another great artical on how Social and email together can "bring-down-da-house" If you have ever dined in one of those restaurants where the steak is served on a hot platter, you’ll know that at least half of the pleasure of eating there is in the “sizzleâ€. As each plate makes its way to the expectant diner, the room is consumed by a sound which can only be described as delicious. Sure, the steak tastes good. But it’s the sizzle that adds the extra value. And it’s the sizzle that sells the steak to the recently seated diner who would normally opt for a lighter dish. So what’s this got to do with email marketing? It’s widely recognised that email provides marketers with exceptional value for money and can therefore offer an outstanding return on investment if managed correctly. Good old email marketing. It’s as easy a choice to make as steak on an otherwise unfamiliar menu. But marketers are a creative breed by nature. They want bells and whistles, plaudits and praise. The fact that email works better than just about any other form of marketing just isn’t seen as that exciting anymore. To some it lacks the sizzle. Social media, of course, has plenty of sizzle. It’s new, it’s hot, and it’s now. But sizzle always comes served with something else. In the case of the restaurant, it’s the steak. In the case of marketing, it’s….. …email. The strength of your email lies in the power of your opt-in list. Your subscribers know you, your product and are happy to receive regular communications from you. In fact, if you ever need a small army of brand ambassadors who are ready and willing to evangelise about your product or service, then look no further than your email list. A good list has always been a powerful thing. But in recent years, with the advent of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, email’s strength has multiplied. Social tools such as the ubiquitous “Like†and “Tweet†buttons give your subscribers (brand ambassadors/evangelists) a platform to easily share your email marketing message with their wider network of friends and family. Consider this, if 50% of your email subscribers use Facebook and have an average of 130 friends each (who also have 130 friends each, etc. etc.), what is the potential reach of an email campaign that can be shared socially? I’m no statistician, but the answer is – potentially massive. What is more, by adding a little social sizzle to your email marketing campaigns you are essentially altering the DNA of email marketing. Traditionally, email marketing has always been thought of as a retention tool – i.e. helping you maintain a relationship with your client base and encourage repeat purchases. Without retention tools such as email, the promise of expensive acquisition tools such as paid search and other traditional marketing activities, which reply on the concept of customer lifetime value, can fall flat on their face. However, socially enhanced email, with its extended reach (or sizzle), means that what was once a low cost retention tool suddenly becomes an acquisition tool. And unlike the aforementioned acquisition tools which might only see a return on investment after a handful of purchases, social media ROI comes at zero cost. Even the time required to execute a socially enabled campaign is negligible, meaning the cost of acquisition is essentially free. And so to return to my restaurant analogy, whilst email remains the meat (and potatoes) of any marketing plan, social media definitely provides the sizzle. When combined, I think you’ll find the results are simply delicious. http://www.utalkmarketing.com
Unfortunately right now there is no clear use case for email/social integration. The author himself admits he has no clue: These guys are just blowing smokes out of their asses.
There may be a little intersection on the conversion... I have seen landing pages with the Facebook "like" button perform significantly better than control, esp. when stacked on the right traffic. When I used MailChimp about a year ago, a premium feature was the ability to cross reference your list with major social media and segment it based that. I have a SEM background so I like to know about any targeting possible...but given the need for volume in this biz, it's so difficult to scale...
God dammit, i gotta do everything around here. I will get you a sample case DKPMO, I promise, I'm working on it and I never make promises. But remember, this doesn't apply to 3rd party.
The method I'm referring to, is using FB to generate leads and than quickly have a newsletter or offer signup integrated into the FB page. This way you minimize losses due to sign-up redirects. Lets face it, people don't search the web like they used to and if Mark Zukerberg has his way, google will be die in 10yrs, ok maybe not die but decrease significantly in searches. People just don't search the web the same anymore, they FB first and than refer to google when they can't find what they are looking for. Either way, gaining traffic via FB is much easier then dealing with google and its viral, gotta love that!!!!!
