When thinking about email and social, as marketers we know just how different they are from one another. Email is a powerful tool used for customer retention and driving transactions while social is used to build community and your brand’s story. These two channels have very different strengths and weaknesses, but like many relationships, that’s what makes them an unstoppable duo.
So, how is it possible that social and email can work together to drive even more business?
Click Here To Learn More About Converge
Working Together
It’s not so much that email is better than social or the other way around. It’s that when it comes to marketing, people normally have strengths. Someone might prefer email to social because they understand how email works, therefore their campaigns are better which yield better results than their social efforts. And I know when I am good at something I like it a little bit more than anything else. That’s why you’ve got to work together. Marketing today shouldn’t be happening in separate pods, it’s vital that the content team comes together with social and email, offline and SEO to work together to build strong brand recognition on and offline to yield some real results.
We want to help you strengthen your email and social marketing muscles. Below are three ways you can use email and social together…
1. Promotions
When we think about promotions, we think email. I am sure there are hundreds of emails sitting in my junk or trash box all telling me to…
- Go to X website to buy this for that discount
- Or to click this link to attend that webinar
- Or to read this blog post
Email is used to promote.
Brand’s don’t email their users just to say hi (that’s for social) they email to remind them, emails are like little taps on the solder- hey remember me, come back soon.
The next time you have something to promote I challenge you to tap your social team and use them to drive excitement and create conversations about the promo your brand is running. You can easily post the registration landing page or a link to the sale in a Tweet just like you can in an email. If you’re hosting a webinar or looking for input on new blog posts, then use social to ask questions and get feedback before the event or promotion even starts- that way you can ensure the people engaged with your brand are getting the information they want.
And I am not saying don’t email your list about this too. Use both social and email to engage your audience and drive attendance and sales up. When they work hand-in-hand, you can make sure you’re reaching your audience in multiple ways and that they are paying attention.
2. Ads
If you have made an ad on social, you have probably fallen into the deep dark black hole of creating your audience. You can keep it as “simple” as choosing your demographics or make it as complicated as targeting locations based on sales or competitors Facebook Pages. But one of the most effective audiences you can create it with your email list. These are people who have already opted in to hear more about you, so they probably want to see you on social just as much as they want to see you in their inbox. This makes creating an audience for your ads a tad less scary, as all you have to do is import your list and it’s a lot more effective. From there, Facebook lets you create look-a-like audiences, users who are very similar to your email list that you can target ads to too so you can find new potential users and buyers as well.
Click Here To Subscribe To Our Blog
3. Participation
I am sure there is a place on your website and maybe even your Facebook page asking people to sign up for your email newsletter but do you ever ask people in your emails to promote your social media efforts?
Asking your email audience to engage with you on social is something you should totally do and will also give you something new to measure and analyze. Many successful brands on social have created a community because they are identified with a hashtag. I have noticed this especially relevant to the workout and sports world:
- Tone It Up, #TIUteam
- Lulu Lemon #TheSweatLife
- Atlanta Falcons, #RiseUp
- Red Bull, #PutACanOnIt
So use your email audience to create a social call to action. Do you want people to ask you questions? Post a picture? Share a video? Just make sure they know they need to tag your brand and use your hashtag. Your email audience is on social; you might as well get them talking about you on there too.
You can take it a step further and reward people who do use the hashtag by announcing weekly winners, people who have created fresh content using your hashtag while representing your brand. This will encourage more people to participate and let them know you notice their efforts too!
Don’t forget to include social icons in emails and “Retweet This” snippets when your readers highlight something you have written. Whatever you do, just make sure it is super easy for them to find you on social through email!
Wrap It Up
This is just the very surface of how and why you should integrate email and social. Like most things in life, when you work together the results are amplified, and you will have wished you had started soon.
Social and email marketing teams should undoubtedly be connecting and working together to create integrated campaigns and help promote one another’s efforts. Your audience can find and become a part of your brand in so many different ways- you just need to make sure to make that as easy as possible for them to do!
Want more tips about social media? Check out our free e-book, 30 Social Tests To Run here.