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Perfect partners: Social media and e-mail
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Social media and e-mail marketing go together like milk and cookies.
Image courtesy of luscious food.com
The explosion of social media has started the usual speculation about what might happen to more traditional marketing channels. It seems each new social-media tool or channel is trumpeted as the best way to reach and influence an audience. And with just a bit of hyperbole, some pundits have pointed to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social media channels and announced the end of e-mail, and even the death of blogging.
Practically speaking, however, the circumstances are quite different. According to Ross Kramer, CEO of Listrak and contributor to MarketingProfs.com, social media is obviously an important new player in online marketing and it is here to stay, but it has not replaced e-mail or any other traditional marketing channels. In fact, while there are a number of similarities between social-media marketing and e-mail, they are distinct from each other and should be used to complement and support each other.
For example, e-mail marketers typically have a list of targets and therefore a place to start. Social media enables marketers to find that starting place. With social networks, marketers can "discover" where their audience is online and what they're talking about. So, social media conversations can help provide a richness of detail about targeted audiences. But just because this information is being gathered through social channels, it doesn't mean they're the appropriate way to sell products and/or services.
According to Kramer, social networks can be good at creating and sustaining brand awareness, sharing information and starting conversations with an audience. However, they typically aren't the right channels for selling products. Social network members tend to take a dim view of explicit sales messages. They prefer to "discover" what they need to know through conversation.
That's where e-mail campaigns come in. Potential customers have opted-in to receive information and they expect to e-mails to contain details on products and promotions. Recent research suggests that two out of three people use e-mail to help them decide whether to make a purchase.
But e-mails typically don't have a component that enables marketers to extend their reach to new audiences. Simply using Twitter to post a link to an e-mail newsletter or suggesting that the target audience pass it along to friends through Facebook doesn't turn it into a social campaign. So marketers need to know what goals they want to achieve and then determine how to take advantage of the strengths and weaknesses of each channel to reach them.
When used together, social-media marketing and e-mail marketing can help marketers get terrifically close to their customers. Some additional tips from Ross Kramer include:
- Add a SWYN link to e-mails. Most e-mails contain a Forward to a Friend (FTAF) link, and though the numbers of forwarded e-mails are generally low the emails that are forwarded have high conversion rates. Marketers can reach out to more people by giving e-mails a "share with your network" (SWYN) link to encourage audience to share messages more widely.
- Build lists. After engaging prospects in conversation through social networks, marketers can ask them whether they want to opt in to a targeted email list. People love personalized communication through social networks; however, most business professionals are too busy to strictly communicate that way. Email provides them the information they want, and they can read it at their convenience.
- Use the data that social networks provide. The information marketers can gather from their prospective target audiences in the social networks should be used to target them with relevant email messages. The two channels should not operate independently. The data from each should be used to support and enhance the other.
Successful marketers understand that success in targeting and developing profitable relationships with various audiences comes from developing an integrated approach targeted at the needs and interests of the customer. To do so, it's important to understand how various marketing channels can work together to support each other to achieve campaign goals.
Online marketing glossary terms:
Page view - request to load a single HTML page.
Pay per click (PPC) - online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying click-throughs.
Pay per lead (PPL) - online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely based on qualifying leads.
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