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Did you know that there are more than 4.48 billion social media users around the world as of 2021?
There’s no wonder why companies focus much of their marketing efforts on cultivating their online presence. However, social media networks alone will not reach all your target consumers.
In fact, Statista reports that there are 4.1 billion active email users worldwide. MarketingSherpa research shows that 72% of people prefer to receive promo campaigns via email while only 17% prefer to receive messages through social media channels.
However, as a brand, it’s still important to integrate social media and email marketing.
Keep reading to get an insight on how you can communicate the right messages to your target audience at the right moment and make email an engaging channel.
Email Marketing Vs. Social Media Marketing
Email Marketing
Pros:
- Easily accessible (Most people now have at least one email address)
- It offers a high return on investment and conversions
- Easy to integrate with other marketing tools, such as your social media efforts
- You can customize and personalize the content according to your preferences
- It can invite more website visitors and build brand awareness
Cons:
- Your emails could be marked as spam
- Some email subscribers may not even open your email
- Design, tone, and strategy can make or break your email marketing strategy
- The unsubscribe button is easy to find
Social Media Marketing
Pros:
- Massive audience
- Allows you to build your customer relationship
- Increase brand awareness
- Cost-effective marketing strategy
Cons:
- The process of creating engaging content can be time-consuming
- Negative reviews, comments, and publicity are possible
- It can be difficult to calculate the return on investment
[Related: The Pro’s Guide to Managing Social Media in Healthcare]
How To Make A Winning Email Marketing Strategy
1. Embed trigger emails
Users often reject emails that came out of the blue. They are more likely to accept messages that trigger some of their specific actions. It can be a welcome message, a re-engagement email, a follow-up to a transaction or query, or a piece of subscription information with a call to action.
Check out Airbnb’s email marketing strategy. All new users receive a welcome email. It encourages immediate interaction and is proactive. The visual elements are easy to understand and exude a friendly atmosphere. The CTAs are also compelling.
Depending on your industry and brand, you will need to decide where and when to embed email triggers. Online retailers can use onboarding triggers to remind customers to log in or complete their searches. To encourage shoppers to return to their sites sooner, triggers based on personal events can remind them of holiday offers and bonuses.
2. Tag visitors for follow-up emails
While welcome emails are valuable to new subscribers, they will not be as effective for returning customers whom you haven’t communicated with in a while. To reach these consumers, you can use specific tags to help them return to your company. After a time, people will be tagged to receive a personalized message inviting them back.
Although it is good to look for new customers and consumers, it is equally important to encourage your existing customers to re-engage. In fact, expertly crafted follow-up emails increase conversions by 74%. The messages should relate to customers’ past experiences. Use phrases like “We noticed that you bought this item last time” and “How was your purchase of [item] going for you?”
3. Make every word count
Your email content matters, whether you’re sending a welcome message or a re-engagement email or offering a discount or coupon. The content of your email has to be clear, concise, and most importantly, useful.
Take Amazon Local’s feedback emails, for example. It is all about customization and collecting as much information as possible from consumers, which is a valuable step. It makes use of convenience to send users a simple call to action and invites them to leave their opinions.
The email has relevant content that’s easy enough to engage users without second thoughts. Amazon also receives feedback that only increases its ability to customize the customer experience.
4. Create an engaging layout and design
Don’t forget to pay attention to the layout and design of your messages. Adobe’s most recent survey found that 20% of respondents thought brand emails that required scrolling were annoying. Slow loading images, too much text, and small font sizes are all factors that can make promotional emails irritating.
5. Use email segmentation strategies
Mass marketing isn’t as effective as it used to be. Not all emails are worth reading for every target consumer or subscriber.
You can personalize according to your target audience’s demographics and behavioral patterns.
Email segmentation allows you to understand and tailor the message and content that your target audience wants to read based on their needs, values, wishes, goals, and other characteristics.
If you have medical aesthetics clinic, for example, you might send a personal email to subscribers who are into nonsurgical facial procedures or are suffering from various skin issues.
How to Integrate Email Marketing & Social Media Marketing
The most successful brands use a holistic approach to their digital marketing strategy. They can create an amazing and seamless customer experience by integrating all aspects of their marketing. They also believe email and social media work better when used together.
The approach makes it easier for customers to connect with the company.
Keep reading to learn more about integrating social media strategy with your email marketing.
1. Get calendars in sync
Sure, you may already have an email marketing schedule and a separate one for your social media accounts. But how can they work together seamlessly if they don’t know each other’s progress?
Getting your marketing calendars in sync with each other should be your first move to keep them on the same page. Doing so also helps them track the progress of your campaigns. Calendars make it easier for people to coordinate and plan without conflict.
Here are some examples of marketing calendar tools to help your teams coordinate better:
- Editorial calendars (Percolate, CoSchedule, Kapost)
- Project management tools (Trello, Asana, ClickUp)
- Google Sheets and Google Calendar
- Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Outlook
2. Add links to your social profile
Once you have the email marketing and social media teams on the same page, you can start to find ways to support one another.
Email marketing can increase social media engagement by reminding subscribers that you’re active on social media networks. You could give your customer the link to a recent post on Facebook, or a tweet, for example.
The strategy also helps in keeping your customers connected to your brand. Remember to put a prominent, easily visible, and clickable call to action button on your email marketing materials.
Additionally, it is important to give your customer a reason to click by appealing to their emotions. You can also put more than one CTA.
3. Grow your email list via social media platforms
You can make use of your social media followers to encourage them to sign up for your email newsletter using a few techniques:
Use of Twitter Cards
Twitter Cards are a great way to accomplish this. Subscribers can sign up for an email mailing list by signing up through Twitter Cards without leaving the social media platform.
The Barista Bar uses the same strategy to encourage followers to sign up for their Coffee Club, which requires an email address.
Add a subscription form on your Facebook page
Mailerlite’s Facebook integration lets you place sign-up pages on your Facebook pages. The form is simple and signing up just takes a few minutes.
You can also run a promotion to increase your subscriber base or give an incentive. Birchbox, for example, teases the benefits of signing up for its email lists in many of its Facebook posts. They also share the fact that subscribers to their email list receive exclusive offers.
Make specialty groups
LinkedIn and Facebook offer private groups that allow you to target your audience according to their interests and then give them something in return for joining the group.
They must sign up with their email to join. It’s a long-term process that requires dedication and time but it’s a great way of segmenting your audience.
4. Retarget your customers
If creating social media ads is part of your digital marketing, try retargeting your customers based on their interaction with your email campaigns.
For example, if you sent out a newsletter to promote a product, you could retarget those who opened the email but did NOT make a purchase when the product goes on sale.
Advertising is expensive. You need to be careful about where your money goes. Targeting people who are interested in your product or service leads to higher conversion rates and reduces the chance of you sending irrelevant ads.
[Related: The Pro’s Guide to Creating Healthcare Ads that Convert]
5. Create content that is tailored to the preferences of your customers
If your emails are interesting and relevant, your subscribers are likely to share your content. Focus on the information that they or their friends will find useful and valuable. If they are more interested in tips and insights on a particular subject, send them regular emails with quotes by industry leaders. Take a look at how Profile By Sanford creates email newsletter contents for their subscribers who are interested in weight loss and health tips.
Profile also keeps their subscribers informed about forthcoming health seminars and workshops.
Knowledge is the keyword. You have more chances to create content that is relevant if you are familiar with your customers’ likes and dislikes.
Boost Your Social Media and Email Marketing Efforts!
Nowadays, there are so many avenues for brands to connect with consumers that makes it easy to overlook other methods. Email is one of the oldest forms of communication and is often thought to be almost obsolete.
When engaging customers with a social media campaign, make sure to communicate directly with them using well-timed, personalized, and well-written emails. Integrate your digital marketing channels and you’ll have a seamless flow of connection with your audience.
Hire a team of expert digital marketers to help you grow your digital presence and business. Partner with Digitalis Medical!
Read our blogs for more marketing tips or ask us a question in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you!
