The best kind of marketing approach is an integrated one. Together, different forms of marketing work as a unified representation of your business and they can help you do more with less.
The basis for good email marketing is your list. But how do you grow your email list? You can’t do it by just wishing. Social media is an ideal way to improve your list by stretching your reach.
And social media needs email marketing as well. You’ll want to collect data from your social platforms and build it into your email list as soon as possible so you can begin nurturing your leads.
Here’s how you can do it:
Why Social Media and Email Work Beautifully Together
Social media is an ideal vehicle to get in front of your target audience and get noticed. You want to engage with people who are interested in what you have to offer. Today, that’s very easy to do.
But first, you need a few things.
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A Good Following on a Social Media Platform
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Ideally, you have an active following on a handful of platforms. If they have come to know, like, and trust you, it’s easy to get them to engage with your content. If they haven’t gotten to that stage, spend a little time trying to figure out what types of content they find valuable.
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Ask Them to Connect Further
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Some people will join your mailing list merely because you ask. Make sure you send out periodic reminders to your audience to subscribe to your list. Let them know what they’ll receive.
For example, you can send discounts, a notice of secret sales or any number of things you know would be of value to them.
Even those who love you may not come over just because you ask them to. That’s why you then introduce;
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A Lead Magnet
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Once you know what your audience likes, you can create a piece of content that is so valuable to them that they will give over their name and email. Advertise this on all of your social pages as well as on blog posts and your website. Make sure everyone is aware of this valuable content.
You can even create a hyperlink to the content download in your email signature, which means you’ll need;
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A Landing Page
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Successful marketers create personalized opportunities for people to find the content they’re looking for. Yes, you could refer everyone back to your website for the content, but you’ll be much more successful in conversions and downloads if you personalize the place they’re directed to for the content.
For instance, if you have an SEO checklist to help improve your customer’s SEO available for download, creating a landing page dedicated to a brief description of the piece and why the visitor needs it will be much more effective at that conversion than just adding a button to your website.
If you direct someone to your homepage to click on a CTA to download your offer, they may get distracted by something else on your site. Or worse yet, they may not be able to find it and X out of your site in frustration. Don’t take that risk. Give them a personalized message and serve it up with no distractions on your landing page.
You can also create various landing pages directed from different referrals, which is helpful if you use targeted ads from Facebook or other social platforms. You can then use personalized language like, “Hi Facebook friend, hope you’ve enjoyed my SEO tips this week” or something else that would make the visitor feel like you knew them.
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Facebook Options
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Facebook now allows businesses many options for advertising. It has very attractive ways of targeting a specific audience so you’re not throwing away advertising dollars. It allows you to embed their pixel in order to gain more information about the website and Facebook visitors.
You also can create events, offers, and custom tabs. A custom tab can be used to create a form that would allow Facebook visitors to sign up for your email list or newsletter.
All of the major social media platforms allow for advertising now. Here’s a great resource for everything you need to know on how to do it on each platform.
One Last Thing About Improving Your Email Marketing
As mentioned above, social media feeds your email list, but your email can also help feed your social media platforms. Add your social media icons at the bottom of your email signature.
Following someone is largely a knee-jerk response that people do because it’s easy and everything is right there. Adding these icons to your email signature will mean a lot of people will click while they’re staring at the screen or sitting on hold.
Keep in mind that you want to move social media followers over to your email list as soon as possible. It’s much harder to nurture them on large platforms than it is on personalized emails. Plus, since the email list is yours, you needn’t worry about it in the same way you do building a masterpiece in a “rented” space.