Integrate Social Media and Email Marketing to Drive Business Growth

An effective marketing strategy is created by perfectly combining the powers of individual channels and imparting a consistent experience throughout those platforms. It cannot work in silos. While emails help communicate personalized messages, social media enables reaching a wider audience. Whether you are a small business or a large enterprise, your marketing strategy won’t work if you use a single channel. You must use the combined power of both email marketing and social media to get more customers and boost your business growth.

So, how will you integrate social media and email marketing to drive more leads? 

Here are some tactics to help you out. 

1. Use social media to attract email signups

It is quite likely that some of the people following you on social media or stumbling upon your social media handle are not on the email subscribers’ list. You can create targeted social media ads to encourage people to sign up for your emails.

• Promote your email newsletter on your social media accounts to encourage signups.
• Run ads directing people to a landing page where they can opt-in in exchange for a lead magnet
• Promote premium content on your profiles like podcasts, templates, webinars and courses.

Small businesses can immensely benefit from using these tactics to get more users on their email lists.

2. Import the email contacts to your social media platforms

One of the best ways to strengthen your relationship with the subscribers is by uploading the subscriber lists to your social media channels. It would help you address them better as they will have a face against their names. They will no longer be a name in the Excel sheet. 

3. Repurpose your content across different channels

All marketers would agree that content creation takes a lot of time and effort. Now, imagine writing different content for every channel. Wouldn’t it be exhausting? The simple solution for this problem is to reuse the existing content. For instance: You can create a promotional email from a social media copy. An infographic created for the newsletter can work as your social media ad campaign. 

Such tactics will significantly reduce your content production cost and facilitate consistent posting across the different channels. 

4. Employ retargeting ads on Facebook for email leads 

According to Marketing Sherpa, 73% of leads are not sales-ready. Persuading them to make the purchase takes multiple touchpoints. As a marketing thumb rule, it takes 7 touchpoints with a customer before they make a purchase. Therefore, you must retarget your email subscribers on Facebook and other social media channels to stay on the top of their mind. Just make sure you select the correct audience to target. Facebook’s Dynamic Ads tool recognizes the relevant ad for the people on your list so that you do not have to draft different messages manually. Retargeting ad campaigns work the best to boost engagement and conversions for your business. 

5. Organize a social media contest

Hosting a contest or giveaway on social media works wonders in getting email signups. It works on the principle of offering something in return for their email address. Promote the contest on your social media channels as well as emails. As an end result, you will be able to grow your email list and enhance your social media visibility. 

6. Benefit from user-generated content

7. Include social sharing links in your emails

Adding social media links in your emails is a good way to get new followers. However, it is advisable that you include the platforms relevant to your business. For example: If you are an ecommerce store, your target audience will mostly be active on Facebook and Instagram. On the other hand, SaaS businesses can benefit the most through YouTube and LinkedIn. 

See how Uncommon Goods has included links to their Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook handles in their email footer. 

Moo, being a brand dealing with business cards, stationery, and marketing materials, includes a link to LinkedIn profile in addition to Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. 

8. Redirect the unsubscribes to the alternative communication channels

Whenever someone opts out of your email communications, consider it as an opportunity. People unsubscribe as they might be getting too many emails. So, redirect them to your preference center and share your social media platforms. It would give them a chance to stay in touch with your brand updates. So, although a user has unsubscribed, they still remain associated with your brand. In addition, it will improve the number of social media followers. 

9. Allow the users to share your email on their social media profiles

Along with “Forward to a friend” link, add a “share on social media” link in your emails. You can send gamification emails and ask the subscribers to tweet about how they liked the game. 

Take a look at this email by Email Uplers in which they have encouraged the readers to “share the joy” on Twitter.

On clicking through the CTA, they will be redirected to their Twitter profile from where they can tweet about it. 

This strategy works well for occasion-based emails like the one shared above.

10. Use a powerful CRM tool to get comprehensive reports

Track social media engagement and email performance through a single CRM, as far as possible. It will give you detailed insights into the behavior of your customers and how they are finding your content. According to these analytics, you can keep optimizing your strategy for best results. 

Wrapping Up

Managing email marketing and social media together certainly looks like an overwhelming task. However, if you take a smart approach toward content creation and follow the tips shared above, you will see how they work together to drive faster business growth. Just be patient and persevere to yield the maximum out of these channels.