More and more, email marketers are getting swept up into a tidal wave of social media.
Companies, regardless of size, are jumping into the deep end of the Twitter pool with both feet and not even wondering what lies beneath the surface.
Before investing valuable time, money and resources into building a social media strategy, ask yourself this question first:
Are my email marketing campaigns shareworthy?
Now, this does not mean the actual process of sharing by placing buttons or links that post your content on the popular social sites.
This means, do your subscribers really care? Do they care enough to not delete the emails they receive from you or to not mark them as spam?
Do your emails get opened or read? Do links get clicked on? Do your calls to action lead to conversions?
If you answered "no" or "I am not really sure" to these questions, then don't focus a lot of time on social media just yet. Otherwise, you could be flooding the Internet with more unread content and wasting important time that could be used for other things.
Just to be clear, this does not mean you shouldn't use social media to build a company brand. This means don't start trying to leverage your emails until a strategy is in place.
To start a plan of attack, analyze what causes your subscribers to open your emails. It could be because of trust, brand recognition or a compelling subject line (or all of the above).
Look at why customers continue to read your emails. Is it because of clear, relevant and clean copy?
Does your call to action lead customers to click-through to a landing page?
Finally, why would the subscribers on your list share an email with a friend? Is the content something cool or maybe a deal that a friend would really appreciate reading about?
Before clicking the send button and spread your email campaign out to hundreds, thousands or maybe even millions, do some testing to gather the above info.
Share the email with your family, friends and anyone else who is in your target audience. There is no such thing as bad feedback in this case.
Take note of what they think and if the response you are looking for is achieved, then your email content is ready to surf the social media waters.
We would love to hear your thoughts on how you use social media to expand your email marketing efforts. Drop us a message on Twitter or become a fan of our Facebook page.
For more information about SimplyCast's email marketing solution, contact our sales team.
