I love that quote from Tamsin Fox-Davies, Senior Development Manager at Constant Contact, describing the relationship between social media and email marketing:
Social media and email marketing are like cheese and apples. People don't think they go together, but they're actually perfect partners. Social media helps extend the reach of your email campaigns and can build your mailing. Meanwhile, good email campaigns will deepen the relationship that you have with social media contacts, and turn those followers into buyers. Create campaigns that run across both channels and feedback into each other and do try an apple and a wedge of cheese together. It's a taste sensation.
Recognizing the differences is important too, though! Social media is a stream and if your audience isn't paying attention (most of the time), the marketing you're carefully preparing isn't always viewed. It's important to schedule out some notifications at times when you believe you can capture their attention. Or you can pay for some promotion that has more staying power.
Email marketing, on the other hand, often gets dedicated attention if you can get the subscriber past your subject line and reading your email. As a permission-based push notification without all the noise, email is typically more powerful at driving conversions. In other words, an email subscriber is much more valuable than a social media follower.
Because of this nuance, I'd encourage every company to entice your social media followers into becoming email subscribers. A great offer or some unique content can make all the difference in converting them. That's not to say your social presence isn't valuable… just that driving your social to email is a great strategy.
Here are 12 additional tips on Email and Social Media Marketing collected by Constant Contact UK:
