Many small businesses believe that they can market their companies with social media alone. However, this is a myth.
You might be gaining thousands of followers through social media sites, but did you know that you are missing many markets? If your company’s target market is millennials, you probably can get by with social media. If your company caters to all ages, you will want to complement your social media marketing with email campaigns and newsletters.
How Social Media Support Email Marketing Campaigns? Share on XWhich is more effective in bringing in customers?
When done correctly, both are equally effective in getting you, new customers. When you combine the approaches, you double your effectiveness. Before you begin either strategy, you have to know what your end goal is. If your goal is to reach thousands of people, you want to go through social media. If your goal is to target a smaller, more focused customer base, you want to pitch them with newsletters.
For your social media strategy, pick those sites that will give you the best opportunity to promote your business. After you have chosen the right sites, develop your channels of distribution. Not all products and services are treated alike, though. You need to be mindful of that. For example, restaurants would do best on Pinterest. Companies with health products will want to be on Facebook. Businesses that offer accounting or legal services for other businesses need to promote via LinkedIn.
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Despite these differences, all companies will share some factors in common, such as competitive research, creativity, and target audience identification. All companies can benefit from sharing a video on YouTube that puts your product in its best light. You can post the video on other social media too. If you sell extreme sports equipment, you can show someone winning a competition. For industries that are dull, such as insurance or accounting, you might want to use a character, such as the GEICO gecko, to promote your business. Whatever your enterprise, your company’s social media effectiveness depends largely on how well your video and web page are received.
What About Newsletters?
When you use a newsletter, you want to inform your customers and potential customers about an issue in the industry, a problem that needs fixing or way to use your product that they hadn’t considered. You also want to build your mailing list. Whether you are successful in using a newsletter depends on what you put in it.
Regardless of how nice the appearance or earth-shattering the content, you won’t be reaching more than the few dozen subscribers with each issue. Your efforts to build a mailing list will fall short unless you use strategies to expand your reach. You can try a few tools to increase subscriptions and with them, effectiveness. For example, you want to have a box that allows people to opt-in for the newsletter on your website. Promote contests, discounts, family plans, and other incentives in your newsletter. You also can post on your social media that you just published the newest issue. Tease your customers with some nugget from the issue and ask them to subscribe if they want to know more. Have a link to the newsletter signup page on your social media. And, in the newsletter, don’t forget to promote your social media sites.
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In addition, the two complement each other because social media broaden your reach while the newsletter entices people to buy what you have to sell. People on your list will be inspired by what you write in the newsletter to jump at the chance to try your product. It also reaches the audience members who grew up with a print.
What Company Should You Choose?
When you have figured out what type of customer you need and have created your newsletter and social media strategies, you have to decide what email marketing company to use for your newsletter campaign. You have many options.
Do your research before you begin. If you pick FreshMail, you will be offered software that creates, sends and tracks targeted email campaigns. The company provides a user-friendly tool to develop newsletters by dragging and dropping with beautiful templates. You can customize it with style and pictures. With this company or another, you can send your newsletter to supporters, members, and customers. Besides the software, FreshMail and other firms put technology that analyzes how your newsletter and email marketing is received. Look for ways to segment your database and narrow down your focus. This will allow you to target certain audience members.