Though social media is all the rage, email marketing also remains strong, with 85% of companies planning to increase spending in this area in the second half of 2009 according to a recent study. Email in many cases is taking budget dollars away from other channels because it remains reasonably effective, highly measurable and relatively inexpensive.
Combining social media with email marketing holds tremendous potential, as the tools are complementary. Email is permission-based interruption marketing; social media is participatory. Email is outbound, social media is inbound. Email (in segmented campaigns at least) lets you have a monologue with prospects based on group characteristics; social media enables dialogue with individuals.
One example of a company executing this combination well is Aquent, a marketing temporary help agency based in Boston. The firm has used email for years to market itself to and maintain contact with both prospective corporate customers and individual talent. More recently, the company has also developed a presence across the major social media sites, and combined this presence with their email efforts. The result looks something like this:
It's concise, attractive, inviting, and shows that the company has invested considerable thought and effort into this on both strategic and tactical levels. Nicely done, and not a bad model for inspiration on the possibilities of combining traditional email marketing with forward-thinking social media efforts.
*****
Combining social media with email marketing holds tremendous potential, as the tools are complementary. Email is permission-based interruption marketing; social media is participatory. Email is outbound, social media is inbound. Email (in segmented campaigns at least) lets you have a monologue with prospects based on group characteristics; social media enables dialogue with individuals.
One example of a company executing this combination well is Aquent, a marketing temporary help agency based in Boston. The firm has used email for years to market itself to and maintain contact with both prospective corporate customers and individual talent. More recently, the company has also developed a presence across the major social media sites, and combined this presence with their email efforts. The result looks something like this:
It's concise, attractive, inviting, and shows that the company has invested considerable thought and effort into this on both strategic and tactical levels. Nicely done, and not a bad model for inspiration on the possibilities of combining traditional email marketing with forward-thinking social media efforts.
*****
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