Email marketing has been developing for a long time. However, its biggest threats, spamming issue and poor out-of-date list, lead it to low open rates. So does email have a future? Is it on the way out? Or is it just getting smarter?
Email isn't dying. It’s still "the glue" of an integrated campaign. It has its own place in generating mass interest and mass distribution of messages and offers to a target audience. According to eMarketer’s survey, 69% of respondents plan to increase spending on email marketing efforts – more than any other marketing strategy in 2010.
Nowadays, people are exposed to around 5,000 ads a day. With flooding inboxes and increasing number of companies sending email, email-marketing strategy is required to gain a new positioning in order to cope with the intense competition. In order to convey a consistent and personalized experience, integrated marketing solution with the combination of multi-channels such as email, landing pages and social media, make it easy to spread the message, but still keep it focused.
A lot of email marketers are still hesitant about using social media. In fact, the integration of email and social media help to achieve a better reach, offer people more choice and provide them content and value in function of their needs. What’s more?
- Social media improves email response rates. According to a recent report from GetResponse, it is found that email with social media button generated significantly higher click-through rates than email with no sharing option.
- Social media has its huge sharing power thanks to its large base of users. Its multi-level effect can spread the message not only people in your network but also their friends’ networks and so on
- The cost of inserting social media function is almost zero. So it’s pure ROI
- Active social networkers check their email inboxes far more regularly than those who spend less time on social networks, according to a recent finding
- Social marketing and email marketing are sharing some common characteristics. First, they are all about dealing with people, creating connections and relationships, based on sharing, listening and engaging abilities to build trust and respect. Second, in order to do that, it requires both social marketing and email marketing to provide good and relevant content to create the “right” personalization in the “right” context in order to receive value. Finally, Both of them are considered parts of an overall marketing strategy.
Social networks and email can feed each other, but just knowing that isn't enough. Much like successful email marketing requires more effort than blasting away at your customer list, getting your recipients to share your emails on social sites requires more effort than just dropping icons into your message template. So you have to know how to do it correctly to make it work. Some tactical ideas for integrating the two strategies include:
Testing and Educating
- Experiment the placement position of social network links in your messages (top, middle or bottom), what social networks you link to and how many social network links you should include in your messages
- Educate your readers about how and why they should share your content. Give them a good reason to share your promotional emails with their friends. Feature your social-sharing option in your welcome messages. Devote prime space in your regular mailings to highlight the location and use of your sharing icons or links.
Content
- Encourage consumer-generated content and peer reviews on your different social media platforms, and then add this as a section in newsletters. People seem to be more interested in these content than the traditional information.
- Set up an automated trigger that sends a message requesting a product review after a purchase to build up your database of user-generated reviews. You can then populate personalized emails with these reviews according to each recipient’s interests or purchase history, resulting in messages that are more targeted and engaging to recipients
- Create your own corporation network. Site visitors can discuss about products and industry topics. These discussions create good fodder for e-newsletters, and forming ideas for specific articles from new e-mail newsletters
- Use the search functions. You can follow your company and product names via Google e-mail alerts, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to gain market knowledge and good ammunition for e-mail marketing.
Distribution
- Include a sharing button to other social networks on your emails.
- Use the email service provider (ESP)’s social marketing capabilities. Most major ESPs and e-mail software providers can send your e-mails directly to your social networks
- Use your status to publicize the e-mail newsletter on social media, probably a day before sending the newsletter to remind people it’s coming, and get them excited about it
- Using a blog to highlight content from an e-newsletter once or twice a month, and inviting readers to download the full content via a landing page
- Conduct a timely poll on social networks and creating a visual representation of the results, in an e-newsletter
- Leverage social media channels to offer email subscribers customized options
- Set your company up as a resource and an expert by responding to questions or getting involved in discussions on Facebook or Linkedin.
- Make sure the people, who were sent from social media sites, can easily find the content you want them to see on your landing page. So you should have a clear and clean design with good navigation.
Today, many marketers believe that if your messages are relevant, timely and interesting with a great integration with social media, your audience will gladly help your brand message ripple across the Internet. How’re about you? Are you confident enough to say so? Is there anything left in the list above? Waiting for your thoughts! In the mean time, have a look on this interesting video, explaining the convergence between email and social media. Enjoy!
