Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that use both email and social media marketing programs tend to achieve better results from their email campaigns, according to a report by VerticalResponse.

The new report compares the performance of email campaigns among clients of the VerticalResponse email platform with those conducted by clients of both the email platform and VerticalResponse's social media platform. All email campaigns were distributed via VerticalResponse.

On average, campaigns conducted by SMBs that use both social media marketing and email marketing generated 28% higher open rates than those conducted without the benefit of social marketing (i.e., SMBs using VerticalResponse email marketing only).

Music and consumer-electronics businesses achieved the best results via combined email and social marketing, recording open rates of 32.1% and 31.7%, respectively.


SMBs in the financial services, film, and graphic design industries generated open rates between 21% and 23%, on average, via the combination of email and social media marketing.

Which SMBs are taking advantage of the email-social marketing combination most? Among VerticalResponse clients, the industries with the highest adoption of both email and social marketing programs include: 

  1. Non-profits
  2. Real estate
  3. Marketing and advertising
  4. Internet
  5. Health and wellness
"This is really compelling evidence showing those who combine email marketing and social media obtain greater results from their campaigns, especially among small and mid-sized businesses that represent the majority of our customer base," said Janine Popick, VerticalResponse CEO. 

"The numbers clearly show that those who broadcast content across multiple online touch points are getting a lot more engagement than those who don't."

About the research: Email data in this report is based on campaign performance of VerticalResponse clients who use both the company's email marketing service and Roost by VerticalResponse. The analysis is based on a sample of 3,116 active VerticalResponse email marketing customers from campaigns conducted between January 2010 and January 2012.

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Social Marketing Boosts Email Campaign Performance

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