For most businesses and brands, it’s either a focus on social media or email marketing. Social media is always gaining a lot of attention because of it’s massive reach and the sexy allure of having ‘followers’. However, for any businesses already using email marketing, it’s still one of the very best ways to actually connect, engage, and convert leads into real revenue.
The problem with social media and email marketing, is that not many are using both of these methods effectively, or using both at all. However, the smartest brands and ecommerce businesses are using email marketing and social media today, to make the most powerful form on online advertising yet.
Social Media is Still the Holy Grail for Online Reach
You have probably realized by now that social media marketing is vital for all types of businesses. It does not matter what the size of your business is, you are going to need it. You sometimes cannot help but question why you need it. The use of social media will allow you to reach your target market faster. People are known to go online more than once a day, and when they do, it’s like through their mobile device and on social media. They come across different items, stories, and so much more online. You would like to be one of the businesses that they would check out.
Social media is great, but without a solid marketing plan in place, it’s just social media. Even if a lot of people would see what you have marketed, it will not have any effect unless they become interested and act upon your offer. This emphasizes the reason why you need to create an effective social media marketing plan, while also taking advantage of email marketing and subscriber data.
How to Create the Right Social Media Marketing Plan
To come up with the right plan, you need to follow a process. These are the steps that you have to follow:
- Know More About Your Current Social Media Presence – What are the social media sites that you are active on? Do you normally post different stories that are related to your website? You may also need to check which networks are providing you with the best value for your money. Do people notice you more when you post on certain social media websites? You need to know where you can stand so that you can utilize the websites that will give the best value for your social media marketing plan.
- Decide on Who the Ideal Customer Is – How do you define an ideal customer? It will always be different from one company to another. Your ideal customer may be similar to the ideal customer of a competitor. You can have a better insight into your ideal customer by knowing the age that you want, the total income of the person, and so much more.
- Find Something About Your Company that Makes You Stand Out – You have a lot of competition but there is something unique about your company that will make you different. Play up on this difference and you will surely be noticed by your target market.
- Learn More About the Key Success Metrics – You need to know if the things that you are doing on social media are successful. How will you know if your efforts are successful? You cannot base it solely on the number of people who follow you. You can see if your efforts are succeeding if you are getting more sales.
- Always Provide Engaging Content – Will people actually want to check out your page if they do not find it interesting? There are a lot of businesses who think that this is the only step that they have to take. You need to provide content that will be appealing to your target audience. Without knowing who your audience is, you will not provide the content that they want.
Every social platform is different in the way you should approach your branding and marketing, but the core values of providing value is always the same. It’s not just about pushing content out there and making it a one-way conversation, it’s about reaching new audiences and gaining their trust and eventual business as well.
Don’t Forget About the Power of Email Marketing!
With a solid social media plan now in place, it’s time to take advantage of your database of email subscribers, newsletters, and customer data for sales on your site.
Thanks to the power of self-serve advertising platforms on Instagram and Facebook, it’s super easy to create ad campaigns that allow you to target audiences based on their demographics, interests, and location. Even better, you can target users based on their email address and through cookie/pixel tracking as well. This not only leads us into the email-based social media ads, but also remarketing as well.
A recent resource guide from Wishpond, and an article from TechCrunch.com, broke down the following key points on why email/list targeting is so important when trying to compete with ads on social media.
- An ecommerce company who targeted their email list found a 43% conversion rate increase among sign-ups and a 30% decrease in cost-per-lead.
- OpenSky targeted members who had either never purchased or not purchased within 30 days. They saw a 30% conversion rate increase.
- SocialCode found that one campaign with a custom audience found a 15 percent lower cost per Facebook likes.
- Another got three times as many engagements/post as standard ads and received two times as many viral engagements such as Facebook likes, Shares and comments.
If you don’t have a mailing list in place, it’s never to early or late to get started. This is also something AfterOffers can help with as well, as we deliver thousands of 100% opt-in email subscribers to businesses and brands daily. This same data can be retargeted and marketed to through social media ads, as explained above.
When it comes to social media, there are now more than two billion users spread across all of the major platforms. If you want to compete, you need to use advantage advertising methods, while also taking advantage of the user data and demographic options in place. Start small and scale out over time. ROI is more important than volume, and there is always more advertising that can be done to pull in more email subscribers and soft leads.
Always remember to invest in tools that will allow you to create a social media marketing plan that works. Once you have the plan in action, do not forget to track and optimize. This way, you can make some changes as you see fit.