Email and Social Media Living In Digital Harmony For Your Brand
Email Marketing and Social Media Marketing. In many ways, they’re one in the same. Both need to…
a) inspire and become a means of communication between the brand and its audience
b) cross-promote the other
c) involve a certain level of testing
d) be precise, personal and avoid “marketing” speak
Just like Email, any form of Social Media is necessary for promoting your brand, but they’re also best utilized when they’re used as a means to communicate to your audience. And this isn’t a one-way street we’re talking about here… this is a two way street. This is a conversation. Never over-use “marketing speech”, this is slowly becoming has become old-fashioned. Nobody speaks “marketing language” in real life (and if you do only speak in marketing buzz words, you need to DISCONNECT).
Part of your conversation can include the cross-promotion of the other. Mention your email list (and all of the unique offers they’re missing out on) through your Twitter account. Embed buttons within your email to promote your Facebook and Twitter accounts. If everything is cyclical and blends into one another seamlessly, you’re on the right track to effective and consistent messaging. Your followers and friends will undoubtedly respond with your support.
Test test test. You test for your emails and the lists / subscribers your emails go to. Why wouldn’t you take the same approach to your followers on Twitter? Get a feel for YOUR audience. Don’t let your campaigns live and breath by industry standards and benchmarks. Each and every list, group, sect or database is different and responds differently to different things. Always keep this in mind and take every opportunity as a learning experience.
Email has a subject line, Twitter has its body. One has a suggested maximum length, the other has a mandatory max, respectively. Keep it short & sweet. There’s no room for stale marketing jargon. If you keep your audience in mind as if they were your friends, all will be well in your world.
An Idea sums the consumers perspective perfectly: “Talk with me like a friend and I’ll advocate for you all day long“.
Posted by Bryan Quilty on May. 28, 2009
Comments
Great job on this article. They are similar, but there are also some major differences between the two.
Posted by Restoration Media on 06/03/2009 07:00 PM
Nice blog, emailista! Thanks for reading!
Restoration, yes, there are HUGE differences between email and social media. I think might write a follow-up sometime this week focusing on just that. Thanks for commenting!
Posted by Bryan Quilty on 06/08/2009 08:12 AM
Thanks for this post. We’ve been working a LOT with social media + email lately.
Check out my blog: emailista.blogspot.com !
Keep up the good work
Posted by Emailista on 05/29/2009 06:24 PM