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 What's one of the best, most cost-effective ways to improve your email campaigns' reach, frequency and relevancy, increase conversions, improve customer satisfaction and grow your list? Believe it or not, it's social media. But how can busy marketers handle email marketing and take on the world of social media? It's easier than you think … and we'll show you the simple steps you need to take to make it happen.
In this article we'll discuss how social media and email marketing can work together to achieve greater results. But before we get too far into the conversation, let's define what we mean by the term "social media". According to Wikipedia, social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Stated another way, social media is a way in which like-minded individuals use technology to communicate, share information and ideas, and interact.
Marketers Say Social Media Extends the Reach of Email Content
Social media can enhance the value of your email marketing by expanding its reach well beyond the recipients on your opt-in list. According to MarketingSherpa’s most recent Email Marketing Benchmark Survey:
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81% of those marketers surveyed agree that social media extends the reach of email content to new markets
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53% said that social media increased the ROI of email programs
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47% say that social media accelerated the growth of email lists
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31% think social media generates more qualified leads
When you consider that social media marketing is still in its relative infancy, it's easy to see how much potential the future holds. The message to email marketers is this: the time to step foot into the social media environment is now. It's in the best interest of your brand and bottom line to begin leveraging this powerful medium - and there's no better way to get started with it than by leveraging the value of your existing email marketing efforts.
The Benefits of Aligning Email Marketing and Social Media
There's no shortage of benefits when it comes to integrating your social media and email marketing efforts. Let's take a look at some of the most important benefits:
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Increased reach and frequency: Combining social media marketing and social sharing with your existing email marketing can improve the reach and frequency of your efforts. How? By taking advantage of the enhanced connections that social media provides. When you hit the send button on your email campaign, you're sharing information only with your subscribers. But by using social media to support your email campaigns, you have the opportunity to expose recipients' friends and colleagues to your message as well.
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Low-cost list growth: If your subscribers' friends and colleagues like what they see, they may decide to join your list themselves. This sort of sharing is certainly a lot quicker and less expensive than purchasing a list or implementing other list-growing campaigns. And it has the added benefit of instant credibility, because someone who joins a list via a friend's recommendation is likely to trust your brand more than if they joined through a random advertisement. Considering that the average email list churn is 30% annually (i.e. your current list of 100,000 subscribers will lose approximately 30,000 recipients this year), it's easy to see just how important it is for marketers to take advantage of every list growing opportunity available.
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Deeper customer engagement: Want to know the secret to achieving higher email delivery rates, higher open and clickthrough rates, improved customer satisfaction and increased conversions? It's simple: get your customers deeply engaged. Social media encourages deeper engagement because your email messages that are forwarded, your Tweets that are retweeted, and your blog and Facebook postings that are reposted by a user are more likely to be read and believed by that person's friends and colleagues, resulting in more interaction with your brand. It also allows you to build your online brand and reputation by letting a bit of your corporate personality shine through and showing people behind the brand.
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Increased email message relevance: When you consider the fact that your email recipients are likely to share your message only with others who they know would be interested, it's easy to see how this kind of connection could increase overall relevance, engagement and conversions. Additionally, the feedback that you receive via social media can be used to refine and increase the relevance of future email messages. Insights gleaned from social media can provide you with cost effective consumer research.
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Two-way communications: Prior to Web 2.0, marketing was a one-way conversation: we as marketers would simply control our message. But with the advent of social media, this one-way conversation is quickly falling to the wayside as online tools and applications allow people to take part in conversations, with each other and with companies. These interactive tools encourage subscribers and customers to share their thoughts with you, and assuming you handle the conversation well, they will feel more engaged with your business.
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Works quickly and keeps working: Creating and deploying email marketing campaigns can be expensive and time consuming, and marketers must constantly be aware of subscribers' frequency preferences and what information they consider relevant. Social media helps expand the value of your email marketing well past the initial response that typically occurs within 72 hours of the email send - and it does so without risking message overload on your customers. Social media effectively allows you to continue customer acquisition between email deployments, keeping the conversation (and your message) alive and adding to the overall volume of activity and buzz around your message.
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Improved revenue and ROI: All of the aforementioned benefits point to the reality that social media can enhance the power of email marketing. As a result of improved reach and relevance, it logically follows that these combined efforts can effectively entice a higher volume of qualified leads into the sales pipeline, eventually leading to increased conversions and decreased time to conversion. After all, the more people you reach with a relevant message, the greater your pool of potential customers, and the greater your chances are for increased conversions and sales!
Implementing Social Media into Your Email Marketing Efforts
Let's explore some of the ways you can create email content that takes advantage of social media's powerful benefits:
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Build in components: As you're developing your email newsletters and promotional email marketing, you'd be wise to build in a social component. Use your email service provider's software to add "share" and "connect" links into the message body, which will allow your subscribers to easily share the content with their social graph or to become a fan or follower on your social media sites. By implementing social sharing components, you'll be combining the powerful targeting properties of email marketing with the vast reach of social media, putting your message in front of more prospective customers.
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Find the right outlets: Maximize the value of your social media efforts by identifying the social media outlets that most appeal to your target audience; after all, it doesn't make sense for you to focus time and effort on Facebook if your audience prefers Twitter. Focusing on the social media channels that already appeal to your audience will allow you to spend time refining your email and social media messages rather than trying to convert people to a social media channel that doesn't appeal to them.
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Develop your own social media presence: It's hard to share your email marketing messages outside of your opt-in list unless you have other places to start and continue conversations. Develop a blog or social media profile on the channel that is most appropriate for your messaging and target audience. Providing a link to the Web-based version of your e-newsletter to your Twitter followers, LinkedIn group, or on your Facebook page are all quick and easy ways to reach people who may not be on your email opt-in list. Remember social media is about a conversation, not just a sales pitch.
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Include email opt-in calls to action where appropriate: It would be a little too much to add the phrase "subscribe to our newsletter!" at the end of every tweet, but it would be overlooking a prime opportunity not to have a newsletter sign-up box available on your Facebook page or blog. And a "read our newsletter" link in your LinkedIn signature line is a more subtle (and welcome) pitch than a full announcement that your new newsletter is available. Find appropriate ways to invite those in your social networks to have a conversation.
Social Media Supports the Message
When it comes to improving the value of your email marketing campaigns, consider creating and integrating social media components. Having social media resources that support your email campaigns is a cost- and time-effective way to expand your campaigns' reach, relevancy and frequency while improving your revenue and ROI. By following a few simple steps like making it easy for subscribers to share your messages, spending time in the online social channels where your audience already congregates, and understanding the role of social media as supporting the message rather than closing the sale, you'll be reaping the benefits of integration for many campaigns to come!
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About the Author
Geene Rees recently joined Lyris as director of social media consulting. She brings a wealth of advertising, email marketing and website design experience to social media marketing. Geene has a passion for and focus on developing strategies that combine the unique value of a client's business with consumer insight and social behavior.
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