http://www.facebook.com/tridenceA new report from Monetate, an e-commerce software firm, has found that email marketing is still driving more overall sales than social media efforts.

Some of the key findings:

• 2.49% of visitors from search engines buy something

• 4.25% of visitors from email buy something

• 0.59% percent of visitors from social media sites buy something

That’s a big difference, but there's no need to start grappling your forehead and deleting Facebook Pages left and right. It’s important to keep in mind that all of these channels work together, not against each other.

Social media sites, in general, are a far more casual environment that can help build brand awareness, provide bite-size bits of industry information, and create communities among your customers.

That said, email has the advantage of directly reaching a single person. Not only that, you can use analytics to see what that person clicks and opens, which are statistics you can use to segment your list and direct different customers to personalized destinations.

Author: Blaise Lucey