Marketing Strategy: Are Facebook and Twitter Useless?

Jason Goldberg recently launched Fab.com and has some interesting feedback from the data that he has collected. He has been kind enough to provide total transparency during the website launch. The results are shocking and are provided with a graph that refutes what most small business owners think:

E-mail is responsible for 71.04% of revenue and 51.95% of the total website visits. While Facebook and Twitter only accounted for 5.61% of revenue and only 43,291 of the 267,131 (16.21%) total page views. The numbers don’t lie and lead to a strong indication that an effective e-mail marketing strategy still provides the most impact.

First time entrepreneurs load up on the concept of starting a Facebook and Twitter page as soon as possible. They spend most of their valuable time setting up the page, trying to get followers, and all of the other futile strategies for the social media websites.

I’m not blasting the companies who are established and have a strong Twitter and Facebook following. The startup businesses that believe with great confidence that time must be spent setting up social media networks are in need of a reality check.

Marketing using e-mail utilizes the permission asset of being able to connect with a potential customer effectively. The process of clicking a like button or following a business on their Twitter page is noncommittal. A customer can easily click the “unlike” or “unfollow” button without consequences.

Time is a valuable asset and people do not want to be burdened with unwanted spam. There is a risk for a future customer to enter their valuable e-mail address and trust the company that they will use their time wisely. If a prospective customer enters their e-mail address there is a strong indication that the customer is interested in the product or service. The procedure for opting out of an e-mail subscription takes a lot of time and is an inconvenience. Once a customer is dedicated to a business, they are more likely to buy the product or service. This type of connection increases the faith between businesses and customers and results in more sales.

Develop a strong e-mail list with actual paying customers and then set up a Facebook and Twitter page… if you still want too.