Combining Email and Social Media to Widen Your Message Reach

By Jeremy Glass

Much debate has transpired over whether the proliferation of social media means an imminent death for email. If you ask me, marketers now have a prime opportunity to expand the reach of their marketing messages by integrating social media into their emails.

More than likely you've already seen this taking place in emails you are subscribed to receive. I'm referring to the "Share to Social" features many email marketers are now adding to their emails. If you take a look at the bottom of Permission's Digital Marketing Matters newsletter you'll notice we're practicing what we preach.

While marketers have long encouraged their subscribers to forward emails to friends (FTF) in order to "share the message", these email features have rarely returned good results. The average forward rate is only 0.7% which explains why wide use of the feature never took off with great gusto. This is largely because subscribers found it took too much effort to trawl through their address books to search for recipients. The lack of uncertainty over whether this would open up their friends to future Spam also didn't help either.

With the rise of social media and social networking a new functionality is giving marketers the opportunity to leverage large friendship networks to achieve a greater marketing reach.

Share With Your Network or (SWYN) for short, is an email functionality which recognises that many internet users now have easy access to a large network of friends. The SWYN functionality allows email recipients to easily share email content with friends in their social media networks, helping marketers increase the reach of their marketing messages.

Benefits of Integrating Social Media and Email?

Integrating social media with email sharing functionality allows your marketing messages to potentially be exposed to a significant number of additional consumers who fit your target market profile without any significant expense. SWYN functions are simple HTML codes which can be coded into your emails with little effort.

Your email subscribers will also be acting as brand advocates generating buzz and brand awareness. When they post content in their personal spaces about your brand they're communicating your marketing message in an environment where they control the content and have the trust of friends. A positive endorsement from a customer is possibly one of the best things that can happen to your brand, especially when the endorsement is there for the entire network to see.

In addition to these benefits, your email will be exposed to new audiences which can effectively build your database and subscriber list. All of these benefits together can lead to a greater marketing ROI.

Real life example

National Express East Coast, a rail service in the UK, implemented the SWYN feature in their email marketing messages. Doing so allowed National Express to communicate with a new set of potential customers.

In their 'One Way Fares' campaign 800 customers shared the offer via their Digg, Facebook and MySpace networking pages. The action resulted in an 8% growth in their email list and 33% of people who viewed a shared item clicked through to the offer.

These are customers they otherwise may never have reached.

Where to start?

Many of you might be sitting there now eager to implement this functionality in your own email campaigns. However, for this to be an effective tool for achieving a wider message reach you will need to consider a few points first:

• Email Shareworthiness

The old principle still applies that in order to be effective your email communications need to be relevant, engaging and have quality content. This is deemed as shareworthiness. Simply adding a SWYN feature to your emails will not make your readers suddenly want to share them with everyone. Ensure that your email messages are constructed in a way that engages the reader and provides them with a value. This will make them want to share it with others.

Closely monitor what types of stories or content is being shared the most. This will give you an indication of what might go viral and allow you to tailor your content accordingly.

• Beware of SWYN Spamming

SWYN has its place and it's not everywhere. Not all of your email communications are shareworthy so there is no need to include sharing functionality in each communication. For example, your customers won't want to share the content in their order confirmation emails with their network so it makes sense not to include any share functionality in the email.

• Educate your subscribers

Given that SWYN is relatively new many of your subscribers may not have heard or it or fully understand how it works, especially if you are targeting an older or B2B demographic. Teach them what it's for and how to use it otherwise they will most likely ignore it and you won't extract any benefits from it.

SWYN functionality demonstrates how social media concepts can be integrated into email marketing to dramatically increase the sharing of marketing messages. The important thing to remember is that your email must be "shareworthy" in the first place. Keep focusing on building engaging, relevant email communications couple that with a share to social function and you'll have yourself an effective campaign.