During this time when using social media for marketing seems to be all the rage, it’s sometimes easy to forget e-mail marketing. Email marketing typically takes a backseat to social networking. Nielson stats say that people have been spending less time using e-mail and more time on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. With this knowledge, it would be easy to discontinue use of e-mail marketing altogether. However, e-mail will not be lost.
According to an eConsultancy study, almost half of the 1,400 U.S. consumers surveyed (42 percent to be exact) said they prefer to receive ads to their e-mails, versus the 4 percent who desire to get ads from social media.
Many marketers see the opportunity in not choosing one marketing medium over the other, but utilizing all together for maximum benefit. E-mail marketing has turned more social, with new “social CRM” tools that combine all platforms effectively. Below are a few examples that integrate social media and e-mail marketing in attempt to achieve higher profitability.
Constant Contact: gives companies access to manage social networking via e-mail. Constant Contact acquired Nutshellmail in May, which offers an array of plug-ins for various sites. One such plug-in gives the opportunity to set up e-newsletters on Facebook.
Rapportive: provides information to Gmail and Google Apps users about company information for their contacts. Some other products generate similar information, such as Xobni (which connects with Blackberrys) and Microsoft Outlook Connector.
MailChimp: an e-mail newsletter program that will soon integrate Facebook “like” buttons to specific campaigns. It also analyzes if this eventually led to a sale, which gives marketers more specific and direct responses to campaigns.
