Strengthening Together - Email Marketing & Social Media

The (not-so) new concept of engaging with your audience is quickly becoming the main concept behind many company's marketing plans. They see this as the main motivation for conversion - once a client has bought into your brand through your personalised communication, they would seem more likely to make a purchase and develop a strong brand loyalty.
Easily said - but how does it work in reality? By using the correct channels for your message, you brand's presence is strengthened and customer interaction is increased. Email marketing is no longer seen by marketers and consumers as the one-way spam medium, but is now being regarded as a form of dialogue. If you mix this together with a decent social media strategy, the results can be huge.

So how should you use the two together?

• Your social networking presence should be supported by a range of marketing activities. Email is just one form that is cheap, and can keep up with the fast moving online sector. 
• In your emails you should always provide prominent links to your social networking sites inviting them to follow or join you. By doing this you can let your contacts know your news in real time.
• Promotions or propositions are excellent ways of encouraging your email recipients to join you online. By extending this offer to your recipient's friends also encourages more people to pass your message around. Word of mouth is the most valuable tool for marketers, make sure you haven't created any barriers.
• By asking people to recommend you, you are asking them to be ambassadors for your brand - respect them by remembering to offer value to your recipient and be transparent about any conditions you have.
• If you have a blog, link content from your blog into your newsletter - this is a great way for people to get a "feel" for your business. You should always let your personality shine through in whatever communication channels you use.

So let's take the basics of email marketing and the benefits of social media - always remember: 

Keep it regular: People get used to when you send out emails, so if your send out monthly emails make sure you do send them out on a specific date or week.

Make it interesting: Recipients usually don't mind getting regular emails communications as long as what you are saying is new and relevant. Consider sending out a series of emails within a week or two if you're hosting a few events or keeping people posted on something big that is happening within your industry. This may seem contradictory to the above point, but you can ask your clients to opt-in (or opt-out) for these updates or series of emails, thus providing more communication between you and your customers.

Remembers about the two-way process: Never use a "do-not-reply@" email address - you should encourage people to talk to you and let you know what they are thinking.

Keep it simple: Don't clutter your email with long posts - this is what your blog is for. Give a shortened version or a "taster" paragraph.

Make the unsubscribe link clear: This shows your clients that you are a legitimate business. If you don't make the link easy to see, your customers will simply click the "junk mail" button which can lead to your email addresses being blacklisted.

90% of all internet users (1.5billion worldwide) have an email address, making email the no.1 online activity. This potential far outweighs the people using social media, but taking the benefits that social media has and mix it with email marketing and you have an engaging and effective marketing tool. Providing what you offer is attractive to your audience, you will have the possibility to communicate more frequently and with better quality to a potentially wider network of customers.

Posted : 23 Nov 2009 by Emily Smith : Back to Tips And Advice on November 2009

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