We love challenging Conventional Wisdom. For many years, Email Marketing was the hottest thing. Then of course, Social Media came along and Email Marketing became very passé, and cried itself to sleep, every night, for many nights.

And we can understand why! Our inboxes are bursting at the seams, we don’t have time, it’s not interactive, yada yada yada. And we agree! However, email marketing – now more than ever – has reason to wipe off the tears and soldier on!

Think about your email marketing not as a full story you’re giving your customer, but rather a quick tease to get them to go somewhere else. Where else? Depends on your business – if you’re a restaurant, the new spring menu. If you’re a store, your Facebook page to comment on that pictures you took at Fashion Week.

It’s easy to fall in the trap of thinking it’s either Email Marketing (bad) or Social Media (good). It’s not! Use both, my friends.

Email Marketing companies (including our favorite, which we use – MailChimp) have wised up to this fact, and are including more and more Social features. For example:

• Social Media Sign-Up Forms
• Auto-tweeting or Posting to Facebook of your email
• Ability to quickly and easily share the content of an email

And more. For a really interesting article on both how and how well Small to Mid-Sized Businesses are using Email Marketing, see this article, from one of our favorite sites, Marketing Profs.

Oh, and while you’re at it – we practice what we preach. Sign up for our weekly email newsletter here.

Happy reading, and happy sending -