By Henry Hyder-Smith

Clearly the likes of Facebook and Twitter weren’t a consideration as a channel five years ago. Now we see a process of acceptance and gradual integration with existing marketing techniques. But in its fifth year, the Adestra and Econsultancy Email Marketing Census shows there’s a long way to go.

Today, most marketers don’t integrate social media and email (57%), while 45% see them as entirely separate channels. Furthermore 52% don’t see social media as a channel for getting new email subscribers; and conversely, only 84% don’t see social media as a source of new email subscribers. However, the two channels work very well alongside each other, encouraging interaction back and forth. In fact, using social media is an excellent opportunity to grow your database with interested/opt-in contacts for future email activity.

Email and social media create a synergy, proven to make the ultimate response rates even more powerful. Far from killing email, social media provides new opportunities to create data lists and develop relevant content. However it’s important to get measurement in place early.

Email marketing has been through a transition over the last 5 years, adapting to the advent of social media and maturing to be a key channel in marketers’ activity.

When asked if they are measuring the impact of email on social media activity, 72% of marketers answered no. As this is a growing channel, marketers need to get at least basic measurement in place sooner rather than later.

Integrating social media with email processes is clearly a priority for marketers over the coming year: 23% of companies and 30% of agencies will be focusing on this. So, we will be monitoring this next year to see improvements.

Disconnected systems

The majority of companies find the main barrier to email integration with other business functions is still disconnected systems (53%). Having disconnected systems is even more of a stumbling block than it was 5 years ago – while the other challenges are being overcome. Since 2007, all barriers have reduced (lack of budget, lack of training, organisation culture etc.) except disconnected systems which has gone up 6%.

The danger is that when a new channel is added, such as social media, this becomes another disconnected system – so will become a bigger barrier in future. The best advice is to act now and start linking them all together for a true one-customer view.

Overall, the message is clear – while some aspects of email marketing are improving, others aren’t - marketers need to adopt a ‘back to basics’ approach. Integrating email with social media is an important area, and taking a broader integrated approach across the business will pay dividends in the long term.

About the author and Adestra

By Henry Hyder-Smith is Managing Director at Adestra. Founded in 2004, Adestra set out to be the most respected Email Service Provider. Today, Adestra is a market leader, with offices in Oxford, London and New York. Over 300 organisations globally and more than 4,500 marketers across most sectors, work with our technology, people and deliverability solutions to generate effective email marketing that deliver results. >p>To request a copy of the Adestra and Econsultancy Email Marketing Census 2011 click here: http://www.adestra.com/emailcensus.