Emails marketing tends to intimidate many business owners, but email marketing isn’t that far off from blogging and social media. Just like blogging, email campaigns require thoughtful content. And just like social media, you need to craft content that will quickly connect with your readers – and get shared.
Getting your email campaign shared is the lesser known goal of a great email marketing. But it makes sense: you’ve spent the time building a campaign so why should it just stop at a click? If you employ the right strategies, you can extend the life of your next email.
Recognition
One way to get your email shared is to highlight a certain individual, company, or organization. You’ll see this done on Twitter, where people “favorite” or retweet a tweet they were mentioned in. The same rule can be applied to email. Perhaps you have a favorite vendor or local organization you’d like to draw attention to. Recognize that person with a spotlight feature in your email campaign, and you can be sure they’re going to want to share it.
Make it Simple to Share
Most novice email marketers, along with most readers, don’t know that you that each email marketing piece has a stand-alone link that extends the shelf life of your email. That link can be shared on social, but not so much if no one knows it exists. That said, have clear calls to action in each email that guides people to this action. You can say something like, “Use this link to share this on social,” or “Click here to view URL.” Again, how you phrase it will depend on your audience. Older subscribers, for example might not do too well with the “URL” call to action.
Another option would be to include activate social sharing with your campaigns. You can include social media buttons that directly guide readers to sharing that content on select social sites.
Give Engagement Options
Some people just don’t like to engage on emails, but they love engaging on their preferred social channels. That said, make it possible for people to engage your brand on their preferred platform. Your email campaign can include a button, link or some similar call to action that directs people to where they want to be. Some will prefer Instagram, others YouTube, Tumblr or even a direct landing page.
Determining who wants to be where is pretty easy too. You can send out a quick three question survey to readers. You can integrate the top 3 platforms you know your readers are on into each email, which can be time consuming but worth it and tailored in the future based on which options are getting used more than others. The idea is to make it easy for people and get help stimulate exposure of your campaign content to their network.
You can also take the first step and ensure that each email campaign is shared on your own social networks. If you’ve included a spotlight mention, make sure you tag the appropriate people. Going a step further, you can also tag people who you feel might be interested in the content, which is a strategy that works remarkably well on Twitter.
Shireen Qudosi is Benchmark Email's Online Marketing Specialist and Small Business Advocate. An Orange County based writer, Shireen specializes in online marketing and public relations. She has written for over 75 publications and has launched nine successful new media campaigns to date. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Denver Post, the Oklahoman and Green Air Radio, among others.
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