How To Combine Email And Social Media Strategy For Better Business Growth

Look around you- if people aren’t glued to their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter handles, they are engaged in fervent discussions regarding what’s trending over there. Such has been the rise of social media over the last couple of decades. Initially formulated as a means for people to stay connected with their loved ones and the world in general, social media has, hence, broadened its scope by leaps and bounds. At present, it is a core component of many businesses’ marketing arsenals. With delivering a seamless customer experience topping marketers’ priority lists, now, more than ever, brands are slowly, but surely, getting into the practice of combining social media with their other marketing channels to craft meaningful cross-channel opportunities. 

In this article, we are going to highlight various ways in which you can effectively combine your social media and email marketing strategies to amplify your business’ growth. Read on to find out!

Upload Your Contact List To Social Media Platforms

Want to strengthen the bond you share with your subscribers? Add a face against their names. How can you go about it? By uploading your subscriber lists to the different social media platforms on which you are operating. Besides giving them a face, this maneuver also helps you take a closer look at your contacts’ social feeds. As a result, gaining clarity regarding their pain points becomes a breeze. In subsequent times, chalking out strategies that successfully address them becomes that much more convenient for you. 

Now, the method of uploading contacts varies from one platform to another. Below we elaborate on the steps involved across a few popular ones.

Twitter

• Open your Twitter account and locate the “Find people you know” link on the left sidebar. You should be able to spot it below the “Who to follow” section. 
• Connect your personal or professional email address book as per your requirement. You can import contacts from Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, and Outlook. 
• Upon choosing a contact book, you will be needed to grant permission so that Twitter can access it.
• After you select “Allow”, Twitter will verify the email addresses of your contacts against its own database. Once this is done, it will show you their profiles. You can follow them now.

LinkedIn

• On your LinkedIn home page, look for the “Connections” tab. Hover over it to access a pop-up menu.
• Here, select the “Add Connections” option. This will present you with a list of popular ESPs from where you can upload your contacts. You can either select on them or click on “Any Email” if you want to upload a CSV of your subscriber list.
• Once the file is uploaded, you will be able to see the LinkedIn profiles of your contacts. You can send them a connection request subsequently. If you have a dedicated company group, you can invite them to join the same as well.

Twitter and LinkedIn are incredibly useful when it comes to building a solid professional network. Facebook, not so much. But, don’t make the mistake of writing it off. Using Facebook you can create a “Custom Audience” and send targeted ads their way.

The steps below explain how you can achieve this.

• Open your Facebook profile and go to “Ads Manager”.
• Next, select the “Audiences” link. You will be able to see a green button named “Create Audience”.
• A pop-up menu will appear. From the options available, choose “Custom Audience”.
• Next, click on “Customer List”. Here, you can upload either a TXT or CSV file of your contacts.
• Now that your custom audience is ready, you can get to work creating targeted ads for them.

Add Links To Your Social Media Profiles

One of the best ways to increase the visibility of your social media handles is by including their links in your marketing emails and newsletters. However, don’t limit yourself to simply adding the icons of the social media platforms where you are present. That is not going to spur your readers into action. Pique their curiosity by giving them a sneak peek into the kind of content that populates your social feed. Tell them what they might be potentially missing out on by not following you over there. 

See how Ando does it over here.

Source

Additionally, while including the icons, make sure that their design is in tune with the overall design language of your email template. For instance, if your template uses vibrant colors, you can add the social icons in their original brand colors. On the other hand, if you are using a monochrome layout, the social icons must reflect the same too. 

For instance, take a look at this email by Unique Vintage

Giveaways, such as these are an excellent means of driving traffic to your social media platforms and increasing your follower base. The best way of announcing such contests, as you can see in the email above, is by showcasing it loud and clear in the hero section.

Ensure Your Tone Is Consistent

One of the trickiest aspects of running multiple marketing channels is maintaining a consistent tone and style across them all. If done right, this goes a long way towards consolidating your brand identity. Subscribers directed from your newsletters to your social media handles or vice versa will be pretty dismayed if there’s a tangible shift in voice between the two. Hence, whatever content and design strategies you formulate, do so keeping both email and social in mind.

Use Your Social Media Platforms To Collect Email Addresses

Struggling to gather eyeballs for your newsletter? Here’s where your social media accounts can come to your rescue! In your bio section, add a link to your newsletter’s signup form. Should your social media game be top-notch and your followers highly engaged, you’ll have no trouble convincing them to share their email addresses with you. To better your odds, you can consider including an incentive in these sign-up forms like a free resource (an ebook, white paper, calendar, or something along those lines), shipping offers, or even monetary discounts. 

Take a look at this LinkedIn ad that aims to collect email addresses. 

Wrapping It Up

Combining your email and social media strategies at first might seem like an uphill climb. But, don’t let that deter you! Learning to derive the best out of both these incredible channels requires considerable time, patience, and persistence. Once you wrap your head around it, though, you can steer your business to extraordinary heights!

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