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In today's MediaPost Email Insider Column, I use the game of football to provide some insights into how email marketers can improve the success of their programs. I break it down into investing in the quarterback (you) and having a good offense (driving innovation) and defense (accessing quality data). Read the article for more information and to find out my favorite team.

According to the DMA's newly released Power of Direct Report, commercial email now returns $43.62 for every dollar spent on it in 2009. Granted that's down $1.31 from last year, but it's still double the ROI of search advertising, which is the next most effective channel with an ROI of $21.85 for every dollar spent.

The fact remains that email remains a powerful direct marketing channel that generates real results. Despite the Wall Street Journal's infamous proclamation of email's demise, consumers continue to embrace it to communicate with friends and businesses. In fact, when it comes to sharing marketing offers and overall communications with businesses, consumers overwhelming choose email over social media. A recent MarketingSherpa study showed that 78% of consumers share online information via email, versus 22% who prefer social media, and a Harris Interactive poll found that an even higher percentage of consumers choose email to communicate with marketers over social media.

These statistics point to the health of email, but they don't mean that social media isn't experiencing tremendous growth in adoption and utility. Instead of choosing one channel over the other, marketers should look at ways to use them together. There are already natural connections between the two. A recent Nielsen study found that the more people use social media, the more time they also spend with email. That's not too surprising when you consider that social networks rely on sending their members email to keep them updated of new content updates and other changes.

When it comes to social media marketing, StrongMail has also seen a big impact from integrating social media into existing referral campaigns. By making it easy for consumers to share referral rewards with their networks and then track the results of their efforts, these integrated campaigns have generated significantly higher results than relying on email alone. Using this approach, CSN Stores generated a 3X lift in performance over its previous email campaign.

The bottom line is that email remains an extremely prevalent and useful communication tool that is well suited for direct marketing; however, marketers would be remiss not to see how social media can help augment their existing email marketing campaigns. Remember, when it comes to choosing an effective direct marketing strategy, it doesn't have to be an either/or scenario. Leverage email and social media for both their intrinsic and combined strengths, and your bottom line will thank you.

StrongMail announced a new case study with CSN Stores this week that showcases an overhaul of their existing customer referral program. CSN Stores believed that its existing email-based referral program wasn't living up to its potential or making it easy enough for these customers to spread the word about CSN Stores. As a result, CSN Stores turned to StrongMail to create a new referral program that leveraged StrongMail Influencer and our strategic services team to spread the word about its CSN Rewards loyalty program and inspire people to shop with CSN.

Working with StrongMail, CSN Stores developed a StrongMail Influencer campaign that incentivized current Rewards members with a credit to their Rewards account for each friend that enrolled in the program and made a subsequent purchase. Additionally, referred friends were also rewarded with a credit for extending the offer to their networks. CSN Stores then launched the StrongMail Influencer campaign via email to its Reward members and also featured it in the weekly CSN Recommends email newsletter.

Read the Full Case Study >>

Not only did the StrongMail Influencer-powered referral campaign increase reward program sign-ups by a factor of three, it significantly expanded its reach beyond CSN's existing customer base. For every 1.8 customers from the initial mailing who shared the email, one new CSN Rewards account was created, and one in ten of those new members went on to complete a purchase.

This is a powerful example of what's possible when you leverage the natural synergies of email marketing and social media to acquire new customers. If your current referral campaigns aren't leveraging social media, you should consider refreshing them to boost program performance.