

That’s it

People who are your friends on facebook are ten times more likely to open your messages because they have added/accepted you as their friend, way more effective than double-optin emails any day.

Half the people who opt in to a new program on a site create or use dummy email accounts made specifically for that purpose, to test out the offer and not receive potential spam to their real email addresses in future. BUT facebook messages are delivered to peoples’ PRIMARY email addresses because almost everyone waits for follow-up comments or wall posts or messages on Facebook, so the email they provide to Facebook is almost always the one that they access VERY regularly.

There is no point in having a non-responsive email list of 5000 people, half of whom have dummy email addresses on there that they aren’t even accessing after first use, when you can easily have 5000 Facebook Friends, and 5000 or more Group Members or Fans who have PRIMARY email addresses stored with Facebook and receive email on regularly.

So think about email marketing again, long and hard.

Q. Which is performing better, Facebook or Email Marketing?

A. Quite clearly Facebook.

Q. Have times changed and should we as marketers be embracing what “works now” over what “has been in use since Adam & Eve”?

A. Yes.

Q. Have they changed enough to move altogether from email marketing to Facebook Marketing?

A. Only time will tell.

What do you think?

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About The Author:

Ali K. spearheads The SEPCON Project, a 100% Free Email Advisory with a mission to educate anyone and everyone interested in home based internet marketing in the art of Explosive Internet Marketing for Profit and Success. The SEPCON Project provides Cutting-Edge Software, Courses, Videos, Audios, PLR Re-Brandable Products, eBooks and tons more. Anyone can Subscribe to the Program for FREE (no gimmicks) at The SEPCON Project

Ali is also an Affiliate Marketer, Product Creation & Launch Consultant, Copywriter, and one of the most Highly Recognized Programmers in the Home Based Internet Marketing world, the Lead Technologist behind the Blockbuster Launch of The Internet Time Machine, and Search Engine NowRelevant.com, and mentioned in several International News Publications such as Forbes, The Chicago Tribune, NY Times, LA Times, and Reuters, to name a few, for his work.