Guest Author
Have you ever heard the phrase “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket?”
That’s essentially what marketers do when they choose to go all-in on one strategy or marketing channel — and ignore the rest.
According to a research from digital marketing platform AWeber, email marketing and social media are the two most popular marketing channels among small business owners. There’s a good reason for that. Social media and email are cited as the best ways to drive traffic to your website and sales for your business.
While it’s true either one can help you make an impact on your bottom line, just imagine the impact you can make with both.
Email and Social Media Marketing Are Friends, Not Foes
Email marketing and social media: you don’t have to choose one or the other. In fact, with a smart strategy, these two powerhouse digital marketing tools can lead to fantastic results for your business.
Start thinking of email marketing and social media as partners working together to accomplish the same goal: Conversion.
There are three steps that need to happen in order to make a conversion:
- Awareness. This is where a prospect first becomes aware of your business. Awareness most often happens when a prospect stumbles upon your social media, sees an advertisement, or hears about you via word of mouth.
- Engagement. Once a prospect is aware of your business, they begin to engage with your content through reading blog posts, engaging with your social media, and even clicking around your website or landing page. This is where they get a sense of who you are and what you can offer them.
- Subscription. This is where your prospects are introduced to your email list (and become leads!) At this point, they’re convinced of the value you offer them and proactively opt-in to hear from you more or receive a lead magnet.
But once you turn followers into subscribers, how do you convert them to customers?
Try these four strategies to nurture leads with email and social media marketing together.
#1: Set Up Lead Nurturing Emails
Once you’ve convinced your followers to subscribe to your email list, welcome them with a specific email campaign—just for them.
But how do you know your new subscribers are coming from your social media? Many social platforms allow you to include a link in your bio. Include a link to a landing page that links off to important content — this is commonly called a “link list.”
Include a sign-up form in your link list to let followers easily subscribe to your list. Many email service providers will let you apply a tag to anyone who signs up on that specific form—which lets you know where your new subscribers found you and allows you to trigger a specific, automated campaign.
This automated campaign is commonly called a lead nurturing campaign. It helps establish frequent touchpoints with your audience via email, show your value, and ultimately, convert them into customers.
Plus, since these subscribers are coming from social media, they may already be familiar with you and what you offer. Setting up an automated email campaign that takes their familiarity into account can accelerate the conversion process.
#2: Prioritize Helpful Content Over Selling
When it comes to content on social media, educational and entertaining content wins out over promotional content every time.
By trying to drive sales on social media, you’re skipping over the critical steps outlined above: engagement and subscription. Instead, focus your content on posts that encourage likes, answering questions in comments, inspire bookmarking and sharing.
But, while your email marketing content shouldn’t be screaming “sell, sell, sell!” all the time either, email marketing is a much more appropriate channel to eventually make the hard sell to your subscribers. Much like social media, however, we recommend starting off by providing valuable content to your subscribers and earning their trust first.
#3: Automate Email and Social Media Marketing Campaigns in Tandem
Running a special offer or promotional campaign?
Make your email marketing and social media campaigns work in tandem by scheduling complementary content on both channels at the same time. This makes it more likely that those who follow your social media and subscribe to your email list will be aware of your promotion.
Plus, it’s a great opportunity to encourage your social followers to sign up for your emails. Follow these three steps to drive social followers into your list:
- Post about the special offer or limited-time promotion you’re running on your social channels.
- Let followers know they must sign up for your email list to get the one-time code.
- Deliver the code via an automated email immediately, so they can take advantage of the offer.
Make it easy for social followers to find your sign-up form, otherwise, you may be missing out on opportunities to drive new subscriptions and conversions.
#4: Build a Community
Setting up a community on social media can be a great way to nurture leads.
Many companies utilize customer communities on Facebook. This lets users share winning strategies with each other, support each other’s endeavors, and ask questions in an open and honest environment.
Other social media communities can be as simple as encouraging the use of a hashtag on Twitter or Instagram, letting people share and follow what others have to say.
But how is building a social media community lead nurturing? And how is email marketing involved?
An engaged social community can sometimes be a big selling point. If a prospect is on the fence about purchasing, learning that there’s a community behind you to help you succeed can be the tipping point. Invite your email subscribers to join the community and conversation by sending a dedicated email. Or, include the invite in an automated nurture campaign to make sure everyone who joins your list is aware of the community.
You can also set up a separate automated email campaign for those in that community. This lets you have deeper conversations and offer exclusive offers to your biggest fans.
What Strategies Have Helped You Nurture Leads into Customers?
The bottom line is: different strategies will work for different businesses. Because every audience is different, you may want to experiment with a few different approaches to see which works for you.
