While email is one of the most popular and effective channels for marketing communications, social media is one of the fastest growing channels for engaging prospects and customers. Integrating email and social media allows the marketer to reap rich dividends.
Linking an email marketing campaign to an overall social media strategy can provide marketers with an abundance of data and insight into the audience being targeted. It also lets marketers infuse relevant social content directly into the email, increasing the potential effectiveness. Marketers can take engagement to a new and sustainable level by incorporating social media activity, such as Twitter feeds or Facebook comments, with the email. That may prompt the recipient to “like” or re-tweet the message, in essence continuing the engagement through social media platforms.
Many marketers are already convinced of these benefits, but the million-dollar question is: how do you integrate email and social media most effectively? Tips for integrating email and social media include:
• Adding social sharing buttons in emails along with compelling imagery and captivating content that prompts the recipient to share
• Incorporating special offers in emails, with the offers accessible through the social media page
• Cross-promoting social channel subscription through email campaigns and vice-versa.
Marketers are already working on this front. A November 2012 survey by StrongMail Systems reveals that 65% of marketers have plans to integrate social media and email marketing, and 46% of marketers plan to increase their marketing budget on email marketing programs that specifically fuel the growth of social media-channels.
Right On Interactive’s marketing automation tool can help you track the efforts of integrating email and social media. Are you using a marketing automation system to track your prospects actions? Please post your experiences and success stories in the comments below.
