Socialize your Emails the Right Way
October 25th, 2011 by Anne S.This Marketing Sherpa blog post on social email marketing caught my eye because we recently redesigned a client’s email template and this was a hot topic of discussion. What’s the best way to implement social sharing buttons within an email? What do you expect socializing these emails to do for you and your list? Blogger Adam T. Sutton explains a few ways to “encourage sharing wisely,” as he says, “not randomly.”
1. Razor-sharp focus: Zeroing in on your objective will remove any distractions and increase your campaign’s success.
One example of a successful social media email campaign comes from KFC with its Double Down launch email. The company spring-boarded one of its most successful product launches in 2010 with an email that encouraged recipients to share a link to a product image on a social network.
KFC did not toss sharing buttons onto its emails and hope for success. Its team sent an email that focused solely on getting its audience to share the link (see a copy of the email).
2. Know your audience: Don’t expect them to socialize content they don’t care about. Or to socialize it in a way that doesn’t make sense to them.
You want to identify the exact type of content that gets your specific audience commenting and sharing. Then, think about how you can apply your research by offering what the audience wants, when it wants it, and how it wants it, in an email.
3. Design intentionally: Pay attention to where you’re placing the social media buttons and how they function.
When readers click a sharing button in your email, a default message is generated. This message is very important to the performance of your campaign. Should it fail to attract attention on a social network, the campaign will fail.
So, program your buttons carefully. Be sure their default messages are relevant and compelling to the audience on the social network, because you need people to notice the link, click it, and engage with your page.
Tags: b2b, Email Marketing, social marketing