Amp Up Your E-mail Marketing With Social Media

Social-media networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are generating a lot of hype in the marketing and fundraising world as new ways of reaching and communicating with customers, members and donors. While this might sound a lot like the goal of e-mail marketing, social media is not a wholesale replacement for e-mail. Rather, social media can be used to complement an e-mail strategy by reaching out to donors wherever they happen to be and opening more avenues of communication with them.

A September 2009 report by the Nielsen Co. shows that people who are heavy users of sites like Facebook and Twitter actually use e-mail more than casual social network users do. Why is this? Social-media networks like Facebook allow you to set your preferences so an e-mail is sent whenever someone comments on something you post or on a friend's post that you may have commented on. You can also get notified when someone sends you a private message within the confines of Facebook. Similarly, Twitter sends an e-mail update every time someone new decides to "follow" you and when you receive a direct (private) message from another user.

For you, as an e-mail marketer, this presents some good news: All of this activity drives people into their e-mail inboxes. The more e-mail people get, the more they're going to be checking their inboxes. And the more they check their inboxes, the more chances they have to see your e-mail messages.

To most effectively strengthen your relationships, it's best to use social media in tandem with your e-mail marketing efforts. Here are eight ways to extend the reach of your content and act as a source of new information for your e-mail recipients.

Let the world know: 'We're 
on Facebook and Twitter!'

Once your accounts are established and you're comfortable using the social-media networks, begin telling the world about your new online presence. Add links to your social-media accounts to your e-mail newsletter and in your regular e-mail signature. Put the same links on your website and, if you have one, your blog, as well.

Users of social-media networks are always looking for like-minded people and companies to "friend" and follow. If you're participating in the same networks, there's a good chance people will become fans or follow you. The more places you link from, the more likely people will find you on your social networks of choice.

Grow your e-mail contact list

Just as you can use your outgoing e-mails as a way to advertise your social-network accounts, you can use social media to add subscribers to your e-mail contact list. A few easy ways to do this:

• Occasionally, ask your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn followers if they want to be on your e-mail list, and provide them with a link to your newsletter sign-up page. Keeping with good marketing practices, you want to keep straight pleas to join your list to a minimum. If all your updates to Facebook and Twitter say, "Sign up for my list," then you won't have many followers. Keep the pitches to a bare minimum, and let the content you post be your sales pitch.
• A good way to entice new sign-ups is to tease an upcoming issue of your newsletter a few days before it's sent. For example, if your monthly newsletter goes out on Thursday, post a quick headline or synopsis of the main article on Monday or Tuesday, and tell people that if they want the information, they'll have to sign up by Wednesday night to get this hot content.
• Similarly, you can post a snippet from one of your newsletter articles and tell your fans and followers that if they want to read the rest, they will have to sign up for your newsletter.
• You can embed a "Join My Mailing List" sign-up box on your Facebook Fan page, blog or just about any other site that allows embedded HTML code.

Extend the life of your content

A lot of thought, effort and time goes into creating and publishing the content for each issue of your newsletter, so why limit distribution to one method? If your newsletter content is permanently accessible via a certain URL (either through an e-mail archive or posted on your website), post that URL to your Facebook pages, Twitter, LinkedIn and any other network where your organization has a presence.

Posting your content to your social networks provides a couple key benefits. First, the links back to your website help boost traffic and your search engine rankings (the more links from outside sources, the better), meaning that your organization's website will show up higher in the results when someone goes to look for you on Google or another search site.

Second, it puts your content in a place where it can be easily shared and passed along. That gets it in front of people who are not already on your e-mail list and can help drive new subscribers.

For those who are worried about cannibalizing their e-mail lists by posting content elsewhere, know that you can always delay your social-media posts until a few days after the e-mail goes out — providing a window of exclusivity to newsletter subscribers.

Use social networks as a source for new content

Social-media networks can be a way for you to answer customer questions. For example, at Constant Contact we are always monitoring Twitter for what customers are saying about us or where they may need our assistance. Your own supporters might be saying or asking similar things about your organization or cause. After all, one of the most common uses of social media is asking common customer service–type questions.

Obviously, when a supporter asks a question through one of these social-media sites (whether directly or indirectly), you should answer as promptly and directly as possible. For example, on Twitter, you should use the person's Twitter handle in your reply so it shows up on the person's Twitter homepage. But don't end the "conversation" there. Use the question and your original answer as a newsletter topic to share with the rest of your e-mail newsletter recipients. Chances are good the answer will be relevant to more than just the one person who asked the question.

One thing you can do in addition is repost the question to your social networks and direct people to your newsletter for the answer. (For example, "A donor recently asked how to include us in her will. Check out the next issue of our newsletter for the answer." Then include a link to your website where they can sign up.) A single question from a social-media fan then becomes content for your newsletter and a lure for new subscribers.

As you're building your network, maybe the number of people asking questions or specifically commenting about your business or organization is limited. That doesn't mean the social-media content well is dry. Watch the networks for hot topics and trends in your mission area. Use that information as a source for article content. Talk about the trend, how it affects your constituents and what you can do to help.

Mention in your article that you saw people talking about this on Twitter or Facebook, and be sure to put a plug for your own accounts on the services as another means of making your supporters aware of your presence on these networks.

Get feedback from your 
social-network circles

When trying to decide between a couple of good article ideas for your next newsletter, if you are not sure which will appeal more to your supporters, you can ask your social-networking circle for quick feedback.

Post the question to your Facebook news feed or fan page. Ask your Twitter followers which of the articles they'd like to see. (Remember to do so in 140 characters or less.) Use the response generated to make the final decision on which article to use. You may even get a few other ideas for future articles along the way.

Continue the cycle

Chances are good your newsletter content will elicit some comments and feedback from your Facebook and Twitter networks. Why not feature them in the next issue of your newsletter? In your issue, let readers know that they can share their thoughts on Facebook or Twitter (or wherever you want them to) and that you'll share the "best" comments in the next issue. That will encourage reader participation and give you content for the next issue that you won't even have to write.

Blogging for content

Blogs may not be the first thing you think of when the term social media is mentioned, but they can play an important part in your overall strategy. It's important to remember that a blog is merely a publishing platform that makes it easy to get content onto the Web. A blog's content does not have to be just opinion or just news. It can be used to easily share just about any type of content with your audience.

How does this help you in your e-mail marketing efforts? For newsletter authors who find they have a lot of content ideas through the month but come up blank when it comes time to produce the newsletter, writing a regularly updated blog can be of help. As an idea strikes, capture your thoughts in a blog post. When it comes time to put together your e-mail, the blog becomes a well of usable content that can be copied, pasted and linked to from your newsletter.

Alternatively, your blog can act as an archive for your newsletter content. Paste your articles into your blog platform as a means of saving and linking from your social-media networks. With either use case, a regularly updated blog will help with search engine optimization efforts as it provides fresh content for Web crawlers and more potential links to your site.

Get your followers to refer you

Word-of-mouth mentions of your cause or organization are a main tenet of referral marketing. As a customer, when someone you deem trustworthy posts a link to something on a social network, chances are good you will click on that link and maybe even share it with your own network of friends and followers. Having your loyal followers and members serve as evangelists for your business or organization via social networking is the ultimate in referral marketing.

Obviously, putting out good content is key if you want people to forward and share your posts and links with their circles of friends. But sometimes, people need to be told to forward or share your content. Remind people in your tweet or Facebook posts to spread the word by "retweeting" (or RT) 
through Twitter and sharing it on Facebook.

Of course, just like it's a good idea to keep the "sign up for my e-mail list" pleas to a few posts, it's also good social-network etiquette to keep the "please retweet/share" requests to a minimum. Following the 80/20 rule is a good baseline, with 80 percent of your messaging educational in nature and only 20 percent a sales pitch.

With the explosion of social networks, blogs and other Internet technologies, the number of ways we can meaningfully interact with our supporters and donors is growing exponentially.

People who use social-media networks expect the companies they do business with to have a presence and be active in the same networks. The same is true of donors and the organizations they support. And each method — e-mail marketing, social media, blogs, websites, etc. — feeds the others. FS

(This article is excerpted from a whitepaper contributed by Constant Contact.)

Alec Stern is vice president of strategic market development at Constant Contact. Reach him at astern@constantcontact.com.