Old fashioned, one-way and downright obsolete. If this is how you perceive email in the social age, it’s time to think again. Yes: social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have opened up exciting new avenues of rich dialogue and engagement, but they have also made old-faithful email an even more powerful marketing tool than ever. Hubspot has just released a Definitive Guide to Integrating Social Media and Email Marketing, and here are the 5 key takeaways for you:
Know exactly where your audience is
Social media is a huge category, extending beyond the ‘big three’ (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) to encompass smaller niche sites like Digg and sector-specific networks. To determine which networks are the right fit for your brand, and where to therefore focus your social marketing efforts, dive into your web analytics data.
In general though, Facebook has been proven to be the most effective site for B2C marketers, and LinkedIn most effective for B2B marketers. Remember, your email opt-ins may not be the same folk who engage with you on social media – why not run simple surveys of your social media fans and email subscribers to determine how your audience overlaps?
Use social channels to grow your email list
Email subscribers are marketing gold. They’ve already opted in for your most targeted and effective messaging. So, see your first task in integrating social and email as converting as many social fans and followers into email subscribers.
On Facebook, try the underused method of adding an email opt-in widget to your page. You can incentivise people with coupons or free content downloads if they’re slow to bite. Take footwear brand Crocs’ method of offering fans a 20%-off welcome coupon for signing up to email – now, 12% of their weekly email subscribers come from Facebook. More »
Shoppers prefer to receive promotional offers by email, ahead of other marketing channels, a survey across retailers in four US states has established, in a report by eMarketer.com.
37% prefered email followed by the well established direct mail (23%). The third most popular was perhaps surprisingly text (18%), then in-store promotions (11%) with social media languishing last at 9%.
The results suggest that while social media is massively influential for brand building online, consumers do not see it as a push marketing medium, at least not yet.
The average open rate for UK email marketers is 22.5% according to research from email service provider Silverpop.
Average click through rate in the UK is 4.8%
Silverpop compared three country markets in the study, UK, USA & Germany, finding that open rates were highest in Germany, averaging 24.9% and lowest in the US at 21.3%
Click through rate in Germany was also highest at 5% and again lowest in the US with 4.5%
Researchers pulled a random sample set of 7,000 email messages, delivered to a minimum of 50 recipients in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany.
Approximately 50 million emails were delivered across the messages to 188 countries.
Latest research from Alchemy Worx suggests email marketers should not sweat the unopened percentage of their email newsletters too much as the mere arrival of a message in a customer inbox is enough to have a positive effect on sales.
Alchemy Worx purchase behaviour studies reveal an increase in sales through other channels directly after an email has been sent, indicating there’s a significant subliminal or ‘nudge effect’ effect even if the email remains unopened.
Alchemy Worx recommend making use of the subject line in a branded email to promote other ways of making a purchase, e.g., ”best deals in-store this month” giving the email a triple purpose, delivering brand messages, encouraging click-through and directing responses to other channels. More »
Forced to make the choice, children of baby boomers, known as ‘Generation Y’ would give up watching TV before email or text, a study of 18-24 year olds by Pace University has discovered.
The research into 206 young people’s attachment to methods of communication demonstrated that email and text were equally valuable to them with 26% of the vote. Third most popular was watching TV – 15% choosing that followed by talking on the phone – 11%. Visiting social media sites at 9% ranked higher than either reading magazines or visiting websites.
Why we love email and text so much is unexplored. Dialogue is preferred to reading or watching evidently and Pace say that while Gen Y they spend more time on social networks than the other options, it’s seen as the most expendable. More »
..at least. Research in May from Forrester suggests video content boosts email click-through 2-3 times and that’s an average – the best videos are off the scale.
It’s not really a surprise, what with online video traffic increasing 178% year on year (Econsultancy) and our tolerance for promotional video – 70% of Europeans don’t mind video ads (according to Tremor Media) – the only surprise is that more companies aren’t doing it.
As with email marketing, one of the main hurdles is not cost but time. Creating good video content is not expensive but it certainly does take time. It needs outsourcing to a video maker, as does email marketing, suggests Dela Quist of Alchemy Worx in this video.
New research from Silverpop suggests adding social mediabuttons to email marketingcampaigns generates 24% more reach than traditional forward-to-a-friend functions with this set to grow exponentionally as users become more familiar with social media.
Those using social media in email may also be using the wrong channels. Silverpop’s research showed that, while links to Facebook, My Space and Twitter were included most often More »
Old fashioned, one-way and downright obsolete. If this is how you perceive email in the social age, it’s time to think again. Yes: social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have opened up exciting new avenues of rich dialogue and engagement, but they have also made old-faithful email an even more powerful marketing tool than ever. Hubspot has just released a Definitive Guide to Integrating Social Media and Email Marketing, and here are the 5 key takeaways for you:
The average open rate for UK email marketers is 22.5% according to research from email service provider Silverpop.
Latest research from 
Forced to make the choice, children of baby boomers, known as ‘Generation Y’ would give up watching TV before email or text, a study of 18-24 year olds by Pace University has discovered.
New research from 