Are you too busy working social media to bother with an email newsletter? You could be missing out on more than you realise.

Lately I’ve realised that most of the newsletters I find in my inbox are from bigger businesses. Those from small business (and the newsletters I most enjoy reading) seem to have disappeared. I can count my own newsletter in that statistic, too. The Clever Streak newsletters have been few and far between lately, and I hang my head in shame.

So what’s stopping the newsletters?

In general it seems to be that we’re all devoting so much time to social media that we run out of time for anything else. Yet isn’t the point of social media to bring people back to our websites where we can blind them with our brilliance (cough) and encourage them to join our databases? Why bother if we’re not going to do anything with them?

Social media is for sharing our content with the hope of starting a relationship. The newsletter is supposed to be our way of building up the relationship. If we’re not writing and sending out newsletters, we’re missing that vital step.

Social media can’t compete on click throughs.

I did some research into the statistics on social media vs newsletters this week and this is what I found.

Reach:  Facebook’s reach is down so businesses are being seen very few of the people who like their page. Although not everyone will read your newsletter, at least it lands directly in their inboxes and sits there under their noses.

Clicks: According to TechCrunch, Facebook pages receive 0.00093 clicks per fan, or roughly 1 click per 1000 fans. What about newsletters? Well, MailChimp puts the average open rate at anything from 15% up depending on your industry. That puts the Facebook stats to shame.

Users: Even today, more people use email than they do social media.  In fact, a recent study shows that 85% of people who are online will use email but only 62% use social media.[bctt tweet=”Why write a newsletter? Studies show that 85% of people use email but only 62% use social media. “]

Sales:  Facebook is supposed to be introducing a Buy button which might make a difference, but a report on Wired shows that email is crushing it when it comes to making sales

Dust off your email newsletter writing skills.

Your newsletter opens a direct line of communication between you and the people in your database. It’s a slower but much deeper way to get to know the people you hope to serve, and that’s how they will eventually become your customers, not just names on your list. That’s really why the email newsletter is important.

With all the data pushing us towards the good, old-fashioned but reliable email newsletter, it’s time we all got back into the swing of newsletter writing – me included.

Keep your eyes open for the next Clever Streak newsletter coming to your inbox soon.

When can I expect to see yours?