Use Social Networking in Your Email Marketing Campaigns

According to Nielson Online in a study conducted last spring social networks and blogs are now outpacing email in popularity.  As a small business owner, you’ve probably known for some time that just having a killer website and top-notch email marketing campaigns aren’t enough; you also need to have a social media presence.  While using email marketing software to create a newsletter is a great start, it is also helpful to integrate your email marketing strategy into your social networks. Read below for tips how to implement and special features from popular email marketing providers.

Create an eNewsletter Archive

A great way to get your email campaign in front of more people is to use a webpage on your own site. Some email marketing services, such as Constant Contact, have a simple tool that easily turns your newsletter into a web page. When you create an archive, it provides direct, easy access to all of your past email campaigns. While people may enjoy browsing your newsletters on your site, this archive is really a great way to get new subscribers.  If they can see an example newsletter, people might be more willing to sign up for your newsletter.

Let Them Share

You need to also make it incredibly painless for visitors to share your email newsletters.  Create a Share button for your archived newsletters so that readers can post to their Twitter or Facebook pages with a click of their mouse. Include the Facebook Like button, which can also be inserted onto just about any web page. You want to make it as effortless as possible to get your eNewsletter out there.

Post Your eNewsletter to Social Networks

A ton of email marketing services will allow your subscribers to post the campaign to your Facebook and Twitter after you’ve sent your email campaign.  You can even set up this feature automatically, using services like Aweber’s email marketing service.  And with Aweber, you can even create new connections on Twitter and Facebook through your list settings.

Connect to Your Subscribers

Other email marketing services, such as MailChimp, allow you to connect to your subscribers and learn more about them and how they use social networking.  With MailChimp you are able to find out which social networks your subscribers are on so that you can send an email to only those using a specific network. You can also see how “influential” the subscribers on your list are based on their activity and number of followers.

Segment Your Emails

In order for your emails to be the most effective you might consider segmenting your eNewsletter contact lists to get them in front of the right subscribers.  For example, iContact has recently integrated with Flowtown, a social marketing platform, and allows users to segment their lists based on their subscribers’ social networking use.  Segmenting would be great for an email campaign advertising a sale or promotion that’s specific to a particular social network.

Although social networking is on the rise, email marketing campaigns are still easy and useful tools to help build relationships with your clients. Learn more about Constant Contact, Aweber, MailChimp, iContact, and other popular email marketing services at www.Email-Marketing-Options.com.