6 Incredible Tips to Ensure Your Email Marketing and Social Media Work in Harmony
By Rick Herd
Social media and email marketing are two fantastic, cost-effective ways for businesses of any size to reach their target audience. The entry requirements are low, and even the smallest companies have an online presence to be proud of. However, relatively few businesses leverage the close relationship that the two strategies can have. It does not need to be difficult – especially with these six fantastic tips that could revolutionize your customer outreach.
Stay Consistent When You Have Something to Promote
Online marketers use retargeting to ensure that people receive continual reminders about their products and services after leaving the site. Whether or not you already do that, you can achieve similar results by strategizing around your social media and email marketing efforts for a given period.
Whether you have a new article on your site that you’re particularly proud of or you’re preparing to launch a brand new product, make it the focus of your marketing efforts during the lead-in to build momentum from various sources. Sure, some of your email subscribers will also follow you on social media and vice versa. However, some will not. For those that do, it reinforces the brand message. For the others, it ensures visibility of anything you want to draw attention to.
Don’t Be Afraid to Reuse and Repurpose
Email and social media are different beasts, even if the overall goal is to increase traffic and conversions. For an email to be worth reading – and sending in the first place – it needs to be packed with helpful content that goes beyond a Tweet or Facebook post.
However, while the entire email won’t be suitable for social media, snippets of it undoubtedly will be. If there is a paragraph you’re particularly proud of, a few minor edits can become one or more social posts without much additional effort. Likewise, a particularly engaging social post can serve as the starting point for the next email blast.
Automatically Make Your Mailing List and Social Presence Work Together
The prevalence of APIs and other fantastic technology means that you can rely on a degree of automation, helping your emails and social channels to work in unity. You might want to send an email about an important social post or even send an SMS to subscribers when your latest email goes out.
It is crucial to get this right, as a broken email looks wholly unprofessional. If you’re inexperienced with automation, it is worth using a tool like Mailosaur to ensure that what you think will happen actually does!
Constantly Promote Each Channel Across Others
Even if you delight in shouting about your products, subtlety is your friend when it comes to self-promotion. Rather than sending emails to showcase your social channels and posting about your mailing list all over the internet, keep things simple. Mention your mailing list with a signup link on social media when it makes sense, and add your social profiles to the header or footer of your email template. There are no issues with overlapping, as every direct opportunity to contact a potential reader or buyer is a valuable one.
Turn Negatives into Positives
When a reader decides to unsubscribe from your emails, it goes without saying that you should have processes in place to make this as easy as possible. However, there is nothing wrong with inviting them to subscribe to your social channels as they leave. They may be cleaning up their inbox or not have the time to read in-depth content from your brand. However, that does not necessarily mean that they wish to cut off communication entirely. When there is a risk of losing a subscriber, adding a social media follower is a net positive.
Track, Learn, and Evolve
As your subscriber base and online following grow, it makes sense to treat all relevant individuals as potential leads. Businesses with sufficient resources may even deploy a CRM to keep track of those interested in their products and services.
Crucially, this kind of setup allows for extensive reporting and trend spotting. If something performs well with email readers, use that email to shape your social content. If a social post boasts impressive engagement, make it the basis of part of your next newsletter. Invite email responses and social interactions, and you’ll learn more about your customer base than you may have thought possible.
Byline:
Rick Herd
Rick writes extensively about the latest marketing and social media trends and how they can help small and medium-sized businesses to get the most bang for their buck in their online operations.
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