Few online marketing strategies exist in a vacuum. The online world allows for instant navigation, instant gratification, interconnected networking, and endless multitasking. It seems only appropriate that businesses take advantage of these qualities to tie their best marketing strategies together for a mutually beneficial result.
Much in the same way that content marketing can enhance and benefit from SEO, social media and email marketing have a mutually conducive relationship. Social media marketing gets a significant amount of attention from marketers these days, but email marketing is an underrated tactic in the online marketing lineup. The Direct Marketing Association estimates email marketing yields a 4,300% return on investment (ROI). That’s a big deal.
Obviously, email marketing and social media marketing each have their own advantages and disadvantages, but you stand to benefit most when you use them together. Here are seven ways to do so:
1. Direct sign-up calls
This first tactic might be the most obvious, but don’t neglect it. Its brilliance rests with its simplicity. On social media (assuming you have decent reach already), ask your followers to sign up for your email newsletter in direct, unambiguous language. A call-to-action like “get exclusive deals by signing up for our email newsletter” can often net you a few dozen followers instantly, even with a modest following—just be sure to emphasize the benefits of signing up. The more tangible these benefits are (i.e., the more value they have for the average reader), the more sign-ups you’re bound to get.
2. Links to on-site blog articles
Blogs are another powerful gateway to getting email signups, especially if your email newsletter features some of your best work (or even better, exclusive posts). Social media is one of the best distribution channels for your content, so use it to its fullest! Attract new users’ attention with compelling, unique content to get them to your site. You’ll have a chance at getting conversions right off the bat, plus, as long as your email signup is visible, you’ll be able to count on at least a few new email subscribers—and they’re guaranteed to already have an interest in your brand and content.
3. Teases of exclusive offers
One of the best ways to use an email marketing campaign is to offer consistent, exclusive value to your subscribers, such as email-only content, discounts, or free giveaways. In the weeks or days leading up to one of these reveals, tease the value in question on social media. Don’t give it completely away—instead, leave an air of mystery, and encourage users to sign up if they want to know more.
For example, if you’re planning to offer a “30%-off-everything” coupon to your email subscribers, you could post something like “we’ve got a big surprise in store for our loyal email subscribers—get in before it’s too late.”
4. Landing page promotion
Depending on the size and quality of your list, you could set up an independent landing page to promote email sign-ups. This frees up space elsewhere on your site, and more importantly, gives you a chance to filter out uninterested leads by using language targeted to your core demographic. Once constructed, you can use your social accounts to funnel visitors to your landing page however you see fit—through incentives, straightforward promotions, or special offers.
5. Contests and drawings
Incentives are always valuable for attracting attention and engagement, and when you have two strong online marketing mediums, those incentives become even more powerful. Use social media to promote a contest (or drawing). It can be a giveaway to a random user, a reward for the best piece of user-submitted content, or anything else appropriate for your brand. The key is to offer something valuable, and make it known across social media. As a prerequisite for participating, ask for your users’ email addresses—they’ll be happy to give them up, and you’ll get to flesh out your subscriber list.
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6. Include social icons in emails
If you aren’t already doing this, you need to start. Most of these tips have centered on using social media to funnel more people to an email list, but the path works both ways: give your email subscribers more opportunities to get involved with your brand on social media. You’ll get more followers out of the deal, and more importantly, you’ll earn more engagement (especially if you invite responses to your exclusive email content).
7. Upload subscriber lists to social media
Finally, you can use your existing email list to find people on social media. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other platforms have tools that map email addresses to known profiles of corresponding users. Take advantage of this and start building social media lists that reflect your email subscribers. From there, you can use this information any way you want. Perhaps the best way is through social listening, where you gather data about your audience based on their interests, posts, and behaviors.
Online marketing is very much a game of resources. What determines your success isn’t just the resources you use or whether you use them independently, but how you use them together to support your campaign. Email and social have naturally shared lines of communication, and serve as a great starting point for strategies like SEO and content marketing, so use them to push the limits of your marketing potential and improve your overall communication.
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