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What are your best practices for aligning your email marketing and social media efforts?
Some say social media spells the end of email marketing, but in truth the two can compliment one another. What are your best practices for aligning your email marketing campaigns with your social media strategy? High quality answers may be included in an upcoming report on email marketing.
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7 Answers
First and foremost, I don't think "best practices" exist as of yet to integrate social media and email marketing. You might be saying what..that bald guy is crazy. Some people consider placing a FB or Twitter icon in their creative as a best practice. Some might consider a SWYN (share with your network) option integration and a "best practice". Others might leverage a one off email to garner "likes" on FB and say that they are in alignment.
I think in order to align your social media efforts into email marketing it goes beyond those things. Alignment needs to happen internally where the social media folks need to involve the email folks in campaigns. (vice versa as well) There is a ton of synergy between social and email that its almost a crime that companies are not thinking how to integrate campaigns as they are deployed. The reason for this is that all too often organizations are siloed in there efforts and see no intrinsic value to alignment.
I would first want to sit down with the social media team and ask what the campaign calendar looks like for social. I would also want the social team to know the email campaign calendar and see how those efforts can be integrated and tested against for effectiveness. In addition, I would request that we do some data mining to see what portion of the email subscriber base is also participating with us on FB or Twitter and test against how different messages resonate in each channel to those subscribers.
Folks, we are in the toddler stage of social media marketing and its development to date. The term "best practice" scares the bejesus out of me. I don't think there are many companies doing right these days, but then again, I am not sure what "right" is. I am fascinated in learning and experiencing what companies are doing these days and am always watching out for how people are aligning these efforts, but so far nothing has pointed me to a solid use case where they can honestly point out ROI impact from integrating these 2.
For those skeptics who believe that social media will kill email marketing, I say go and shut down all of your email accounts and see how it goes for a week or 5. Email marketing and social media will be around for a long time and will most certainly co-exist. Email is the peanut butter and social is the jelly. The PB&J wasn't invented overnight and I am waiting for a few companies to truly make a really darn good sandwich.
Andrew Kordek
Co-Founder, Trendline Interactive
An email marketing consultancy.
Twitter: @andrewkordek & @trendlinei
Email: andrew@trendlineinteractive.com
I don't know many companies (from the smallest of small to the biggest of the big) that rely only on email & social for thier marketing success - so we shouldn't limit ourselves to uncovering the best practices for combining just these two. The ultimate goal should be to have a unified strategy/brand that provides a guideline for all "conversations" - no matter the medium.
However, to answer the question a bit more directly, if a company has decided that social media and email marketing are the hub of that communication strategy, then they should work to promote those channels in all elements of their marketing & encourage a two way dialogue. For example, at Eloqua, when a new piece of content is produced, a multi-channel effort is used to increase the impact - a press release is issued, a blog post created, an email to the relevant slice of our database with a mobile version & sharing links is sent (**tracking which customers/prospects engage with you socially can help you manage communication segments appropriately - think about not pushing email to folks you know engage with you online or pre-releasing new content socially for those most engaged), and printed versions where appropriate are provided at physical events. The use of QR codes in traditional media can help extend the online presence in new ways. Through-out all efforts, we make sure that customers & prospects know where they can find us online - this is done through internal email signatures linking to blog/facebook/twitter/our own marketing community, Topliners.com, etc as well as auto-responders off of website visits and content downloads inviting folks to join us in social arenas. Digitial assets include tweet links to promote sharability and an internal social committe provides consistent conversations. At customer events, encourage tweeting during presentations (by clearing the air and not making them feel "rude" for sharing you'll see a spike in social engagement).
Like most anything in marketing, the biggest impact is made through well thought-out, multi-channel execution making the people, process and technology you use paramount in being able to efficiently integrate & measure the impact of new channels into any/all elements of your marketing mix.
Well, the best strategy is that both of them should promote the other.
For example, our newsletter includes social sharing options and links to our social media accounts on popular sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
We also include links to our latest blog posts to allow our mailing list to access our blog and comment on posts.
On the other hand, you can include your optin form within different social media channels such as your blog and Facebook page.
People come up with innovative ideas all the time to get the best of both worlds. For example, ContentProfessor, an article spinning software, offers visitors a free eBook in exchange for filling their optin form and liking their Facebook page. (users have to take the two steps to grab their freebie) This way, they hit the list building and Facebook marketing birds with one stone (or one freebie!). We have written an entire article on this issue that you may check out here:
http://garious.com/blog/2010/12/how-did-contentprofessor-hit-the-list-buildin...
I hope you find this information helpful. To our success.
Email and social media work well together, each can be used to point to the other and invite further engagement. It is vital to use multiple platforms and tools as different segments of your market are likely more versed with different tools. I have customers I've attracted through Facebook, others specifically through Twitter and often others who found me there then moved onto my online list so they get my email marketing and regular value feeding. Know your audience and you will know best the right tools to use and how to get the ROI desired.
It's not so much a "best practices" conversation. Best practices are for mediums that are generally run the same in multiple instances. Today, in 2011, there's such easy access to online marketing vehicles for companies of all types, sizes, and industries that the usage of best practices isn't really applicable across the board. Following another company's practices in the social arena can really stifle the voice of the company your working for and lower the quality of content being distributed. In email, as Ms. Galt said, you have to know your audience.
Using cadency, time of send, type of messaging, CTA's of another company can cause a great disconnect between your company and it's email lists. Primarily due to the fact that each customer base is typically unique to a single company. An example of this might be Ski Resorts. Two resorts, both in the same area/town, both offer ski in/ski out service, pools, distance from local attractions, but one is pricier rooms and one is lower budget. The fact that the rooms are different by $100 bucks can completely change how each resort caters to it's customers and prospects.
The higher priced resort may have to cater to higher income, higher educated, family-oriented, amenity demanding customer base. While the lower-end resort focuses on bunk-mating, Chipotle-destroying, car-pooling, dread-locked folks who want a great place to stay on a Pabst Blue Ribbon budget.
This simple and small difference changes the email and social marketing approach entirely.
Just because I want to sound cheesy - Try "Test Practices" rather than others "Best Practices". Test multiple variables of social and email campaigns to find the sweet spot for your efforts. Also; find the appropriate voice for the company, that can dramatically change consumers affinity level for the brand. Think, "Birds of a Feather".
Consistency is the best practice. While testing is critical to long-term success in any marketing efforts / operations, a key will be making sure both audiences (email and social) are "getting some love" from your efforts. The fastest way to alienate a constituency is to avoid them for no apparent reason.
A few days ago I found a good list of social media email integration options that included 12 ways to integrate email, Facebook, and Twitter. It's in a image format so here's the link http://goo.gl/sw66m
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