Five ways to combine social web and e-mail-marketing
People tend to spend more and more time on Facebook and Twitter. The logic consequence is that the marketing-sector is shifting its focus from traditional advertising to Social Media Marketing, because this is where their new and potential customers spend most of their time. Yet, when talking about contacting the company’s “old”, consistent customers, perhaps e-mail communication is preferred.
The optimal solution would be to combine E-mail and Social Media Marketing und thus create something called “Online Marketing Instruments”. A company can heavily increase its actual reach via e-mail, but this reach can be multiplied through Social Web Sharing.
So how can you – as a marketer – rock that boat:
1. Make sharing easy (SWYN):
Motivate and help your customers to easily share interesting content about your products or your field of work with their friends via SWYN-buttons (“Share-with-your-network”). Be sure to add Twitter and Facebook-buttons to your webpages, in order to tempt the customer into the sharing-process.
2. Get e-mail addresses through Facebook:
If you send out a frequent newsletter to your customers, be sure to mention that regularly on your Social Media Portals and tell people to register online. That way you do not just gain fans, but actual customers, who are frequently exposed to what your company wants to tell them.
3. Viral campaigns:
Discounts, special offers and fun competitions – this is what customers and fans find “share-worthy”. Launch viral campaigns that offer an added value or that focus on the “fun-factor” – this can also include competitions and downloads that you yourself – as a person, not as a marketer – found interesting. Yet, not everything that shines is golden: Viral Marketing is not very easy and dependable, because not everything is bound to be shared. You need to be very picky about your content.
4. Reward your e-mail newsletter recipients:
Add exclusive tips, tricks and discounts into your newsletter, that are not published on your Social Media Portals. That way, you reward those customers who actually signed up for your newsletter and thus, both marketing channels start offering incentives for each other. Also show your newsletter-readers which benefits they gain from being active in the Social Web.
5. Post newsletter highlights on Social Media:
As soon as you send out a newsletter, post its catchy headline(s) on your Facebook Page and Twitter Timeline. Retweets and Likes will increase the customers’ curiosity about what your newsletter has to offer – and voila, a new e-mail address was added to your newsletter contact list.
The optimal solution would be to combine E-mail and Social Media Marketing und thus create something called “Online Marketing Instruments”. A company can heavily increase its actual reach via e-mail, but this reach can be multiplied through Social Web Sharing.
So how can you – as a marketer – rock that boat:
1. Make sharing easy (SWYN):
Motivate and help your customers to easily share interesting content about your products or your field of work with their friends via SWYN-buttons (“Share-with-your-network”). Be sure to add Twitter and Facebook-buttons to your webpages, in order to tempt the customer into the sharing-process.
2. Get e-mail addresses through Facebook:
If you send out a frequent newsletter to your customers, be sure to mention that regularly on your Social Media Portals and tell people to register online. That way you do not just gain fans, but actual customers, who are frequently exposed to what your company wants to tell them.
3. Viral campaigns:
Discounts, special offers and fun competitions – this is what customers and fans find “share-worthy”. Launch viral campaigns that offer an added value or that focus on the “fun-factor” – this can also include competitions and downloads that you yourself – as a person, not as a marketer – found interesting. Yet, not everything that shines is golden: Viral Marketing is not very easy and dependable, because not everything is bound to be shared. You need to be very picky about your content.
4. Reward your e-mail newsletter recipients:
Add exclusive tips, tricks and discounts into your newsletter, that are not published on your Social Media Portals. That way, you reward those customers who actually signed up for your newsletter and thus, both marketing channels start offering incentives for each other. Also show your newsletter-readers which benefits they gain from being active in the Social Web.
5. Post newsletter highlights on Social Media:
As soon as you send out a newsletter, post its catchy headline(s) on your Facebook Page and Twitter Timeline. Retweets and Likes will increase the customers’ curiosity about what your newsletter has to offer – and voila, a new e-mail address was added to your newsletter contact list.