Despite what you may have heard, email marketing is not dead, nor is it on life support. In fact, it continues to live on well executed strategies concocted by the biggest to the smaller players in the marketing realm. Among the many reasons email has been able to stick around is its diversity and ability to support other online marketing channels. Social media happens to one it accommodates almost perfectly.
If you’re not combining social media marketing with your email marketing campaigns, then you’re not taking full advantage of the opportunities technology as served up on a plate. The following strategies will explain how you can make them both work together for the greater good of your overall online marketing efforts.
Promote Sharing
These days, it is pretty easy to place a few social sharing buttons in your email campaigns and call it a day. While this is a nice luxury to have, it takes a little more to get results. So instead of just providing a convenient way for subscribers to share your content in their social circles, go that extra mile and let them know what you want. Some things are self explanatory, but it never hurts to get specific with a note that asks readers to pass your message along to friends on Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites.
Recycle Good Content
Do you have content from an old newsletter or holiday email campaign just lying around? If so, that material can be recycled and shared with the fans in your social channels. Remember, good content never goes out of style. It has a shelf life of “forever” so if it is truly valuable, then it can be used again and again. Even if you have to perform a few tweaks to freshen things up, never underestimate the power of solid evergreen content.
Make It Worth It
Why should your subscribers want to connect with you on a social network when they already hear from you via email? It could be obvious to you, but this may be a legitimate question subscribers want answered. Make sure you’re ready for it by giving them a reason to make that crucial connection. Whether it’s content that you share on Facebook that doesn’t get passed around to your email subscribers or vice versa, try to deliver some unique benefits that make it worth their while.
Keep Your Message Consistent
When it comes to integrating email and social media, conducting cross-channel promotions between the two should be a no-brainer. This basically means you are doing things like sharing content posted in your social channels with your email subscribers, providing a convenient way for your followers to subscribe to your email content, and so forth. However, your message must maintain a certain degree of consistency. In short, you want to make sure you keep the same tone and identity from the inbox to the Facebook page.
Stay Relevant
You’ve probably heard the saying that content is king on many occasions. If content is truly king, then relevant content must be the almighty emperor that can’t be beat. The information you share could have all the value in the world, but if it does not match up with your audience is looking for, then it will fall on deaf ears. Don’t let social integration trap you into the world of meaningless updates and gimmicks. Stay true to your brand by delivering content your audience members can put to good use.
Don’t Forget to Measure
No integration plan is complete without a way to measure your influence and success. Luckily for you, email marketing is incredibly easy to track and social media is getting to that point. While using the tools your ESP supplies for keeping up with opens, clicks, unsubscribes, and the like, reach for Analytics that let you track social activity as well. Be it directly or via third parties, most social sites offer some kind of way to measure your impact.
Social media is here to stay, and since an email address is needed for everything from online banking to the accounts require to use a site like Facebook, it is probably safe to assume that email isn’t going anywhere, either. If you’re a marketer, why not bring them together to strengthen your existing position? Both are plenty powerful on their own but as a team, they are darn near unstoppable.
Using email and social media together? Feel free to share a few integration strategies in a comment.