If you’re a marketer who strives for effective lead generation in 2021, combining social media and email marketing efforts will definitely be on one’s agenda. Because why not benefit from marketing synergies?
Today, there are roughly 4.7 billion Internet users, with 80% of them having accounts in social media. People spend 145 minutes daily – chatting or consuming content. And by far most of them own email accounts. Thus, social networks are not that solely useful for reaching out to the target audience. They’re a treasure trove for leads’ information: interests, connections, needs and contact data. If acquired & used consciously, this data can bolster growing the audience and building your brand.
Benefits of social media and email marketing integration
Fuse social media with email marketing efforts to benefit in 4 primary ways:
1. More personalization
Owning a valid email address is good, but making it work twice effectively – is even better. Collect extra information about your subscribers, like name or gender, by uploading an email list to LinkedIn or Twitter. The next time you create content for a newsletter, use “personal touch” – address a recipient by name and use correct pronouns.
2. Better customization
Social networks allow building custom audiences from uploaded lists of emails. Thanks to this option, you can announce recalls or personal promo offers directly to each customer.
3. Bolstered metrics
Indicators of marketing efficiency are closely related to one another. Leveraging retention may increase the LTV; the higher the bounce rate is, the more likely CPA will rise. By synchronizing marketing efforts, you can take more steps to regulate all these. For example, increase CTR for social media ads by sending extra calls for actions – via email newsletters.
4. Better audience understanding
Analyze your emails’ open and click-through rates – to find out who’s interested the most in what you offer. Then – target these particular customers via social media campaigns. Create facebook custom audiences from the most prospective leads and develop specific offers for these. Pareto’s rule states that 20% of efforts will bring you 80% of the total result. Don’t invest too much in targeting “cold” leads – distribute costs onto the “hot” ones.
How to integrate social media and email marketing
Probably, you’ve already been inspired by the advantages of email social media integration. To get to the point – check out these 9 ideas you can start with, right here and now.
Use social media to build your email list
Scrape emails from professional social networks: LinkedIn Business or Xing. Make the most of email finders – special bots that capture email addresses shown publicly. There is a number of cool software, either free or paid. Here are some exact tips:
- join relevant Twitter chats to see members
- create lead gen ads on Facebook
- use lead magnets, like gated content
- hosting free tutorials and streaming.
Before adding scraped e-addresses to the list, take time and use an email validator. Hence, your database will become an asset – not inoperative information. If you plan to launch long-lasting or drip email campaigns, make sure the double opt-in is done and emails contain the “Unsubscribe” option. Otherwise, you run the risk of being accused of spam.
Upload a list of your subscribers to social networks
If you already own an ad or business account, you can find social media by email – connect the list of leads’ e-addresses from your marketing database or CRM. Check out how this works on Facebook. Navigate to your ads manager account, proceed to create the new “Custom Audience” and choose to upload a customer file for that.
Give the Audience a self-explanatory name, and there you are – contact your customers via both email and social media.
The benefits of working with custom audiences make allowance for:
- generating personalized offers or content
- obtaining qualified website’s visitors
- increasing the outreach thanks to “look-alike” audiences
- managing ads costs – include or exclude audiences at any time.
Include your social profiles in your emails
Add social media icons with links to your company’s social profiles – to email signatures. This not only looks better than a plain URL, but is also far better recognizable.
Even if we assume that only 10% of recipients will follow your account, that is worth the hassle due to zero extra costs you invest. More subscribers for no money – sounds good, doesn’t it?
Adding links in signatures contributes to your brand’s reputation as well. After you’ve served a customer with excellence, the next time you send him or her a newsletter, add a link to your account on TripAdvisor. Ask to rate service so that more visitors can see how good your restaurant is.
The only limitation here is not to include too many links or links to poor-filled accounts. If the customer sees an empty feed, he or she might question your decency.
Invite social media followers to subscribe to your email list
Statistics say that promo email results in purchases approx 5 times more often, than promo banners, posted on social media. If you already have a number of followers, try turning them into leads – add to your email’s list and target with promotional offers.
But how to get someone sharing his or her contact information? The best way is to propose a reward. This is not about banknotes, of course. Offer your followers something both valuable and binding to the product, for example:
- white paper – a free brochure that contains some valuable information for the target audience
- extra discount – offer one-time promo codes or a cashback for the subscription
- free consultation – provide the new subscriber with 24/7 professional support
- exclusive access – timely-limited right to use premium features of your service at no costs.
If you just start social media activities and don’t have many subscribers, launch paid lead generation campaigns. These use pre-populated contact forms, and the information you gather can be synced with the CRM.
Invite your email subscribers to a private invite-only Facebook group
Those involved in art or fashion industries know how much people tend to pay for rarity. A desire to possess something unique is a great purchasing motivator. In this context, the rule marketers use is simple “To make something more valuable – reduce its amount”.
To enhance email subscribers joining your Facebook group, let them know the access is limited, hence, an exclusive.
Move it even further forward and create a VIP group. Invite subscribers, based on their status within the loyalty program. Whatever the strategy is, make sure the exclusiveness is built up. Catchy content, interesting videos, podcasts, events for community members, first-hand access to novelties or sales – let the membership be beneficial, indeed.
Can content use efficiency be greater than 100%? The answer is Yes, if you are using a content repurposing or recycling strategy. It can work in such ways:
- updating old blog posts with relevant data and sharing them for the second time
- using content extracts together with new facts and figures to create visuals, like infographics
- creating podcasts from video translations; co-sharing these on different social media.
Recycle content
The recycling strategy has nothing to do with duplicated content or plagiarism. It helps companies scaling with the both content and audience outreach.
Imagine you own a digital marketing agency. One of the brand-awareness tools you use is the YouTube channel, devoted to online advertising instruments. Video production is expensive, so you really want this work in full. You think of how to use this to enhance email newsletters – to receive more orders. Here’s want can be managed:
- create resumes over several videos, in the form of either downloadable materials or links to multimedia presentations
- design catchy infographics to demonstrate processes
- Utilize an innovative image generator to craft and disseminate impactful pictures, social media visuals, or dynamic designs
- create lists of useful tools with relevant links & prices
- create an eBook and share with your company’s loyal customers
Content re-usage can also be in the form of posting timed images, snippets or user-generated content. As far as your actions don’t violate copyright – feel free to apply any content strategy that brings effect.
Run contests
Giveaway is a great way to fulfill your email list with followers from social media. And YouTube is where giveaways flourish, indeed. If you want to reward somebody with a free gift, take into account some important rules:
- contests shall comply with local/state/federal regulations
- parties shall participate in the giveaway for free
- you should get permission from YouTube to start.
To multiply your mailing database, ask participants to provide their name, email, and consent to receive newsletters. Make sure you’ll further act in line with the GDPR Compliance Checklist.
You can use free gifts as part of email campaigns as well, for example, by adding checklists or surveys. Ask recipients to proceed to your Facebook or Twitter page to answer.
Again, encourage people to do this by rewarding them with prizes. Such seemingly insignificant things are exactly what the most effective marketing strategies in the 21st century consist of.
Use a reward-based referral marketing strategy
Coming up with evidence or showing a well-designed marketing video is good, but all this is dwarfed when the client gets a good recommendation on your company. Consumers will 4 times (!) more likely to make the purchase, if the product or service is suggested by a friend. 92% of people trust referrals from whom they already know. A pretty good way to increase your followers’ list is reaching out to your existing email subscribers’ fellows. To make this happen, add an incentive for your brand’s advocates – a referral bonus.
If you’re a social media guru, but have nothing to launch the email campaign yet, do vice versa. Encourage followers to create a buzz over the brand, so that people will more likely subscribe to the newsletter.
Sync your social media and email marketing calendars
When planning to synchronize email and social activities, take into account several important points:
- your messages should be consistent
- you should plan content, in order to publish or send it on time
- you shouldn’t be too repetitive aka – annoying
- you should choose the right time to deliver your message.
For example, social networks have different peak times – when users are most active. In mailing, late-morning or 8 p.m times are considered to be the best for outreaching.
To come up with all these factors effectively, use convenient scheduling tools – content calendars, where you can synchronize social media posting and email delivery processes. Some of the most popular tools are Falcon, SocialOomph and CoSchedule. Major features they offer:
- planning, scheduling, editing, and posting – directly from the content calendar
- posting via email
- scheduling posts.
Many of this software come at a cost, of course, but you can always start with free trials. Calculate how much time you save then and decide whether it’s worth buying a full subscription.
Wrap up
There’s nothing wrong with an “email vs social media” approach to developing a marketing strategy. If your marketing efforts are rather tiny – for whatever reason – it is better to focus on what’s already bringing business results. However, when planning to scale, make sure to really jibe your efforts’ and synchronize email and social media attempts. Your campaigns’ outcome will be far that extended – before you even know it. Moreover, a synergy effect will bring extra advantages, such as attracting new leads, re-using old content or better retargeting.
The only obstacle here is good synchronization and monitoring of your activities. Whatever you communicate to your target audience, make sure it is timely and relevant.
