Social media and email marketing together can mean the difference between success and failure online.
Some say email marketing will go the way of direct mail marketing. Did email marketing really kill direct mail? No. Actually, direct mail is still a major business. Just because you can get higher response rates for lower costs with email marketing, doesn’t mean one can replace the other. And many major businesses are seeing the light.
Recent studies on social media pointed out that older generations actually respond more to direct mail. Why? The majority of buyers older than 60 a huge market already don’t get on Facebook, don’t Tweet on Twitter, don’t network on LinkedIn and certainly don’t watch YouTube marketing videos.
The same thing that was said of direct mail was and is considered for email marketing in comparison to social marketing. But it’s not a decision to try one over the other; the new rules of marketing say using social marketing and email marketing together provides the greatest opportunity to generate buzz and increase consumer response.Now that we’ve established email marketing as far from dead, and that social marketing isn’t for all buyer groups, let’s define how you can use social email marketing.
Make Social Email Marketing Simple
Twitter is 140 character messages, Facebook is a vast ocean where it’s hard to make a splash and although email marketing messages are often longer, you still need to master the fine of art of simple, direct, short marketing.
Typically, email marketing messages have shorter content when compared to the general direct mailer and a much shorter response rate. Nearly 80% of recipients will respond (by either taking action or deleting the message) within 48 hours. Email marketing needs to be condensed for social media and network sites. This means shorter posts, quicker calls to action and adapting to much faster response rates.
Subscribing Rules on Social Email Marketing
Social email marketing is about using email and social media as tools. Since readers of your Facebook page may be interested in your emails and email readers may want to “Like” your business on Facebook, you need to understand how to use the two together to position your brand for success. How? Make it simple for current email readers to follow you on Facebook, Twitter, etc. and vice versa. Make it valuable for your target to follow both, run different deals, offer additional discounts or have certain information only available on one. Maybe you link the headlines of your monthly newsletter on Facebook, but in order to view the entire newsletter they have to subscribe to your email list.
Find Your Prospects, Create Customers
Depending on your main client base, you may have a variety of readers and followers. No problem. Research who’s following you on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networks. See what customers are responding to in your emails. The results may surprise you and change your future marketing efforts.
What’s the Competition Doing?
Lastly, no matter if you’re failing or succeeding with these strategies, social email marketing is still advertising and you still need to know about the guy charging less than you for the same product and the girl charging more than you but getting more sales. Some critical research on the competition following their Facebook pages, subscribing to their emails can help you, your brand and your product stand out. There are no rules saying you can’t, all marketers do it.
Social and email marketing aren’t going to work for all brands and all products. Some consumers are going to prefer traditional means of marketing communications, where others are going to prefer social media over email and vice versa. Marketing isn’t about choosing one media and hoping for the best, it’s about strategically reaching buyers across multiple platforms to position your brand for success.
Deepak Wadhwani has over 20 years experience in software/wireless technologies. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies including Intuit, ESRI, Qualcomm, Sprint, Verizon, Vodafone, Nortel, Microsoft and Oracle in over 60 countries. Deepak has worked on Internet marketing projects in San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange Country, Denver, Nashville, Kansas City, New York, San Francisco and Huntsville. Deepak has been a founder of technology Startups for one of the first Cityguides, yellow pages online and web based enterprise solutions. He is an internet marketing and technology expert & co-founder for a San Diego Internet marketing company.
