Return On Subscriber – Email Marketing Blog

Email Marketing and Social Media have some inherent differences, namely the ability to provide unique content to each individual subscriber and track each activity of that individual. Will Social Media replace email down the road? The answer is no – not unless it can somehow provide that level of CRM, analytics, and personalization that email provides marketers. Can these 2 medium’s work together? Yes! But they need to be treated with an understanding of the content each user is receiving, and where this content is being shared and discussed. In this post, I’ll cover 5 ways each email marketer can make their email marketing campaigns more social – without devaluing the unique relationship you have already created with your subscribers.

1. Give Subscribers the Ability to Reply to your Email Marketing.

Something that is lost in the discussion of email marketing is that each email campaign comes from an email address. The ability to have a conversation is, and has been there all along. Somewhere along the way, Email Marketers pushed this away. “From” email addresses that start with “do_not_reply@” or some computer generated address that starts with something like “875QR00xza342@” are not the best way to start a conversation. They give the impression that not only will no one answer a return a reply to your campaign, but we don’t want to talk to you – we just want you to “Buy Now” or “Learn More”.

Obviously list size becomes a factor here, but isn’t answering an email from a subscriber a lot easier than handling requests on Twitter or the like? If you are trying to engage your audience, email is going to be the best method. You are not limited to constraints of 140 characters or privacy walls, and you can store this data and add information to subscriber profiles. “Do not reply” is the equivalent of “I’ll hang up an listen” in radio, except they never got a chance to call in. They’re just listening, and possibly tuning you out (changing the station).

How to change this is two-fold: use a real and friendly email address (ex. “feedback@”) and give copy in your emails to promote replies. Then designate your community manager or support teams to answer these requests. Once they believe you are listening, you will open up the doors to evangelists who will share content on other networks and provide positive word of mouth.

2. Avoid Redundant Content

You worked hard to get a user to subscribe to your email list and provide you with their information.  The last thing you want to do is give the impression that Tweets and Facebook Fan Page updates will lead them to the same messaging. Your ideal subscriber will be on your email list, a Twitter follower, as well as a Facebook fan – and have unqiue experiences with each. If your content strategy is to create one message and send it verbatim through each platform, they will turn at least 2, or maybe all – off. Use email for one-to-one marketing messages, Twitter for conversations and sharing, and Facebook for a light, personal, and friendly dialogue.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t market your product or service through each, just adjust the messaging and approach.

3. Stick to the Big 3: Twitter, Facebook, & LinkedIn

According to SmartBrief, MySpace is a “social-media ghetto”. From a business and consumer standpoint, it comes down to the big 3: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  Whether your B2B or B2C, look at the Social Networks that drive the most traffic to your site and match your social sharing links accordingly.   Tweet it, Facebook Share It, or LinkedIn News it, your analytics will tell you this is the right move. Having a bar with 30 random social networking icons is going to get a lot less click through than “Share this on Facebook“.

4. Is it Actionable? Or is it Shareable?

The age old question with email – if there is one thing you want them to do – what is it?  Is it to click and purchase? Is it to read and share?  9 times out of 10, it’s not both.

Pick one.

Follow @AlexCWilliams on Twitter