According to a recent report done by Litmus, email marketing drives $36 for every $1 spent, which makes it the most effective marketing channel out there.
As sophisticated marketers, we know that we can’t depend on a single medium to reach our marketing goals. With this research, we suggest combining email and social to efficiently execute your campaigns.
To get your wheels turning in how you can do this for your own campaigns; here are a few tried and true ways for email and social to collaborate:
1. Make Sure Your Social Media Names Are Consistent
To ensure that your current and future customers can find you on social media, set up a consistent social media presence, starting from your usernames and page names.
It is getting increasingly difficult to find a brand name that’s also available on social media. Namify can make it easier for you to find a brand name that can also be registered on major social media platforms.
2. Display Social Icons in Email Messages
This is a quick and simple way to integrate your messages. If customers are intrigued by your email message, but just need a little more information about you before deciding to act on the call-to-action – your links to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. are right there for easy access.
Most Email Service Providers (ESPs) include these icons in their templates. So it should be simple to place your icons into your current email template and link to their corresponding social profile!
Additionally, most email marketing services provide easy-to-use email templates that include a section to link your social media profiles, so make sure to pick a good one.
3. Reflect Messages Across Platforms
As a small business or agency, it is important to reinforce your message whenever possible. If running a promotion (or content topic) through email, you should provide consistent messaging across platforms. The same goes for contests you might be holding through Facebook or other platforms.
Luckily, there are great social media graphic creators to make this process painless. Those tools allow you to download whatever image you are working on to use across the collateral used to promote your campaign.
However, don’t forget that if your users are loyal, they are most likely following you on multiple platforms – so don’t forget Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and other platforms you may be using! Many of these sites enable you to automate posts so that you publish at the same time. However, if this seems like a lot of work (and it can be!) it might be worth looking into hiring a marketing agency in Buckinghamshire to do this work for you.
To create a more engaging copy, use Text Optimizer which uses semantic analysis to extract related concepts from Google’s search results and help you optimize your copy for search intent:
Check your copy readability and write in plain language to ensure it is engaging quickly and is easy to understand.
4. Incentivize Engagement
To boost engagement through both email and social (because we don’t like to play favorites), you can take a risk in hosting a particular type of promotion. This campaign is typically referred to as “share more, save more.” This campaign involves a little bit more effort than the previous two we have discussed.
This is because it will require a bit of development work on your website to make it successful. More or less, you create an email similar to the one showcased below and promise a higher discount to your audience if they share the sale on their social platforms.
By sharing on more platforms, the more they will save on what you are selling. The development work revolves around being able to track this information.
Executing this type of sale will spread your brand name and your sale on multiple platforms at once. The incentive will provoke more people to participate and share! Many daily deal sites utilize this method. These companies will even provide the item for free if three of your friends purchase the item from the link you have shared. Talk about incentivizing engagement!
Using consistent calls-to-action across your email marketing and social media marketing channels is a great way to get more sales and leads. Make sure to shorten your buying journeys by creating a CTA that drives an additional action.
For example, instead of promoting a lead generation form, provide a link allowing your prospects to immediately schedule a meeting with you. Appointfix is a cool appointment scheduling platform that lets you create those sorts of CTAs.
If you use a landing page, make sure it is fast and clutter-free because both email recipients and social media users are too busy and may quickly bounce. Shopify allows you to create custom landing pages that fit both channels.
While combining these digital marketing tactics may involve a bit more planning, it will be well worth it. You will display that you have a cohesive image for your brand, and demonstrate your marketing intelligence.
For extra organization, try keeping a campaign calendar to enhance the efficiency of this collaboration.
