Email marketing


Connecting social and email marketing


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Combining email with social to extend your reach A case in point:


By James Murray


here has been much conversation in recent


months surrounding the combined potential of email and social as a powerful


marketing strategy. Consumers have increasingly indicated that they prefer to engage with brands on their own terms, as and when they like.


This is backed up by a recent poll conducted by Experian Marketing Services, which found that consumers prefer social and email channels as the primary means of contact with brands. Thirty-five percent of consumers said they prefer to receive information on Facebook, while 30 percent prefer email. The essence of social and email channels is their accessibility, and the level of control that consumers can take—they can opt in, opt out, select preferences painlessly or “like” the communications that they feel are relevant to them. Combined, social media and email present marketers with an unparalleled opportunity to reach out to consumers on their own terms, provided that they overcome the hurdles associated with integration.


How to reach


today’s consumer The same piece of Experian research also identified the challenges that companies must overcome when deploying email and social marketing campaigns. Twenty-seven percent of respondents regularly unsubscribe from emails that no longer interest them, while 18 percent said that they regularly “unlike” Facebook pages that are no longer of interest. Similarly, 14 percent said they would stop following a brand on Twitter if they felt the content had become irrelevant to them. Clearly, marketers must use data and insights to create sticky, relevant content and engaging experiences for customers or risk losing their business.


Driving an effective social and email campaign requires careful consideration of two key elements: the content and the creative. An integrated digital marketing strategy is not just about embedding social links in emails or asking customers to like your Facebook page. Once customers have opted in to engage with you via both email and social channels,


you need to think about the type of content you are providing to keep them interested and to avoid duplication. A retailer, for example, might use its Facebook page to share updates on new, innovative products and engage customers in conversations to get their feedback on how these products might fit in their daily lives, but then use their email marketing to alert customers to flash sales on certain items or make suggestions for other related products that a customer might enjoy. Facebook’s custom verbs allow users to recommend or rate products to others, which is a great social discovery tool for sectors such as publishing and travel, and means that their email marketing can remain much more focused on driving commerce opportunities.


Forging ahead


with followers If your objective is to drive followers on social-media sites, then you need to offer them something that they can’t get elsewhere, making them feel special and ensuring that they remain engaged with the brand. For example, a brand could offer access to unseen content, or entry into a competition that is for fans only. This is a far better option than sharing the same information through every marketing channel, which runs the risk of boring the customer or losing his interest all together.


Using dynamic, personalised content in all of your marketing endeavours remains one of the best ways to attract the interest of both existing customers and prospects. Taking what you know about your customers and their past behaviour and sharing content that is tailored to their interests is sure to get you noticed. A customer that has just bought a big ticket item such as a 3D TV is highly unlikely to be in the market for another big screen, but very likely to be interested in 3D glasses or perhaps a 3D Blu-ray player, for example. A high level of personalised communication will help improve click-through rates and email penetration.


James Murray is digital insights manager at Experian Marketing Services.


Panasonic


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The launch of Panasonic’s Smart Viera TV is a great example of how social and email campaigns can work hand in hand to engage customers and create value for the brand. The campaign was designed to increase web traffic through social channels, build brand popularity and boost product awareness. The primary purpose of the campaign was to educate and inform customers about Panasonic’s Smart Viera TVs. The brand used video within the email that played the above-the-line television advertisement on loop, with a strong call to action encouraging recipients to find out more about the product. The secondary call to action was to drive traffic to Panasonic’s Facebook page, offering customers the opportunity to enter into a competition for the chance to win a Smart Viera TV. The Facebook page incorporated video and competitions to support ongoing customer and data acquisition, as well as driving traffic to the Panasonic website.


This approach to multichannel digital engagement


was not just limited to the Viera launch. Panasonic’s Dynamo TV YouTube campaign in 2010 secured 2.2 million views, was YouTube’s number one UK branded TV channel and spawned more than 800,000 tweets. Importantly, it coincided with a huge spike in Panasonic sales in the UK, proving that email and other digital approaches deliver increased footfall to the high street. As Facebook and other social channels grow, so will the resources that brands invest in their social-media campaigns. To drive mutually rewarding relationships, brands must communicate on preferred channels, using the creative and highly personalised content that is demanded by the modern consumer.—JM


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