Email marketing is arguably the best digital marketing channel with a reported return on investment of $38 per each #1 spent. Email newsletters and triggered emails are, unsurprisingly, widely popular techniques for engaging customers and making more sales, with the vast majority of eCommerce businesses relying on them every day.
In addition to having a superior ability to sell, emails are also a worthwhile strategy for improving the effectiveness of other marketing techniques.
Social media marketing is without a doubt the best candidate for partnership with emails, and here’s why:
- Most customers browse social media and emails on mobile, which means that combining the two strategies won’t interfere with the customer experience.
- Email and social media are two channels where the majority of online customers want to be contacted (46.4 percent and 38.5 percent, respectively).
So, by combining email marketing and social media marketing, your company can satisfy an important requirement in online business: meeting customers where they are.
If you’re wondering where to start, read further. Right now, we’re going to learn how to enhance social media marketing with email marketing as well as what benefits come with using this strategy.
1. Building your social media following
This is a common goal of businesses using social media marketing, and emails can help with achieving it. The easiest way to give a boost to the number of visits to a business’s social media page is to include a link to it in each email sent to customers.
While you should place the links to your social media in each email, pay special attention to welcome emails – the first emails sent to a customer. They generate 4 times more opens and 5 times more clicks than regular emails, so they have a higher chance to convince more people to visit your social media pages.
Here’s how Three Cat Coffee Company, an eCommerce coffee seller, does it. The recipient can find the links to social media platforms at the bottom of the letter and connect with the business in just a couple of clicks.
The social media buttons are located just below the call-to-action button so chances are good that the recipient will notice them. Nice job.
You can also add text to encourage more people to connect with you on social media and provide an incentive.
For example, the text in the email below from Solo Traveler invites the recipient to follow the business on Pinterest and offers a choice of other platforms, too.
As you can see, they even provide a link to the Pinterest profile so connecting with them there just takes a couple of clicks. Chances are that building a Pinterest following is a marketing goal of Solo Traveler.
Anyway, it’s a good move, and you should consider doing the same where appropriate.
2. Increasing the awareness of a social media contest
It goes without saying that you should use every marketing communication channel to spread the word about an upcoming social media contest (which, by the way, is one of the best ways to engage with leads).
Emails are great for this because newsletter subscribers may be more interested in participating than people who have never heard about your business.
For example, you can create an email where you concisely but clearly explain the rules and conditions of the contest, describe the prizes, and provide an easy way to become a participant.
The below email by McDonald’s is an excellent example of that. The company ran a contest where customers had to nominate someone they know to be a Brew-Gooder (“someone who does a little something good and deserves a little thanks,” as per the official explanation) and enter the contest to win free McCafe for Life.
