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1. You can use social media to drive your email opt-in list. If you have a Facebook presence, for example, provide visitors to your profile the opportunity to both "Like" your page and register to be a part of your email marketing database. On Twitter, promote your list by teasing your pending campaign and adding a link to your email sign-up form. These are easy and painless ways to offer another point of entry.
2. Social media can provide marketers with deeper customer insights, allowing for better engagement and improved messaging. By taking the time to learn which social networks your customers frequent and finding where the discussions are taking place, you can determine what topics are being discussed and what content is being shared. This information will help you tap into the motivating factors that are driving your customers to share content, which will influence how you shape future content for your user base.
3. Every bit of integration provides opportunities to nurture a lead closer to the more serious commitment of providing an email address or even making a purchase. This is a huge benefit because in the past, when someone came and went from your website, the conversation was over. The opportunity to offer a smaller commitment to a social presence allows marketers to continue interacting with prospects, offering an extra tool to move them down the funnel to a strong commitment with your company.
4. There's significant potential for a "word of mouth" multiplier effect. This word of mouth multiplier can grow your list, increase awareness of your brand and drive your promotions.
5. Providing an opportunity to opt in through these channels increases the reach of your message. You can leverage your Facebook page to communicate about upcoming product upgrades, special events, awards and customer support announcements. You can use Twitter to create an ongoing dialogue stream with your subscribers to keep them engaged with your brand and product offerings.
6. You can also use email to drive your social campaigns. Integrating Facebook, Twitter and email can be as simple as embedding "share-to-social" links in your emails to drive content sharing across channels.
For an example of one company who successfully incorporated social media and email, we look to Dacor. Dacor, a designer of stylish, American-made, luxury kitchen appliances, initially wanted to grow its social presence and acquire new Facebook fans and followers on Twitter. By integrating a supplemental email campaign, Dacor achieved these goals and marketing success. Through a series of social media sweepstakes and an accompanying email campaign, Dacor gained five fold fans and followers, tripled list growth and improved email deliverability to 99.9 percent. From the new followers, Dacor was able to capture quality prospects to add its email database. Dacor achieved this by maintaining cross-channel messaging throughout its social media sites and email campaigns, as well as embedding social media links into its email messages.
Optimizing email campaigns with social media does not have to be complicated. The companies that will succeed will be the ones that apply basic marketing principles to all media channels, including social media sites, and maintain consistency across channels for fully immersive, integrated brand experiences.
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