Social Media Email Marketing - Tips

In case you missed it, check out Part 1 and 2 of this Social Media and Email Marketing blog:

Part 1: It Doesn’t Have to Be One or the Other
Part 2: Ways to Connect

Let’s finish this 3 Part segment off with some friendly tips and reminders to help you make the most out of your email marketing campaigns.

Have a Clear Goal

What do you plan on getting out of this? Is this synergy an attempt to gain membership? Drive more traffic to the company website? Encourage registration in a contest? It’s important to have a clear and consistent goal and mold you efforts around said goal.

For example, if you are currently holding a Facebook contest and trying to increase signups, be sure to make mention of the contest in the newsletter or try sending a “blast” to your list that centers on the contest with links that redirect straight to your Facebook page.

Foster Positive Conversation

Work to increase positive feedback while acknowledging and dealing with negative. The worst thing you can do is delete or ignore negative comments; users will feel like they’ve been tossed aside by the big bad business, and this kind of animosity is what leads to diminished reputation and poor company image.

Hire staff to answer posted questions, respond to tweets, and look for trends in feedback. If users are all posting the same question, then the information you’ve provided is not comprehensive enough - fix it. Utilize users as an extended marketing team and learn to consider their advice – after all, the customer is always right.

Keep the Cycle Going

Follow up – make an effort to confirm things have been fixed if there was an issue or that things are still going well if there wasn’t. To keep the conversation going invite users to discuss a topic further on your Facebook page or other social channel.
Show consumers you are really listening by featuring their comments in a newsletter or on your website. Send them an email thanking them for their feedback. Make sure they know their comments are not just being fed to a robot – there’s a person over there!

Promote Transparency

Here at Kobemail we work to promote transparency with our clients and encourage them to do the same with their recipients. Remember, social media blew up as a personal outlet and in order to mold it to business practices we must be in tune with how it works.

Is called “Social” media for a reason – Have a conversation with your users just like you’d have a conversation with a friend (while keeping the profanities and sarcasm to a minimum, of course). Nobody wants to talk to someone they think is being fake or insincere – so be real, and they’ll appreciate it.

Experiment

Try out new techniques, the only failure is not taking advantage of a learning opportunity. Every business is different and because of this you won’t know what works best until you experiment! Trying different incorporation techniques (how links are used, where they’re used, what kind of incentive your offering, etc) can help lead you to a practiced marriage of social media and email marketing campaigns.

As always – Happy Mailing (and Social Media) from all of us here at KobeMail!

Author: Caitlin Durand
Editor: Rebecca Allas