Editorial Articles

It may seem that everyone’s using new media tools, but recent reports* show that 37% of companies avoid social media because they don’t know enough about it. However, while some marketers specialising in other established services, like email marketing, might see this as an opportunity to curry favour with detractors, we recognise the benefits that integration offers. In fact email has evolved in a variety of ways and thanks to great strides in digital integration it’s now possible to combine social media with email marketing.

So how do you bring email into the social media age?

1. Understand the benefits of converging email with social media
Many may consider social media’s method of publicly sharing information to be at odds with email’s one-to-one messaging. However, one of the most prominent benefits of the marrying of the two platforms is the opportunity to reach a larger pool of prospective customers via a brand advocate, without being overly intrusive.

2. Promote digital activity within email to engage customers
Customer engagement is of primary importance. Businesses need to consider their online collateral as social assets. This includes everything from company websites to blogs, Twitter feeds, Facebook fan pages, subscription lists and sales platforms. The way to promote these assets is to ensure email efforts point customers in the right direction.

3. Facilitate shared communication
Email newsletters and customer bulletins regularly include social media bookmarks (direct links to the recipients feed or sender’s fan page). This encourages users to share information with their own social media contacts, which helps marketers acquire additional prospects with similar interests. Within social networks, the more followers someone has, the better placed they are to operate as ‘influencers’. Encouraging influencers to share information with their friends perpetuates the longevity and reach of a message initially distributed by the marketer.

4. Ensure tools fulfil their potential
Data collation remains a key marketing objective and while email subscription forms and preference centres are acceptable data tools, social media integration amplifies the reach of these methods. By enabling subscribers to voluntarily log-in to their Facebook or Twitter accounts on an email subscription form, their personal information can be extracted automatically. With this opt-in information, marketers gain greater insight into individual demographics and preferences. With access to social media profiles, marketers are also able to collate rich profile information allowing them to segment potential customers, and serve them personally relevant messages through email, social networks, the web and real time messaging.

5. Maximise message outreach
The ability to share real time updates with a network of friends is another core benefit of social media. Imagine someone signs up to an email list to receive exclusive discounts from their favourite brand. The social marketer is able to generate a message announcing that user has renewed their subscription, which is instantly seen by the user’s connections across the social web. People trust their friends more than advertisers, so when your customers promote your brand in this way, the impact is much more powerful.

Email marketing’s halcyon days are far from over. As long as email continues to be a core component of the marketing mix, its value will be upheld. The continual growth of integration across all digital platforms will widen the playing field for multi-channel marketing. However, marketers must consider convergence as a way of empowering consumers, rather than technology use for its own sake. By facilitating mutually beneficial consumer needs in the right way, new opportunities are sure to follow.

Hayden Saunders
Technical Consultant, Epsilon International

* ‘Marketing Industry Trends Report’ by Equation Research