According to a study that was concluded at the end of 2009 using the data collected from StrongMail and ShareThis:
• STRONGMAIL
StrongMail revealed that nearly 86% of its sharing activity was done via e-mail, with Facebook only being used about 6% of the time and Twitter getting a mere 4%. What’s interesting though is that while Twitter got the most clicks on its shared information and e-mail recommendations got the lowest number of clicks – the conversion ratio was switched. Content shared with friends via e-mail was the MOST likely to lead to an actual purchase, sign-up or other type of conversion. What do you think about that?
• SHARETHIS
A similar study was conducted using the data from the ShareThis network, which concluded at the end of Q3 in 2009, revealing that e-mail was their top channel used to distribute content to friends, approximately 46.4% of the share, with about a third of shares utilizing Facebook and under 6% using Twitter. Once again ShareThis discovered that Twitter had the highest click-through rate, and e-mail links were clicked much less frequently. And, once again, those e-mail clicks led to sales at a much higher ratio and also led to more page views per click, whereas the Twitter clicks led to a lower conversion ratio and a lower number of page views per click.
Perhaps the most interesting information to come from these studies is that they both contrasted greatly with many published claims during 2009 that showed Facebook as having the largest portion of content-sharing activity. This proves that e-marketers need to stay on top of the very latest trends and apply that knowledge to their marketing campaigns and efforts. Of any other social marketing tool on the Internet, E-mail is still the most effective method for getting the word out and driving sales. If you are not taking advantage of this tool in your business marketing program – get busy today on a robust mail management strategy for 2011.