Even though people are spending more time using social media, they are not abandoning e-mail. E-mail marketers started to get social in 2009, but 2010 will be the year social media makes e-mail marketing more powerful. Social media is a partner, not a threat to e-mail marketing because it provides new avenues for sharing and engaging customers and prospects. The two channels can actually help each other, offering the opportunity for marketers to create deeper connections with their audiences.
For marketers, you must now integrate your e-mail marketing and social media marketing efforts to maximize effectiveness, eMarketer suggested below these four strategies marketers should follow:
* Multiply the sharing opportunities by linking e-mail messaging with social media messaging.
* Provide a broader platform for brand advocates; encourage the best customers to share with friends via social media.
* Shift the control to the consumer by providing multiple avenues to interact with a company.
* Use e-mail metrics such as response rate and conversions to enhance social ROI.
More than four in 10 business executives surveyed by StrongMail said integrating e-mail and social was one of their most important initiatives for 2010, just after improving e-mail performance and targeting and growing opt-in lists.
About one-quarter of respondents had already implemented an integrated strategy, and another 24% had formulated a strategy and were researching how to put it in practice. But 18% of business executives wanted to add social components to their e-mail campaigns and did not know where to begin.
In the summer 2009, in their 81% of market surveyed, MarketingSherpa said social media helped to expand the reach of their e-mail content, most likely because of sharing buttons incorporated into e-mail newsletters. A further 78% said social helped to increase brand awareness.
In addition, due to the fact of there are now hundreds of millions of consumers worldwide are using social networks, blogs, micro-blogs, online forums and video-sharing sites, consumer’s behavior changes caused marketers have to followed them there. Thus, social media marketing has gone from experimental to must-have, and that increases the importance of adopting an integrated e-marketing strategy.
For those marketers who often neglect an integrated strategy due to the perception of that social media is easy and cheap to do should rethink it again, because much of the real cost of social campaigns is in the people-hours spent fostering and maintaining social conversations.
In the “Email Marketing Industry Census 2010″ report, eConsultancy, 37% of their respondents encourage social sharing of e-mail content, a further 31% planned to add this functionality.
Social connections are becoming increasingly bidirectional: Marketers are not only encouraging users to follow or fan their brand within e-mail messages but they are also including e-mail marketing links within their social media presence. The close integration between the two channels means more opportunities for consumers to interact with brands they way they choose.
By saying that, have you start to integrating your email and social media strategy to maximize your campaign’s effectiveness?
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