For the majority of us, email marketing was dead. However, it has made a comeback and more experts are now recommending it once again. In fact, experts see email marketing now as the most effective marketing tactic than mobile marketing.
But there is another marketing technique that is making a boom these days. It is social media marketing. The prowess of social media for driving traffic is already recognized and being explored by all businesses. Of all social channels, Facebook leads the pack when it comes to finding out which of them are the most effective in driving traffic.
Websites such as BuzzFeed depend a lot on social media to increase traffic. Look at the following chart from Shareaholic and you have a clear picture of how social media has turned into the greatest traffic-driving force.
In fact, the potential of both these channels for bringing a massive amount of traffic is now well known. So, instead of using email and social media separately, why not integrate them and get an exceptional increase in traffic? If you possess a long list of email subscribers and have great social media page design, then make sure that you integrate your emails with your social marketing efforts.
Not convinced yet? Have a look at this example below as it may compel you to go for combining the two media as part of your marketing strategy.
According to an infographic from Socialmediatoday.com when Sony Vaio started its email marketing campaign to promote its new VAIO summer line-up of laptops, they simply incorporated ‘’Pin It’’ buttons in their emails and received 3,000 more clicks. Their email revenue goal skyrocketed by 172%.
(Image Source: socailmediatoday.com)
In fact, a plethora of success stories can be cited to illustrate the growing trend and importance of combining email marketing with social media marketing as a force to maximize traffic and get desired business results.
We are sure that by now you must be convinced the potential email marketing and social media marketing together has for enhancing your web traffic.
Here are some key points you should consider when using these two marketing tactics in tandem to your advantage.
Connect and Engage Through Social Media
You probably have a long list of email subscribers already. But they will visit your website only when you make additional efforts for striking a rapport with them. When they send a query on your social page, treat this as an opportunity to connect with them in a friendly and amicable way. You should not only respond quickly but also make them feel nice and special too. For instance, HubSpot responds to one of its customers Jeanne Ehinger.
In the conversation above, you can notice that the company talks to its customer in a friendly manner by addressing her by her first name, greeting with a short ‘hi’ and using words such as ‘that’s interesting’, ‘that’s curious, ‘sending email to chat more now’. Your customers will surely send you an email and visit your website after such a conversation.
Gather Email Addresses of Your Followers and Fans
Try and collect email addresses of all your fans and followers on social media since an email has a higher customer lifetime value (CLV) than social media platforms. Remember that your social media account may be penalized and closed for a variety of unknown reasons. And if you lose your social media account, you also lose your followers and fans forever. However, having email addresses of your followers on social pages will save you from losing them. You can then use email addresses for marketing your products or services.
For instance, if you want to get email addresses on Twitter, all you need to do is to create a lead generation card and click on some buttons thereafter. You will then find email addresses of users, their names, and twitter handle. Here is a detailed approach to getting email addresses from your Twitter and Facebook fans and followers.
Build a Social Community
Another proven tactic for using email and social channels together for marketing is to create a special group of people from your social media pages and explore them as your target customers. You can also start a group on any of the social media platforms such as Facebook or LinkedIn by inviting your email list.
For instance, web generator Lewis Howes has a group on LinkedIn with more than 20,000 members and his five other groups have 5,000+ members. Every group features Lewis Howes as the owner and one of his websites as a featured site. Have a look
Use Social Icons in Your Emails
Adding social share icons in your emails can give a boost to your email content in a big way. According to an article published in Neilpatel.com, social sharing boosts email CTR by 158%.
You can take your email content to more potential customers if you incorporate the brand logo whether created by logo maker tool or by designer and social buttons in your emails. The recipients of your emails can click on these logos and social media buttons to share your great content with their peers, enhancing its reach manifold. These icons alone are responsible for a huge increase in traffic to business websites and brand awareness.
You can use these sharing buttons as a tactic also to promote your products or services. For example, have a look at how Chris Penn promoted his newsletter using social media on his emails. In his emails, Chris Penn, a celebrity, offered random featuring of two of the subscribers, in the newsletter, who share the newsletter on their network.
Now if you are wondering how to incorporate major social media icons on your email, here are some steps to take
- Create an HTML webpage especially for your email content.
- Have a custom code for your emails and put social share code in your email at your desired place.
- When creating the call-to-action buttons, make sure you create some compelling ones such as ‘Click to Tweet’ or ‘Let’s Get Social’.
- Colors of social media buttons should be attractive and in contrast to colors used in email background.
Over To You
Marketers are now gearing up to explore both email and social media as a joint force for driving more traffic to their websites. They are now widely considered as two marketing tactics that are complementary to each other. Explore all techniques to use varied social channels and get email addresses of your followers and fans. Then use their email to spread your brand message on social media. This two-way interaction of these marketing mediums is what you should be vigorously exploring to drive maximum traffic.
DepositPhotos – email marketing
