Why You Need to Integrate Social Media and Email Marketing
Imagine you’re running an email campaign that’s getting decent open rates, but the click-throughs just aren’t where you need them to be.
On the other hand, your social media posts are lively, sparking conversations and shares, but they’re not translating into concrete leads for your business.
On their own, each platform showcases distinct strengths and weaknesses. But what if you could harness the strengths of both to fill in the gaps and enhance your overall marketing strategy?
Let’s explore how you can unify social media and email marketing to achieve great results.
Social Media Marketing: Strengths and Challenges
Social media marketing means leveraging the power of social media platforms to build a solid and lasting relationship with customers.
Using social media, you can target your audience on interactive platforms like Instagram and X. These platforms provide features like comments and direct messages so you can quickly communicate with followers. There’s less delay, and you can move leads through the customer journey more swiftly.
Social media marketing has two other advantages:
- Boosts your brand awareness. Social media platforms offer a unique opportunity to reach a wider audience. User-generated content, word of mouth, and paid ads can help you spread the word about your brand and increase brand awareness.
- Humanizes your brand. Direct communication with the audience allows you to highlight the human side of your brand. This can help build stronger brand loyalty and a deeper relationship with customers.
With over 90% of internet users being on social media, these benefits can translate to higher ROIs and more successful marketing campaigns.
Still, social media marketing isn’t without its challenges:
- Algorithms change. Platforms keep changing their content distribution algorithms. So, you’ll have to adapt your strategies to maintain the same level of exposure.
- Audiences are hard to engage. With lowered attention span among social media users, maintaining engagement is a huge challenge.
- Time-consuming. Getting solid results and ROI on social media marketing requires a constant presence and active content creation. You always have to be there to address their needs and answer their questions.
Email Marketing: Strengths and Challenges
Email marketing refers to the use of email as a marketing channel. It’s one of the most effective and versatile tools available to communicate with your audience, nurture relationships, and drive engagement and sales.
It’s built on three pillars:
- Segmentation. Email marketing tools allow you to divide your subscribers into categories based on their demographic, economic, and behavioral data. This means you can send each group messages that they find most relevant.
- Personalization. Email lets you tailor the content of every message to the preferences of the individual recipient. Email personalization is a huge advantage in building one-to-one relationships with your audience at scale.
- Automation. Mass email software software can remove repetitive tasks, speed up sending responses, and allow you to focus on more important tasks. You can send automated responses based on triggers, such as signing up to the email list or downloading a lead magnet.
Email marketing isn’t without limitations. They include:
- Spam. Email marketing messages are commercial, even if they’re highly personalized and friendly. So, people may get fatigued by your emails and react by marking them as spam.
- Deliverability. It’s a big challenge to achieve 100 percent deliverability because of various factors such as spam complaints, spam filters, and technical limitations within email servers.
- Costs. Despite its higher ROI, email marketing costs aren’t always zero. You need to allocate a budget for your email campaigns, especially if you have a large email list.
This table sheds more light on the differences between email and social media marketing.
| Aspect | Social Media Marketing | Email Marketing |
|---|---|---|
| Control over the account | The platform has full control over your account | You own your email account |
| Reach and communication | Real-time communication | Personalization |
| Risks | Changing algorithms and policies | Spam |
| Goals | Expand your reach and attract new subscribers | Create a deeper relationship with current subscribers |
| Attracting attention | Much more difficult | Easier |
Email Marketing vs. Social Media: How to Pick
Both social media and email marketing can yield great results, but only if you use them for the right purpose.
Email marketing is mostly effective for:
- Boosting immediate sales. Emails have higher conversion rates than social media. The average conversion rates are 2.8% and 2.4% for B2C and B2B email campaigns, respectively.
- Saving money. For every dollar you spend on email marketing, you get $36 back. In comparison, social media gives you $2.8 for every dollar spent. So, email marketing is a smart choice for getting the most out of your budget.
- Guiding leads through the customer journey automatically. With email, you can set goals and steps for leads to follow. Once the lead triggers each step, they’ll move to the next without needing your constant attention. You can put your email marketing conversions on autopilot.
On the flip side, social media is best for:
- Attracting leads at the top of the funnel. Social media is where people first learn about new brands. It’s a perfect B2C lead generation engine that will get people interested and curious about what you offer.
- Spreading brand awareness. Social media helps more people discover your brand. By sharing fun and interesting content, you can make sure they remember you when they need what you provide.
- Foster community engagement and interaction. Social media lets you have real-time conversations with your audience. When people interact with your brand, they’re more likely to form an emotional relationship with you and prefer your offer over your competitors.
4 Strategies to Grow Your Email List Through Social Media
Growing an email list organically has always been a challenge. It’s not easy to find high-quality subscribers willing to interact with your brand through email. Luckily, your social media accounts can be super helpful.
One simple trick is to put the link to your email sign-up form in your bio. This makes it easy for interested folks to join your list whenever they want.
But sometimes, they need a nudge. Check out these 5 strategies for more inspiration.
Strategy 1: Offer Exclusive Content in Exchange for Email Addresses
You can use your social media to promote exclusive content or special offers. Then, invite people to sign up for your email list to get these special perks. Implement double opt-in to make sure only interested users wind up on your list.
Depending on the social media platform and your content, you can offer:
- E-book or guide,
- Special discount,
- Free giveaway,
- Newsletter,
- VIP access,
- Webinar or consultation,
- Product sample.
Strategy 2: Run Contests
Hosting a contest on social media is another way to capture quality subscribers for your email list.
Instagram Lives and Stories are highly effective channels for this strategy. If you have a large following on your YouTube channel, you can leverage its Live Streams, too.
We recommend following these steps:
- Start by promoting the contest a few days before it starts to build excitement and urgency.
- Announce the launch on all your channels and include a link to the contest’s landing page.
- Ask your audience to enter their email address to join the contest.
- When the contest ends, send an announcement email to all the participants to thank them for taking part and announce the winners.
- After a day or two, follow up with an offer for those who didn’t win.
This approach creates a fun and memorable experience for your audience while giving you multiple opportunities for engagement.
Strategy 3: Leverage the Power of Influencers
Another effective method for expanding your email list is by leveraging social proof and partnering with influencers. Have influencers endorse your content and encourage their followers to sign up for your opt-in email list.
Collaborate with influencers to produce compelling content that resonates with their audience because they know their followers better than you do.
To encourage more sign-ups, establish straightforward rules and incentives. Consider offering discounts or promotions to boost conversions.
Strategy 4: Create Specialty Groups
Consider creating specialty groups on your social media pages that cater to specific areas your business users are eager to learn about.
Platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn are ideal for hosting these groups. Interested followers can request to join by providing their email addresses and gaining permission to access the group.
The secret to success lies in providing exclusive content that delivers unique value and isn’t readily available elsewhere. This approach not only attracts members but also encourages them to remain active and engaged in the group.
2 Key Strategies to Grow Your Social Media Followers Through Email
If you already have a successful email marketing strategy but a limited social media presence, it’s time to redirect your subscribers to your social media pages. It can also be a great way to engage your disengaged email subscribers.
Check out these 2 strategies for inspiration:
Strategy 1: Share Exclusive Content on Social Media
Videos, tutorials, live sessions, and testimonials make fantastic content for your social media posts. Share them on your email too, but first, give your audience a sneak peek to grab their interest.
This way, you encourage your email audience to follow you on your social media and create a sense of anticipation and excitement.
Strategy 2: Add Social Share Buttons
When you share exciting content with your email list, invite them to share it on their social media. This way, you can tap into their follower base to expand yours.
The key is to create content that’s compatible with the formatting of social media platforms. For example, ask your readers to share your blog post on their LinkedIn and videos or images on Instagram or Facebook.
Offer incentives for sharing your various types of emails. Free giveaways or automated thank-you messages after sharing can be great motivators.
Creating Effective Content for Both Platforms
While email and social media are two different channels, you can’t treat them separately. You need a unified content strategy that covers topics relevant to your business from various angles.
On social media, people prefer easy-to-read text, short videos, and images. These types of content suit the fast-paced nature of social media feeds. Short videos often deliver the best ROI compared to other content types.
However, the same audience may prefer detailed tutorials or newsletters when reading their email. They have more time and are more focused while reading email content.
While you should leverage the unique aspects of each channel, make sure your audience has a consistent experience across both. This consistency helps reinforce your brand identity and message, regardless of where your audience interacts with your content.
Tips for Ensuring Consistency
- Define your brand voice. Establish a consistent tone and style for your content that reflects your brand identity. Whether it’s humorous, professional, or casual, maintain this voice across all communication channels.
- Coordinate content calendars. Align your email and social media content calendars to ensure cohesive messaging. Plan ahead and schedule content that complements each other to avoid conflicting or duplicate topics.
- Repurpose content. Repurpose existing content for both email and social media platforms. Adapt blog posts, videos, and infographics to suit the format and preferences of each channel while maintaining a consistent message.
- Use consistent branding elements. Logos, images, colors, and video formats are all branding elements that help the audience recognize you. Keeping these elements consistent in social media and email messages boosts your visibility and builds trust among the readers.
- Don’t rely on shortcuts. Crafting a holistic and well-rounded digital marketing strategy takes time. As an email marketer, you need to wait a while to see a meaningful increase in your audience size. So, play it safe and go by the books. Shortcuts may help you get immediate results, but in the long run, you’ll damage your brand reputation.
A Real-World Example From Ted
Ted is a company that excels at using email marketing and social media to engage its audience and deliver content in a way that resonates.
Ted’s strategy centers on community building and delivering valuable content based on talks from its conferences.
Email Marketing
Ted sends out weekly newsletters featuring its top talks. These emails are personalized and use dynamic content to showcase talks that are likely to interest each recipient. They have a simple design that reinforces Ted’s brand focus on simplicity.
On top of that, the company usually includes a call-to-action at the end of its emails, encouraging the recipient to explore its upcoming events or get involved with the Ted community.
The screenshot below shows a recent example of one of their newsletters. Note that the original email contained seven recommendations, but we only included the top three to save space here.
Social Media
Ted actively engages with its audience on the most popular social media platforms, including YouTube, LinkedIn, X, and Instagram. It tailors its content to suit each platform’s unique features and atmosphere.
On Ted’s YouTube channel, you’ll find full talks from all its conferences. These talks come with subtitles in multiple languages for accessibility.
What’s more, there are curated playlists covering a variety of topics. So, if you want to do a deep dive into a specific topic, you’ll have plenty of content to watch.
As a professional platform, Ted focuses on sharing posts relevant to business and career advancement on LinkedIn.
Most posts feature short clips from talks, accompanied by a brief description and a call to action to watch the full video. You can also expect updates about upcoming events and opportunities to engage with the Ted community.
Measuring Success Across Email and Social Media
Regardless of your digital marketing medium, you should always track your campaign performance. Tweak and refine your strategies based on these performance analyses.
These metrics also show you the future course of action and how to get ahead of competitors.
In addition to the number of likes, followers, and comments, the table below lists the main KPIs to watch out for on social media.
| Key Performance Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| Reach | How many unique users see your post |
| Conversion rate | How many users perform the action you asked them to do |
| Impressions | How many times your content shows up on users’ feed |
| Shares | How many times your posts are shared |
| Engagement | How many people interact with your content |
| Click-through rate | How many users click on a link in your content |
Email marketing has different KPIs to track. You’ll see a list of the most important ones in the table below:
| Key Performance Indicator | What it means |
|---|---|
| Open rate | How many people opened your emails |
| Click-through rate | How many recipients clicked on a link |
| Bounce rate | Number of emails that didn’t get to the recipient |
| Conversion rate | Number of subscribers that took your desired action |
| List growth rate | Number of new subscribers |
| Unsubscribe rate | Number of users who unsubscribed |
Your Email Marketing Needs a Specialist in Its Corner
Just like a top athlete relies on specialized coaches to sharpen their skills in specific areas, your email marketing efforts deserve a dedicated expert focused solely on ensuring your messages land exactly where they should: in your audience’s inbox.
At Campaign Refinery, we focus exclusively on email marketing because we believe in doing one thing exceptionally well. We emphasize high-deliverability solutions to keep your communications on track and visible.
But we also support collaboration to make sure your marketing voice is harmonious and powerful across all channels.
How do we champion your holistic marketing efforts?
- We seamlessly integrate with your favorite social media marketing tools to create a tag team that keeps your messaging consistent across platforms.
- We support your content strategy to make sure your emails resonate perfectly with your audience’s interests.
- We provide precise tracking for all email marketing metrics, giving you the insights needed to tweak and optimize like a strategist.
Ready to make sure your email marketing hits the mark every time? Apply to join Campaign Refinery today!
