How Social Media Makes Email Marketing More Effective
A study from Nielsen once found that 92% of people trust word-of-mouth marketing. Most of the time this comes from social media, and marketers should consider harnessing that with their email campaigns to reach a broader audience.
Are you combining your social media and email marketing efforts to find and take advantage of your best brand advocates the people that are spreading positive word-of-mouth about your business?
We had a conversation about this with Jason Warnock, VP, Intelligence Products at email marketing software firm Yesmail. He believes there are three main benefits to incorporating social media into email campaigns, which all stem from being able to track social shares from them.
First, acquiring new subscribers is simple with an integrated email and social strategy. By tracking who is engaging with promotions shared on social and collecting their information, email marketers can acquire already engaged subscribers, increasing reach and revenue, Warnock tells WebProNews. By tracking opens, shares, revenue and database growth for each email campaign, marketers can also measure the ROI from a specific email campaign.
Finally, marketers can identify who is sharing their content, tracking the engagement and revenue each share generates, he adds. After defining their best brand advocates, marketers can create incentivized campaigns targeted at their most valuable subscribers. This will increase the campaigns reach and generate subscriber growth.
When it comes to best practices for incorporating social media into email campaigns, Warnock highlights four main concepts: tapping into attribution expertise, using the right channels, choosing the right product, and identifying the right technology.
When integrating social and email campaigns, attribution allows you to track and measure the value of your most loyal fans. When implementing social into an email marketing campaign, rely on experts to provide recommendations for best practices, he says. Do your research before you integrate social and email to see where your consumers are talking. The most common social network for social sharing is Facebook, followed by Twitter and then Pinterest.
If youre a company with multiple service offerings, some products are more likely to be shared. Restaurants, entertainment and electronics generally perform the best, Warnock adds. Automated tools can simplify attribution processes, especially when it comes to data processing.
Some types of email content are going to work better than others for inspiring recipients to share it via social media channels. According to Warnock, incentives are the best way to encourage engagement with an email campaign. Yesmail completed a survey finding that 28% of consumers who have never shared a promotion on social media are more likely to share if theyre incentivized.
Relevant deals like percent off, money off and buy-one-get-one-free also inspire social sharing, he says.
See original here:
How Social Media Makes Email Marketing More Effective