Much has been said about the ideas for good e-mail marketing. But we usually forget about one crucial thing: combining social media content with e-mail communication, creating a link between communication means that are used simultaneously in many companies.
A profile on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. is a standard in marketing activities. Many companies might think it is not worth duplicating content (the answer is – quite the contrary!). An then, how do you combine everyday information and posts on Facebook with a newsletter sent once a week?
Here are some hints:
Prolong social life of your content
Add tweets and Facebook posts, which you devoted time to prepare, to your e-newsletter. The average “life” of a tweet is very short – some estimate it lasts about 18 minutes, and many FB posts reach only some of your fans. The newsletter lets you breathe life into content that would normally die very early.
Create a “social publication”
Fans will surely like your best social media content gathered in one place, in a publication that is easy to read. Collect your posts and comments into a weekly called e.g. “You might have missed.” That sort of information is a great gift for fans who like reading about their favourite brand and its products.
Make people live with your event
You communicated an event on Facebook? You are happy with it? Sum it up in an e-mail! It is a good way to integrate the participants of the event, especially if some of them were following it online or on television. Create a summary of the best social content from the event, use the real-time fans’ enthusiasm, show their comments, pics or videos.
Encourage and engage
Always invite your fans to comment, share their opinions, give them feedback and let them do the same. If a customer is happy with your product and praises it, you can be sure his friends and family will notice it – and nothing you can say will be as powerful. Attach the right #hashtags, comments and content to your newsletters. Show the social affirmation of your brand.
Stay up-to-date
It is a fact everybody knows: to make content valuable and adequate you need to make it up-to-date. Informing about something that happened days – or even weeks – ago is boring and will be disappointing to your readers. Use social content that was up-to-date and relevant in the few hours before sending it in an e-mail.
Change fans into subscribers and subscribers into fans
Brands often have an improportional number of e-mail subscribers to social media fans and followers. While social media boost engagement, e-mail content boosts conversion. Build a cross-channel strategy, where each channel uses the strengths of another one. Use social content in your e-mail strategy to increase participation in the social dialogue and offline grapevine.
Stay mobile
We can quote some numbers: more than half people in Poland use their smartphones to check e-mails (according to Mobile Marketing in Poland 2013/2014 report). The rate is growing. The prognosis is: in the nearest future most social media or e-mail use will be via mobile devices. If you don’t design content that is easily accessible on a smartphone (responsive websites and newsletters are very common), your recipients may lack engagement.
“train” your subscribers
When social e-mails and regular and always of good quality, subscribers will learn to depend on the value of your content.
