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Using Social Media to Enhance Email Marketing Campaigns

Guest post by: Greg van der Linde

Article Overview: Social media is continuously expanding its capabilities and adaptability to current sales and marketing tools. Companies are increasingly planning integrated social media and email marketing campaigns that are inexpensive and yield positive results.

Using Social Media to Enhance Email Marketing Campaigns

Marrying Email and Social Media

As social media applications expand their capabilities become more prominent. Companies are continually finding new and innovative ways to integrate them with current sales and marketing initiatives. One such method, integrating social media applications with email marketing initiatives, has become an effective and relatively inexpensive method through which to expand current email campaigns. The merger of the two has made it possible for email recipients to share important emails through various social media platforms rather than solely through traditional email forwarding. This particular mode of social media has yet to catch on as less than 15% of email marketers are currently integrating social media into their campaigns. However, more than half of email marketers plan to initiate this practice into their campaigns within the next year as they have identified:

• Social Media Applications Used to Integrate Email Marketing
• The Benefits of Integrating Social Media and Email
• Strategies for Social Media and Email Integration

Social Media Applications Used to Integrate Email Marketing

Email is quickly becoming regarded as the 'dinosaur of the communication industry'. Although this may appear to be an extreme statement, there is some truth to this viewpoint as an increased number of people are now posting messages on their social media pages rather than forwarding emails to their colleagues. This change in how people use email has created the opportunity for companies to connect and interact with consumers in a new way through:

• Social networking sites: Sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are ideal for email sharing as they can quickly facilitate information sharing among users. Companies can also target specific user groups within these online communities.
• Social tagging sites: These sites allow individuals to bookmark, categorize, and share links within their networks.
• Social news sites: Leading news sites such as Digg allow users to record comments on articles, documents and other resources.

The Benefits of Integrating Social Media and Email

There are a number of key takeaways from integrating social media and email. Embarking on these integrated campaigns makes it easier for companies to share information with specific users and buyers. However, companies want to avoid spamming their users with useless information. Always test, measure, and refine email campaigns to:

• Narrow the focus on the campaign
• Determine what is relevant to information users
• Identify key influencers and users that share information regularly

Once companies have refined their integrated email marketing campaign they will see an increase in their click-through rates from using social media over traditional email forwarding. For example, while the average email campaign has a click through rate of less than 5%, integrated email marketing campaigns have click through rates of greater than 25%. This is a significant increase. Companies also see performance increases in other key areas:

• More than 80% of companies believe integrating social media with email marketing expanded the number of users that received their email, with half of those increasing the volume of their email list.
• More than one-third of companies generated more qualified leads.
• More than half increase their expected ROI on their email marketing campaign.

Strategies for Social Media and Email Integration

Before implementing an email campaign, companies should examine their current email lists and determine which buyers are:

• Most profitable
• Most engaged
• Opening emails

Use this information to focus user lists; ensure there is a purpose and context for each communication:

• Be engaging. Provide information that is worth sharing.
• Use email to start conversations and not just provide information.
• Interact with buyers. Listen to what they have to say, respond to comments, and evoke discussion.
• Use the right social media application.

When integrating social media with email campaigns companies need to:

• Consider developing an action plan for the email campaign. Be specific regarding which users are to be reached, what social media is to be used, the message and conversation that is to be created, and a timeline to conduct the campaign.
• Ensure the email message contains standard tracking devices to measure results. Otherwise, there is no way to determine its effect.
• Ensure the email marketing application used has a "publish to social media" option. If this option is not available, create messages and post them on the targeted social media forums.
• Review the email marketing application's message composition capabilities to determine whether it can enable social sharing. If not, companies will have to include this feature in the body of their email messages.

Bottom Line and Business Impact

Integrated email marketing campaigns are a valuable way to reach users through social media. They expand a company's presence and are a cost effective tool with which to engage and collaborate with a targeted group of users.

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Article Tags: attracting clients, email marketing campaigns, marketing tools, online marketing, prospecting, sales and marketing, social media, using social media



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Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas - Hi, I like the idea of "10 items that could act as "social glue" because I am an internet marketer. But I agree with the rest that the 10 recent post is nice. Maybe we should open up a new section in the forums on Social Media...or Social Media Marketing. I will tell you that the world is about 1 1/2 behind when it comes to understanding social media. Building a section now will put EvanCarmichael.com is a great position a year down the road when people realize Social Media can produce more traffic than SEO. Jeff
Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas - [quote="WebBizIdeas.com":gvtxsu7g]Hi, I like the idea of "10 items that could act as "social glue" because I am an internet marketer. But I agree with the rest that the 10 recent post is nice. Maybe we should open up a new section in the forums on Social Media...or Social Media Marketing. I will tell you that the world is about 1 1/2 behind when it comes to understanding social media. Building a section now will put EvanCarmichael.com is a great position a year down the road when people realize Social Media can produce more traffic than SEO. Jeff[/quote:gvtxsu7g] Hi Jeff, Thanks for the suggestion. Why don't you start a new post (with a poll) to see if there's enough interest in your idea for a social media section?
Re: Should Evan add a "Social Media Marketing" category to the f - Hi, Online Marketing would be a great title, and having sub categories would make it even better, there would plenty of categories to choose from, Social Media, SEO, Article Marketing and yes even Affiliate Marketing to name just a few, great looking site btw Jeff, take care, Carol
Re: Should Evan add a "Social Media Marketing" category to the f - Just as an update, Evan has extended the poll's expiration date and says he'd like to see at least 25 "yes" votes before implementing the new category. Moreover, it would probably be called "Online Marketing" instead of Social Media Marketing".
Kevin's Case Study #11 - A New Forum Category? - Hi Everyone, 2009 is a new year and I'd like to create a new forum category to jazz things up! In the past, there's been some interest voiced about adding a "Social Media Marketing", "Online Marketing", "Internet Marketing" or "Online Promotion" category. I'll implement [u:1g2tv6tf]ONE[/u:1g2tv6tf] of those new categories, but can someone first tell me what the difference would be between the existing "Marketing" section and one of those new options mentioned above? Thanks


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