By Alison Brown & Janette Leon-Speyer, Web Success Team

Some say that email marketing is no longer effective. However, just because some aspects are no longer effective doesn’t mean all is lost. Online marketing is a combination of efforts via the Internet and includes everything from email to social media and website promotions. Since online marketing generally has one purpose, engaging audiences, no matter what your medium is you can still use it to get people to engage. Just because there are newer mediums for online marketing doesn’t mean the original one’s are no longer relevant.

Email and social marketing do compliment each other in a lot of ways; so as long as you are able to adjust your strategy accordingly you can gain a lot from using both. Below are a few tips to building your social media following using email:

1) Connect Sign-Ups and Social Media

Getting people to sign up for your newsletter or mailing list is best done via social media. By channeling traffic and sign ups, you can link people directly to your Facebook page where visitors are going to be viewing it, and hopefully they will become a fan.

2) Give them incentive to like your page

You can give people a reason to like your social media pages or engage with you if you offer a call to action that they can benefit from, such as an eBook or webinar. If you just ask people to connect with you via social media, they probably aren’t going to feel compelled to unless they are going to gain something from it.

3) Make sure it can be accessed on mobile phones

Most people today use smart phones. They use smart phones to check their emails and social networks everyday. If you’re sending a marketing email to people you need to make sure it’s going to be just as easy to access your pages if they do it on their phones. One small glitch can turn a potential fan into one who unsubscribes completely.

4) Send Email reminders to connect on social media

It’s always a good idea to send out regular emails reminding people to connect with you on social media. You don’t want to do it all the time, however once a month would suffice. You might even offer a monthly special, only accessible via Facebook. That way you can ensure that if people are interested in saving money on your service they will be sure to get engaged on social media.

5) Be real and personal

There’s nothing worse than marketing emails that are matter-of-fact or impersonal. You want to make sure people read what you have to say and feel a strong need to connect with you on social media networks. They want to feel that you’ve put thought into every email that you send them and each email offers something new and unique.

Integrating “old with new” mediums can be an effective strategy to build a strong social media following. People are visual and respond to a well-crafted email that sends a clear message and call to action. Engaging customers should be the focus your promotional efforts. People want to respond, they only need the reason!

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• Guidelines to Running a Successful Email Marketing Campaign
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