The social media revolution freed people’s creativity and imagination, leading to a literal boom of online content. Social media got so big that big brands now invest heavily in strategies to keep users connected and engaged and use every tool at their disposal to reach new audiences.
But what does this mean for smaller or medium-sized brands? Can they keep up?
Luckily, a smart social media strategy is not just about huge marketing budgets. It’s also about coming up with original, relatable content, passion for the niche, and using the right tools.
Email marketing is one of these tools–which is also free to use. When done right, it can boost social media’s reach. Let's explore how email marketing is so useful even in today’s highly connected world and why it still has the power to create leads and boost sales.
Why Combine the Two?
At first glance, it may seem odd to integrate email marketing in a social media strategy. After all, the two platforms are like Baby Boomers and Millennials!
Still, according to a CampaingMonitor study, most small business owners find that social media is the perfect environment to build brand awareness and reach out to new audiences. The same study discovered that email marketing is the second most popular platform used.
Now, if we consider the fact that email marketing is 40 times better at acquiring new customers than social media, it makes sense to use the two most popular promotion platforms at your disposal to empower your entrepreneurial efforts.
But if email marketing is so much better, why not just stick to it? Well, the new type of customer values the opinion of others much more so than newsletters that clutter their email inbox. Also, they like to feel connected to their favorite brands and appreciated for their endorsement.
In addition, modern social media platforms use a combination of big data and artificial intelligence to accurately pinpoint the type of content that’s most relevant for various customers.
How to Use Email Marketing to Your Benefit?
Connect with Brands
Regardless of your platform of choice, there will come a time when you may want to start working with brands. After all, being an influencer is really fun, but no one starts an online business just for the likes!
In this case, you can launch a well-designed email marketing campaign, reaching out to brands that may find your content relatable to their products. You should start by crafting a great proposal pitch, where you let them know how their product or service would fit your channel and why your specific style and type of content would fit them.
Keep in mind: Even if you’re reaching out via email, it doesn’t mean you can be generic! Each pitch needs to show your personal touch and must prove you’re truly interested in a collaboration.
Boost Loyalty in eCommerce
While many teens dream about making money as an Instagram influencer, true entrepreneurs know that an eCommerce business can be more reliable. Even more, it helps to have social media experience, since you can turn the audience into loyal customers.
So, if you have an eCommerce business, a quick way to boost awareness and increase conversions is via transactional emails. These are the emails a user receives when they interact with an online store (create an account, add to their wishlist, make a purchase, and so on) and they can be used to cultivate a customer’s loyalty and respect for the brand.
Keep People Engaged
Engagement is the currency of the land these days. After all, when you’re looking for collaborations, it doesn’t matter how many followers or likes your channel gets. Every brand desires an audience that engages with its content via shares, comments, or references.
But it’s not that easy to have an engaged community. Every social media strategist knows it takes a lot of effort and consistency to keep followers interested and chatty. So, use email marketing as a tool to boost your presence via social media and pump some new energy into it.
You can learn from big brands that use social media buttons in their email newsletters. Create a specific email campaign that reminds customers of the benefits of keeping up to date with your latest posts.
Better Content Targeting & Customization
Personalization is one of the building blocks that create a successful marketing campaign. But when you use social media platforms, it’s difficult to focus only on one segment of your audience. The content you create needs to be relevant to a wider group of people.
Email, on the other hand, is more personal and allows marketers to customize the content so it will fit each recipient’s preferences. In addition, it’s easy to create an automated system that sends emails with different content according to each user’s behavior on your page.
Wrap Up
As you can see, the two platforms complement each other quite nicely and can be used to boost brand awareness and even sales. It's important to keep in mind that social media can be used to grow your email list. That in turn may lead to a better conversion rate in the future. Overall, the lesson here is to never limit your online presence to just one set of tools.
The technology is developing fast and this opens a wide array of opportunities for businesses of any size and type!
This was a guest post written by Stewart Dunlop, who is a full-time content marketer at Foundr and part-time reader, gamer & footballer. You can follow or tweet him @stewydunlop.
