Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Which do you think is more effective?  And how would you split your time between both?

I have an opinion but want to see what other people think.  Thank you!

Favorite Books from Famous People

I would say their effectiveness is dependent on the audience, and each would usually need to be tested in order to establish the best solution.

I persoanlly vote against email marketing as its intrusive and so tends to have a much lower response rate than social marketing. However you would need to test twitter to ensure that it has the type of customer you are looking for, and that there's the potential to guide them and convert a sale.

Lisa:

Actually much of that relies on you and your approach. Take a moment and read this blog post and you'll see what I mean http://marketingcouch.com/about/you-had-me-at-hello/  There is another article on the home page of the site that talks about the use of auto-responders that I think you will find useful as well.

Duke

Duke Getzinger

Co-Founder/CMO

MileHighSwap.com

I'd say the same thing that effectiveness depends on the targeted audience.

Most of the people are against email marketing. But i will vote for email marketing. It can create wonders. The most important thing is building a email list of targeted audience. You can make use of any online directories to get a accurate and updated contact details.

What many people are saying is true; it all depends on your audience and approach. Here is my experience and opinions on both:

Twitter is great for keeping the public updated about your company. There are many people that use it and gives your company a youthful and "up to date kind of appearance. There are issues with Twitter however, it is basically a toy. It was never meant to be a marketing tool and probably will not have any appropriate accommodations in the future. Your clients must choose to follow you, you are not able to send any type of friend invite (at least not that I have found). There are many alternatives to Twitter out there which are better suited for promoting your company. That being said, you have to consider the type of business you are in. A law firm wouldn't do very well promoting themselves on MySpace, it isn't their cup of tea. A record label on the other hand would do perfectly.

Email marketing sometimes makes people cringe. No, not junk mail, take me off your list! It can be dangerous and sometimes drive clients away from your service or products. The best way to go about email marketing is to get your clients to sign up to a list so that you can confirm that it is alright to send them offers. An issue with email is that many of the emails will contain keywords that send your offers right to the junk folder. You would be best to consult an expert when it comes to designing and distributing them.

Once again it all depends on the approach you take and what your audience is. Even if your audience is 16-24 year olds you might not be the kind of company that should be using websites like Twitter and there aren't many 16-24 year olds that will willfully sign up to get email by a company they don't know. You would need some sort of landing page; a common way of getting addresses is setting up quizzes and then requiring the person to enter information at the end. This method is frowned upon and personally I don't recommend it but it does work.

I love to use Twitter and it is best.

I think both. Both are useful tools for you to maintain contact with your customers/clients.

I think twitter is a great tool for creating a buzz and developing relationships however as far as actual conversions from twitter? not that great.

People will purchase after they feel that value has been provided for them and that you have something extremely valuable to offer them. It's alot easier to create and provide value on a emailing list then on twitter.

I personally use Twitter to redirect people to my website. I feel that subscribers on my email list are much more serious then Twitter followers. Again it all depends how much value you are providing for the the people on your list.

I still dont understand the use of twitter. You acquire followers and you follow others...but whats the deal? You make updates and add url destinations. I guess in a way...bigger companies can prosper from this, but for the small mom and pop stores or new online businesses will have trouble utilizing twitters full potential. Thats just my take on it.

I have a twitter account. twiiter.com/wholesalelot

Add me! :) And I'll follow you!

I'm the same. I don't understand twitter and haven't tried it yet. Many people are telling me I should as my product and related topics I could post would caught attention with many twitter followers. But how long does it take to get that many followers to actually see the results?? And how do get followers?