Email Marketing + Social Media = Powerful Combo: Tips from the Experts at Emma

Including social sharing options in emails increased click through rates by an average of 7.2% to 8.7% and at least three social sharing options boosted the rate to 11.2%. Is your email performing socially?

These stats are from an are from an article on The Customer Collective, a sales and marketing executives forum site.

Part Three in a Series of Four

Continuing our series from the email marketing experts at Emma, we asked their team for tips on sharing news via social media to drive email marketing success rates.

Mightybytes: Why is email marketing and social media a power combo?
Emma: Our social sharing feature makes it easy for your audience to share your content with their friends and followers, making your email campaigns more powerful.
Jim Hitch is the Director of Community at Emma and shares tips on why and how social media can boost the power of your email marketing plans in his blog post, “15 Reasons to Add Social Sharing Links to your Email Campaigns.” Here are a few of Jim’s tips:

1. Reach of Social Media

   “..Facebook claims that the average user has 130 friends, so every 1,000 email subscribers represents a potential audience of 130,000 people!...(actually more exponentially)...”
   
   

   Basic Facebook profile share from Emma email.

   “Using Emma’s Facebook Share feature, your email campaign’s subject line and 200 characters of the body text will be visible as editable fields that can be changed by the person sharing it.”

2. Grow your Email List

   “...when your content is shared on social networks, it’s typically being shared with a group of people who share common interests, so it’s likely relevant to those it reaches…We’ve made it easy for new readers to sign up for your email list from the landing page shared through social media links…you might also gain new subscribers.”

3. Pinpoint Loyal Fans

   “...Emma’s social sharing response report identifies who shared your email message via social icon links, number of shares, and number of visits to your email campaign across multiple networks.” This is a great opportunity to “provide something special for folks who regularly share or help you spread an important message,” Jim says in his post. Whether it’s a free gift (Emma often sends out actual ‘Medals of Awesomeness), a product or services discount, or even just a personalized thank you, these types of personal gestures can go a long way in fostering engagement and incite further sharing of your content.

Emma provides user-specific reporting of who shared email content.

Tip: Use Social Media Icons in Emails

Mightybytes: Emma, what do you advise to encourage sharing of emails?
Emma: Having an easy way to share—literally, using our simple social sharing icons—is the first step, of course.



Social media links in the Emma emails.

Tip: Content Worth Sharing

Emma: Make sure your content is so superb, people can’t help but share it with everyone they know. It’s important to know your audience, so that you’re sending the kind of content they want. In a Social Media Strategy post in their Help Forums, Emma suggests considering custom content and display for social sharing such as:

• Though some of your regular customers may read a five-paragraph email because they are interested in the intricacies of a new policy, the larger community is likely to be interested in the summary. Consider enabling Social Sharing in a summary campaign to your entire audience, while not enabling it in the campaign to your stakeholders.
• Maximize the “retail space” at the top of the email campaign. A campaign meant to be shared should look different from a campaign intended for an email inbox only. In the layout of your email campaign to share via social networks, watch the layout of the email so that most valuable call-to-actions, sale info, or other news is seen within the few lines show when shared via social media.

Tip: Ask your Audience

Emma: One way to ensure share-ability is to regularly converse with the people on your list. This can be via one-on-one conversations through email or perhaps consider sending a survey to find out more about what audience members would like to see in your emails. Emma has a series about effective surveys on the Emma blog.

Emma’s marketing Social Sharing Overview page offers a video and more tips for incorporating social media sharing through Emma emails, helpful advice even when using any email marketing system.

Looking for More Email Marketing Tips?

In case you missed them, here are links to Parts One and Two of this email marketing series.

Five Tips for Better Email Performance: More from the Emma Experts
Build a Better Holiday Campaign: Tips from the Experts at Emma