Social media and email marketing go hand in hand. The two strategies can and should be used together to help ensure future sales.
People may find your company’s products on social media. Still, some may not be motivated to make the purchase without hearing from you via email, either directly or indirectly, through offers that encourage a purchase.
Both email marketing and social media strategy are crucial for future sales, so it makes sense to integrate the two activities.
Why should you integrate email with social media strategy?
Even though email has been around for decades, people still underestimate its power to promote a brand. The key is using it in combination with social media marketing channels, such as Facebook and Twitter.
However, before we learn about how to create an effective email marketing strategy in tandem with your social media efforts, let’s see why to do it in the first place.
1. Attract more subscribers
If your email subscription list has been static for too long, social media will help you to reach out to a broader pool of audiences. It can help you expose your email subscription and drive the target audience towards it.
When people chat about your email campaigns on social media, it will improve your brand’s word-of-mouth publicity. More people will come to know about your emails, increasing the chance of expanding your email subscription list.
Although, you do need to run attractive email campaigns in the first place for people to talk about them.
For that, you need a state-of-the-art email marketing service provider.
If you are a small business looking for email marketing software, this guide reviewing the best email marketing services will help you to choose the most suitable platform. It will also help you opt for a service that aligns with your requirements and business size.
2. Present new platforms for interactions
Social media platforms are a way to reach out to and connect with prospective clients directly and in a more personal setting. It also results in building more social exposure since you’re now curating content on multiple platforms simultaneously.
You can let your subscribers know that you are using social media and request them to follow you so that they will be up-to-date with the latest happenings, discounts, offers, and new product launches.
Here’s an example of a social media invitation email from the brand Fruit of the Loom.
The email lists the different social media platforms they’re active on. They also explain in brief why following them on each platform is beneficial, compelling their audience to hit the follow button.
3. Give more options to subscribers
Email should not be your only marketing channel. Almost everyone uses social media these days. If you look at the statistics, Facebook alone had approximately 2.85 billion monthly active users as of the first quarter of 2021.
That’s a huge potential audience you can target.
And not just Facebook, in this day and age, it’s essential to let your presence known on every platform your subscribers are present online. If you fail to nurture your audience on their preferred platform, your competitors will.
4. Grow your message reach
Social media and marketing teams get tasked with many projects at once, which means some messages fall through the cracks.
The main solution to this problem? Integrating social with email marketing to make sure you never miss an opportunity to remind your audience about your brand.
Plus, when you are active on multiple platforms simultaneously, your brand will be able to reach out to a varied audience and keep them updated about your latest ventures, offers, or new deals.
Strategies to integrate email marketing with social media strategy
1. Better identify your email subscribers and retarget them
You have already persuaded your target audience to read your emails. Now, you just need to optimize your email to convert them into buying customers.
The first step, however, is to find out more about your audience. You can learn about your current email subscribers by diving into your email analytics.
Consider these metrics to find out more about your email subscribers:
- Find out the best-performing emails. Is there a common pattern between them?
- Analyze the topics your audience is most interested in.
- Find out the day/time in which your email open rates are higher.
- Also, find out the emails they engage with the most
You can then use the data you gather through your emails to retarget your audience via visual ads on their preferred social media channels.
Take this retargeted ad on Facebook, for example.
Taboola probably discerned which subscribers are looking to generate more traffic and conversions before targeting them with these visual ads on social media.
2. Grow your email community by inviting followers
In the world of email marketing, one of the tools that can help you grow your email product is having an engaged social media community. This is because people who engage with your brand on social media sites are often highly receptive to joining your email list.
Facebook even allows you to embed an email form on your Facebook business page. This helps your visitors to subscribe to your email list with the click of a button.
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However, note that you need a Facebook business account to embed an email sign-up form on Facebook.
3. Activate social sharing options in your email newsletters
It is essential to include sharing options in your email newsletters to improve your click-through rate and social sharing rates. The ongoing relationship with your subscribers will also result in increased sales and happier customers.
For instance, you can feature a tweet that will interest your audience in your email with a ‘Retweet this’ tag. It will increase the chances of your campaigns getting cross-promoted.
One way to do this is using the Mixmax Chrome Extension.
To add embedded tweets to your email using MixMax, select the Tweet and enter the tweet URL you want to embed. MixMax will insert it in the email automatically.
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You can even paste the URL directly in the email subject.
Since the embedded tweets are clickable, you will be able to redirect your subscribers to your Twitter account and turn them into your followers.
Similarly, you can even create compelling Instagram content and integrate your Instagram posts within your emails.Another great way to integrate social media and emails is to add a live social media feed in your emails.
When you include a live social media feed in emails, subscribers will find it easy to discover your newest posts.
And when they click on the feed, they will get directed to the respective account. This is a great way to gain more organic followers and engagement on your social media profiles.
4. Use an incentive-based referral marketing strategy
The idea of referral marketing has been around for a long time. But with the advent of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, it is now easier than ever to get referrals.
And while it is easier to get more referrals, it is also equally challenging to keep your existing clients. Hence the urgency to incorporate an incentive-based referral marketing strategy to win the hearts of your clients and create a buzz around your business.
You can offer irresistible incentives to your loyal customers for referring people to your business.
And these days, you have access to automated tools to create your referral program email with ease. You can even easily access referral agreement templates to cover you from a legal standpoint.
The best way to go about it is to run your referral program on social media and promote it through email newsletters or vice versa.
Consider Acton Global’s incentive-based referral program, for instance:
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The famous skateboard brand is running its referral program via email campaign and at the same time compelling its audience to promote it on social media.
When the customers share your referral link, they create massive brand awareness. It also opens an opportunity for the company to gain followers as the content gets shared.
5. Build a social community for VIP email subscribers
Social media communities are powerful and becoming more so by the day. A robust community is one of the best ways to increase exposure to your content and grow your email list.
But building a social community requires a lot of time and effort – something most business owners or marketers don’t have on their hands.
So how do we build a vibrant community that captures the attention of potential customers? By giving VIP subscribers a special place within your social community where they can freely share and interact with other members.
It’s also a great way of making your “VIP Subscribers” feel appreciated and special. Adding them to a VIP group also works as an incentive or a loyalty reward of sorts.
You can even specify that users who refer other people to subscribe to your email list will be allowed in the VIP Facebook group. Or, as in the example below, you can invite all your prospects.
While improving engagement and organic reach, this technique also mitigates the chances of spammy or irrelevant content being shared in the group, as you’re now engaging specifically with qualified leads.
6. Upload your subscriber lists to social networks
By uploading your subscribers’ list to social platforms, you will be able to connect to each subscriber via their email address seamlessly.
This connection will help you better understand the interests of your customer base. What’s more, you get extra channels to engage with your customers and target them using ads.
However, note that your subscribers’ list should be in CSV format.
To upload your subscriber’s list on Facebook, head to the “Ads Manager” tab. In the drop-down menu, choose Audiences.
Tap on Create a Custom Audience button. And finally, select the Customer list option and upload your CSV file.
7. Leverage user-generated content
User-Generated Content is one of the hottest content marketing resources right now.
It helps you increase conversions and trust and create personalized posts on social media platforms. And you can further cross-promote your UGC campaign via email as well.
UGC has inherent trustworthiness and authenticity that customers who don’t care for other forms of marketing appreciate. If you have customers actively sharing their brand experiences and engaging with your products or services, you have a much better chance of increasing conversions.
One way to exploit the benefits of UGC is via hashtags.
Here’s an excellent example of an email-based UGC campaign.
In the example above, oVertone created an email-based hashtag campaign to show off their products via a branded hashtag on their Instagram account. They used a company-specific tag #OVERTONE.
And before long, the brand started to receive hundreds and thousands of entries.
It’s a win-win situation – for the brand as well as the consumers.
Now the brand can feature their existing clients in their posts, and when potential customers see this human approach, they’ll be more inclined to buy the product than ever before.
8. Conduct social media giveaways and grow your email list
Social media giveaways can be an effective approach to grow your email list quickly.
Let’s see it in action through this case study, where a freelance writer grew his email list by conducting a social media giveaway.
Josh Earl, a freelance writer and programmer, decided to run a giveaway contest after reaching 5,500 subscribers on his email list of people who wanted to learn tips for using a text editor called Sublime Text,
He offered a $70 free license for Sublime Text as a prize. Next, he used social media to make his target audience aware of his offer. After promoting his giveaway for 11 days, he gathered 187,991 email addresses.
That’s a massive number!
However, it’s essential to offer a product that carries a significant and established market value. Your audience should also be familiar with the product, and it should be valuable to them.
This way, you can leverage the self-interest of your target audience. The aim is to benefit your customers and make them feel good and excited about the giveaway.
9. Take help of exclusive email or social media campaigns
When nothing works, you can take the help of exclusive email or social media campaigns.
For instance, you can create and send eye-catching email newsletters asking the subscribers to like your page or follow you on social media to grow your social media followers.
Or, if you want to grow your email list, curate social media posts asking followers to sign up for your emails.
After you are through with the campaign, it’s equally essential to track your campaign performance using third-party analytical tools. It will help you determine what’s working for you and what part campaign or what element of the campaign is not bearing any fruit.
Now it’s your turn to grow your social media strategy!
Social media is a wonderful way to turn your company into a household name.
Today, people are more likely to trust popular brands over generic ones. And social media can help you increase brand awareness to practically anyone in the world with Internet access.
And it’s clear that email will remain a powerful marketing channel for years to come.
The question is: how do we leverage their power?
One way to do this is to integrate email marketing with the social channels you’re utilizing. By following the tips in this guide, you should be able to find creative ways of integrating email marketing into your social media strategy.
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