By Melissa Crooks

Should email marketing and social media go hand in hand in digital marketing?

Against all the forecasts, the use of email is increasing yearly even among the millennials. According to a survey conducted by CMO (Marketing statistics sites) among 1000 American users: “Time spent on email increased by 17% from 2015 to 2016. Millennials – consumers aged 18 to 34 – spend most of their time on email than any other age group and rely mainly on their smartphones (90%) to do it.”

Consequently, brands that seek to sell on the internet not only have to implement social media strategies but also email marketing strategies. Email marketing is vital for customers or potential customers to advance in the sales funnel steps.

So, if you already know that you have to face both fronts, why not integrate them? Complementing email marketing with social media will make both strategies more powerful and effective.

Here are five creative ways to integrate email marketing and social media:

– Upload your list of subscribers to social networks to integrate email marketing and social media.

This strategy allows you to put a face and a name to each of the people that make up your list of subscribers. In addition, it gives you the possibility to follow them on social networks to better understand what their wishes and needs are. And if you’re sharing valuable content on your social networks, you can get new subscribers. All social networks allow you to load this list. If you feel you’re lagging behind on the number of subscribers you’d like to have, you can learn how to buy Instagram followers to grow your follower base!

For example, in the case of Facebook, marketing experts do not recommend importing contact lists in the usual way because Facebook is a network that is more personal than professional. So, it is best to create segmented ads from the Ad Manager, using the option “Create a custom audience” and selecting “Client file.” Facebook will give you the option of loading a database in different ways and you will be able to select groups of contacts with more precision. In this way, you will be integrating email marketing and social media in a simple way.

– Run retargeting ads on Facebook and Twitter only for those subscribers who clicked on your emails.

“Retargeting” is a very effective way to advertise. Everything depends on your business objectives, but if the interests of the user coincide with the ads you show, you will likely convert that user into a customer.

Retargeting works by placing a tracking code in your content. This will let you know the things that attract the users. Then you will have to show those things that are of interest to them on social media.

A good way to integrate an email marketing campaign with social media is to generate a list of those subscribers who clicked on your emails and apply retargeting strategies to that group.

– Use social networks to send emails

The strategy to integrate email marketing and social media is called “indirect email marketing.” To carry it out, it is necessary to generate a large community in social networks. Focus on one goal: to help people. The contents of value are what really work.

An example is Linkedin. When someone subscribes to a Linkedin group, they start receiving emails about the group’s activity. The same happens when you are part of a Google Plus community or a Facebook group.

If you have a good proposal, you can always be in the mailbox of your clients or potential clients without having to program it yourself. It’s just a matter of frequently generating quality content. For you to do this, you need to have a well-developed social media content plan and schedule the publications. For example, if you do not know how to publish in a Facebook group, you can make use of tools.

– Reach influential people, websites or blogs of importance through email automation to share your valuable content

Influencers or relevant websites/blogs only share content with very good performance. Let’s suppose that one of your posts on social network generated hundreds of actions. It is the right time to send it by email to the websites, blogs and influential people of your interest. To do it in an easy and fast way, you can use tools that allow you to automate the emails you send to your subscribers.

This strategy is really effective to increase the engagement of your brand in social media.

– Create a group in one of the social networks totally exclusive for your email subscribers

This tactic to integrate email marketing and social media is not widely used. However, it can be very useful to get new subscribers, retain the ones you already have and have them share your content on their own social networks.

For example, you can create a group on Facebook to provide mini-lessons of whatever. Only that group will be able to access your exclusive content. Spreading this action is quite easy: you publish it on your social networks and also through an email marketing campaign to those who are already your subscribers.

As you’ve seen so far, integrating email marketing with your social media strategies is not complicated. You only have to be creative. Doing it well depends on your creativity and your commitment to the customer experience. An excellent marketing strategy with the integration of email marketing and social media can greatly increase your sales.

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Melissa Crooks is a content writer who writes for Hyperlink InfoSystem, a mobile app development company in New York, USA, and India that holds the best team of skilled and expert app developers. She is a versatile tech writer and loves exploring latest technology trends, entrepreneur and startup column.