A door without a frame can’t stand. A computer without a power cord is an expensive paperweight. A brand without a platform is a sailboat without a mast. And a platform without email is dead in the water.
In modern society, social media gets the glory, but email does the heavy lifting.
The Foundation of Technological Society
Social media is ubiquitous. When most people reach for their phone or open their laptop, odds are one of their first destinations is an app like Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. You likely don’t need stats to agree with this, but we’ve got a few for you anyway.
Roughly 45% of the world’s population uses social media—about four billion people.
The average time spent on social media platforms is 2 hours and 23 minutes per day.
Of these users, 60% claim to be “constantly connected” to their social networks.
Clearly, social media is the bustling center of our connected age. And yet, when you go to sign in to a new or existing social media account, what’s the first thing the platform asks you for? Your email address.
Email isn’t new or glamorous, but it has transformed the way families and friends communicate and how businesses operate. Our connected, technological society runs on email.
The Cornerstone of Your Platform
Have you ever tried to have a conversation with one hundred people at once? How about a thousand, or one hundred thousand people? We aren’t talking about a lecture, but an actual conversation.
This is entirely impossible—except that with email, companies do it every single day.
With email, your brand can carefully craft a message and then uniquely send it to every single person on your email list. Customers can then reply or interact with that email. Over time, your name and tone of voice will become familiar. You will develop a relationship. And this relationship becomes the cornerstone of your online platform.
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Want to give Platform University (your one-stop shop for building an online audience) a spin? Get your first week of Platform University for just $1. Cancel anytime. Try Platform University for Just $1Email needs to be the cornerstone of your online platform for more reasons than we could possibly cover in this post. Here are five of our favorites reasons why email is the top priority of any online platform.
- Email makes you human. Unlike the constant stream that is social media, email allows you to choose your timing and personalize your messages so that customers feel like you are talking directly to them.
- Email makes money. According to Constant Contact, every $1 you spend on email marketing has an average return of $38. An effective email strategy is essentially a license to print money.
- Email scales with your brand. Whether your email list has 100 subscribers or 100,000, email provides the same consistent, personalized customer experience.
- Email rewards the loyal. If you keep your email content high quality and your offers valuable, customers will actively look forward to hearing from you.
- Email is mobile. We already know that people spend a lot of time on social media every day, but the email app is statistically the most popular app on any smartphone platform.
We could go on, but the takeaway is clear: customers read and respond to email. As you build your online platform, there is simply no other communication tool that matters more.
