Simon Robinson, marketing and alliances director, Responsys EMEA, explains how digital marketers can best use the new tools available to enhance traditional email campaigns
According to a popular US blog, bigfatmarketingblog.com, the UK is out-tweeting America. British businesses are apparently using Twitter in more innovative ways this side of the Atlantic for true customer engagement.
So, it seems a good time to outline some top tips for UK marketers looking to get the most out of social media and how to best integrate it with traditional campaigns such as email.
While social media tools are growing in popularity with UK marketers, this does not mean the demise of email. In fact one of the most effective ways of enhancing a traditional email campaign is by adding social media to boost its reach and encourage brand engagement.
Below are top suggestions to integrate social media and email:
Reward for social: if you can, offer customers a benefit for sharing emails, posting on Facebook and tweeting. This could be a simple ‘thank you’ message or entering them into a competition.
Provide a unique tag: include a promotional hashtag in email campaigns to encourage it to ‘go viral’ on social networks. This also gives marketers a way to track and measure its success.
Share-with-your-network links: one of the most effective ways to direct traffic to your site is by embedding share-with-your-network links into email campaigns to enable recipients to post links directly to Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook fan pages: including links in emails to Facebook fan pages is an easy way to boost your social media following and gain a deeper insight into customer behaviour and interests.
Promote email opt-ins and opt-outs: take advantage of a captive audience by targeting customers on social networks as well as in-store, at events and via advertising by encouraging them to opt-in or opt-out, keeping data up-to-date and emails relevant.
Re-use content: just because you are using social media does not mean you need to create new material. Re-use what you have to maximise resources and reiterate key messages.
Cohesion: ensure promotions are similar across various social media channels for message consistency and to improve effectiveness by broadening its reach.
By Simon Robinson
Marketing and alliances director
Responsys EMEA
www.responsys.com