Boosting Electronic Marketing With Social Media

You’re doing an electronic newsletter or you send out email marketing or blasts. So how do you measure the impact of your social media marketing on your electronic or email newsletter marketing? Are these two forms of multichannel marketing even compatible. Should you care or should you expect more than you’re getting?


Social media networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MerchantCircle and Twitter are great ways to push your social Media marketing onto your electronic or email marketing to get an even stronger longer lasting use of your marketing effort.


Start with putting your Social media links into your electronic marketing because they are like little magical friend and customer finders. With the viral nature of social media your influence grows exponentially. It is a fact that social sharing increases audience exposure by a factor 3 to 5 times over a simple Forward to Friend request.


Now the measurement side of the equation. Measuring how social media affects your email or electronic marketing isn't all that difficult because most email service providers offer social sharing-tracking as part of their metrics and reporting function. The key is increasing social sharing, growing your audience and measuring how that growth leads to increased sales. And I can only say the sales aspect is what is should be all about, not the sheer number of fiends you collect


So here are ways to make it happen:


1. Reinforce the opportunity to sign up. It may seem strange to be putting a sign-up link in an email that is going out to people who have already opted into your emails, but keep in mind that if what you write and say is any good it will be or might be forwarded and that is where the pay off comes. When the email is shared you now have a new audience to sign up for your mailings or to become a follower of your social media marketing efforts.


2. Build up your call to action. Because ESPs track only the first impression when an email is shared, give all recipients a reason to connect with you directly by including a call to action. The call might be to download a white paper, enter a contest, etc. Use your head on what kind of action you could be asking for. At this point is always a good idea to use a unique URLs or special landing page to help you track where your new recipients are coming. If you need help in this area contact us and we can help you in this regard. I have been producing custom landing pages for customers for over 12 years.


3. Offer incentives. One company offered a gift to subscribers who shared content and got 10 friends to sign up for their newsletter. Their newsletter is now growing by double digits, and so are their sales.


4. Design your emails for multiple platforms and multiple hardware options. These days you have no idea how, when or where your email or newsletter is going to be read. Different browsers were a problem in the past. Now, differing kinds of hardware from computers to iphones and everything in-between.


5. Tailor special emails to your high end social media contacts. Let them know what is happing and let them in on new products and services early and often.


6. Once you get a new member to sign up, monitor each lead source as it moves through the sales pipeline so you can determine what's working and where to allocate future efforts and not when an actual sale occurs, how, when and why so you duplicate the effort and can improve on what you are doing. If you understand your sales cycle from start to finish you can predict with a certain amount of accuracy when they will make their 1st and subsequent purchases.


Larson Notes & Satire: Each kind of marketing you use can and should be tied together. Nothing should be a standalone activity. Why waste the effort of what your spending good time and money to achieve a one shot wonder. You need more bang for the buck. That means cross marketing yourself and all your efforts. Why do something that will get you one look when one thing might be able to get you a half dozen looks? It takes 7 to 9 touches to make a customer. People only see about 1 out of every 3 or 4 outreaches you make. That means it can take anywhere from 27 to 32 sales and marketing outreaches to find and make a customer. I never said marketing was for the weak of heart. If you’re not in it for the long haul don’t waste your time and money.


This is one of the many different ways to get multiple looks off your marketing. In actuality there are hundreds of tricks to get people and friends of people to look at you in all different kinds of ways.


I ways suggest to my telesales customers that they use a direct mail piece to boost what I am doing on the phones. I always suggest that my customers be sure to have not just their telephone number on the piece mailed (and you would be surprised at the number of direct mail pieces that go out without a phone number on it) but that have their web site and email address on it as well, another big thing that is forgotten.


But if you just remember to keep your eye on the target, the sale and this is a road to get one nothing else matters. Does it?


Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
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P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.


P.P.S. Take the Larson Challenge to double your sales this year!