Social Media and Email Marketing: Improving ROI

Combining social media with your email marketing can help you reach a larger audience, grow your email list and engage more customers. Many small business owners and marketers, however, are unsure of how to integrate them with their email marketing. The 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report revealed that, although 93 percent of marketers are using them for marketing purposes, one of their top questions remains, “How do I integrate and manage all of my social media marketing activities?”

3 Ways to Integrate Social Media with Your Email Marketing  

1. Share your emails with your social networks: Instead of just sending emails to the limited number of people on your list, you can get your messages to a much wider audience by sharing them on your social networks. For example, post a link to your latest email on your Facebook page and ask a compelling question to get people talking. Email marketing software like pbSmart Connections saves you time by automatically posting your messages to your social networks.

2. Encourage your subscribers to share your content: Adding social sharing buttons to your emails makes it easy for your subscribers to share your content with their networks. This can get your messages in front of a wider audience and increase your click-through rates. Econsultancy published findings stating that adding just one social sharing option to your emails can increase your click-through rates by 30 percent, while adding three social sharing buttons can raise your click-through rate by 55 percent.

 3. Add opt-in forms to your social pages: Most social sites allow you to customize your pages. Use this opportunity to encourage people to subscribe to your list. For example, you can add an opt-in form directly to your blog and Facebook page. You can also link to your opt-in page from your Twitter and LinkedIn profiles.

Although social media are great tools for building your audience, you must remember that most users are turned off by blatant sales pitches. Instead of blasting out messages that encourage people to visit your website or buy something, put most of your social media efforts into engaging your audience. You can do this by fostering conversations, sharing valuable content and providing customer support.

What Next?

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