Why should your business use email to promote social marketing?

It's widely accepted that email marketing messages shared through social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn generate many more referrals than simple "forward to a friend" email links.

For many people, their social network of choice has become their de facto means of communication with friends and colleagues, ahead of traditional email messages.

If you're managing an email marketing campaign for your business, it's clear that you should integrate social media links into your email templates to avoid missing out on potential referrals.

And, as an email marketer, if you can encourage your recipients to share your email message among their friends and colleagues, you've developed a low cost, high value referral mechanism for your business.

It sounds simple in practice but this form of viral marketing requires that you achieve 2 things in order for it to work for you. You must provide:

  • an incentive for recipients to share your message with their social contacts
  • a simple, low effort way for recipients to post your email to their preferred social network

Different people prefer different social media sites

Some people are avid Twitter users; some much prefer Facebook or LinkedIn; others use a combination of several different sites.

Unless you know your target audience very well, you are unlikely to know in advance which social media site(s) they prefer. Therefore, don't risk alienating LinkedIn users by only including links to Facebook and Twitter: make sure you include links to all common social media sites to provide the widest possible opportunity for recipients to refer you.

Motivate sharing

Recipients of your email need a reason to share it with their friends / colleagues. By nature, value-adding emails that offer useful information or are educational often provide this because a recipient may instinctively think: "Fred would benefit from this email. I'll post it to Facebook..."

A more blunt, but equally successful approach, might involve offering a competition or promotion for people to enter!

How can iceMailer Help?

iceMailer includes an "Add to Social Networks" feature, which allows you to add social media links to your email template quickly and easily.

iceMailer users can place and track links from email messages into social networks and benefit from the "viral" nature of social media sites to ensure their message spreads to a wide audience.

Data from these links appears in iceMailer's reporting tool, which means the e-marketer can track clicks as well as the number of social media users that viewed the published information.

Allow new people to sign up easily

iceMailer's social networking tool helps marketers acquire new email addresses for their prospect list. If someone is referred to your website via a social media link, make sure it's easy for them to sign up to your mailing list by including a prominent "Subscribe Now" link both in the original email and on your website.

You can find out more about iceMailer's email marketing features or sign up for a free trial.

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