How to Combine Email Marketing and Social Media

You’ve heard the expression “two heads are better than one.” This idea can be applied to marketing as well: two platforms are better than one. While email marketing holds the highest ROI out of any digital marketing strategy, it can be strengthened through the use of social media marketing.
 
This post will present some of the top ways you can combine email marketing and social media marketing to maximize your ROI. Let’s get started.
 

1. Encourage email list growth through social platforms

If email marketing has the highest ROI of any social platform, it’s vital to grow your email list in any way possible. Using social media marketing presents diversified opportunities to show off your subscriber form in an effort to capture more subscribers. Let’s talk about some of the top ways to do this.
 
Insert a lead gen card into a Twitter post. Want to know something awesome about Twitter ads? You can insert a lead generation card within a call to action button. When an interested follower clicks on your call to action, your subscriber form will appear. And voila! New subscribers.
 
Use Facebook to boost subscribers. Twitter isn’t the only platform you can use to capture subscribers. You can also run a Facebook ad to target potential subscribers. The benefits of Facebook? You can use more text and you can highly target your ads.
 
Leverage LinkedIn. LinkedIn is especially helpful for boosting subscribers if you’re a B2B company. If you have a large following, feel free to invite followers to subscribe. You can also reach out to people one-on-one.
 
Host a contest/giveaway. Hosting a giveaway can lead to an increase in subscribers. The deal is that in exchange for your email address, your followers will be entered into a giveaway for a cool prize. This is a potential way to capture serious subscribers, but there is no way to weed out those just interested in freebies.
 
Remember, it works in reverse too. You can also use your email list to advertise your social platforms.
 

2. Retarget ads on social media from interested email subscribers

Ever been on a social media platform and seen an ad for that exact same thing you showed interest in your email inbox? Have you ever then made a purchase based on that ad? That is the power of retargeting. It works. And marketers that leverage both social media and email to retarget ads see results.
 
How does retargeting work? Let’s say a subscriber opens an email featuring one of your products. They may click on a link that leads to your website and shows off your product. You then make sure your tracking cookies are enabled. Then, let’s say the subscriber leaves without converting. No big deal.
 
With that tracking data, you can retarget an ad on either Facebook or Twitter. This will cause the individual to return to your website, and make a purchase.
 
You may be wondering why to go to all the trouble of retargeting. Here are some stats that may be of interest to you:
 

• Retargeting can increase ad response up to 400.
• Retargeting ads are 76% more likely to be clicked on than regular display ads.

 
Take the time to retarget your email subscribers on Facebook and Twitter. You won’t regret it.
 

3. Sync your email marketing and social media marketing promotion calendars

Guess what? 82% of companies use email marketing technology, and 88% of companies use social media for marketing. While most companies use both platforms, it’s important to remember they shouldn’t be used in silos. Email marketing and social media should be used to enhance one another for optimal results.
 
Just like you would retarget an email advertising promotion on Facebook or Twitter to achieve results, you should sync your email marketing and social media marketing promo calendars for the same reason.
 
When you bring your email marketing and your social media marketing teams together for planning, you can make sure you are offering similar promotions. The more consistent your messaging across platforms, the better your branding will be.
 
Don’t believe it? Check out the research:

• A consistent experience across all brand touchpoints is a key driver of brand trust, according to Forrester.
• Techipediafound that consistent brands are worth 20 percent more than those that aren’t.
• McKinsey & Company found that a consistent customer experience across the entire customer journey increases customer satisfaction, builds trust, and boosts loyalty.

 
If you’re looking to build trust and boost results, stay consistent across social media and email marketing.

Wrap Up

Both social media and email marketing campaigns can result in a positive ROI, especially when used together to optimize results. The infographic below will provide you with additional ideas, as well as stats to reinforce these ideas, on how social media and email marketing complement each other to provide results. Use this information to build a better overall marketing strategy and create effective and engagement campaigns.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Lane Harbin is the Senior Content Marketing Manager at Campaign Monitor, an easy-to-use email marketing tool that allows every marketer to send targeted newsletters to grow their business. With beautiful templates, a drag-and-drop interface and engagement-based segmentation, Campaign Monitor has helped more than 250,000 growing businesses take their email marketing to the next level.