SmartPulse — our weekly reader poll in Smartbrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social media practices and issues. Paul Chaney, Internet marketing director for Bizzuka and member of the SmartBrief on Social Media Advisory Board, helps create the questions and analyzes the results. We run the poll question each Wednesday in our e-newsletter and feature Paul’s analysis on this blog.
Last week’s poll question: Which form of online marketing do you use most often?
- E-mail marketing, 40%
- Content marketing (articles, blog posts, etc.), 16%
- Social-media marketing, 15%
- Search-engine optimization, 10%
- Online advertising (banner ads), 8%
- Pay-per-click advertising (Google AdWords), 6%
- Don’t use online marketing, 5%
“As much as I now focus on social media marketing, e-mail holds a warm place in my heart as a marketing tool. More money is spent on e-mail marketing than any other form — because it works.
One result does concern me — the low percentage of those using search-engine optimization. Historically, SEO has been second only to e-mail as the most popular form of online marketing. I’m curious why our readers aren’t using it with greater frequency. One explanation might be the stronger prevalence of content marketing which, of course, offers SEO benefits.” –Paul Chaney