Marketing Secret Weapon: How to Integrate Paid Social Media and Email Marketing

Hawke’s Director of Email Marketing Marissa Jiminez doesn’t mince words when it comes to the marriage of paid social and email marketing: “We consider it one of the strongest pairings in digital marketing.”

“Together, these marketing strategies create a streamlined funnel for teeing up customer lifetime value,” Marissa says. “Paid (social) media gathers top-of-funnel engagement, familiarizing users with the brand as well as driving new traffic to the site. Email essentially picks up where paid media drops off, collecting on-site traffic and nurturing those users into the brand, establishing a long-term and more personalized relationship.”

Sounds great, right? But since your clients could probably use a little convincing, we asked Marissa to walk us through some of her most effective strategies for combining this dynamic duo. Use her advice to make the most of paid social media and email marketing for your clients from start to finish.

Make the most of customer acquisition

Marissa says that paid social has numerous advantages over traditional social, from the specificity of the audience to more controlled messaging. User acquisition and brand awareness are just a couple ways of selling these marketing methods to an interested client.

“Paid social allows for better segmenting, targeting, and positioning to each unique audience,” she explains. “And since paid social is a full-funnel acquisition solution, you have more control over the narrative and can better communicate your brand through introductory messaging to a new user. These efforts are often redundant or antiquated for social media followers already familiar with the brand, and can be a huge turnoff to users already familiar with your product.”

Establish a target and stay consistent

When your clients are using multiple marketing mediums, Marissa says, the best way to ensure success is through planning and cohesion. When combining paid social and email marketing campaigns, it’s essential to “message match”.

“If a user is faced with an ad for your company, the email needs to have similar copy and assets in order to deliver a smooth experience,” she says. “Inconsistent marketing materials can be a turn-off or even confuse users into abandoning ship.”

She also stresses the all-important pre-work. Understanding what your goal is before setting out is key. “You must establish your target or targets, micro and macro goals, desired number of touchpoints, and more, depending on your brand,” Marissa says.

Optimize, test, convert, repeat

As your clients become more comfortable with paid social and email campaigns complementing each other, Marissa suggests tinkering with just about everything: budget, audience segments, calls to action, and more.

“You want to focus on strategies that are most likely to achieve the business’ desired outcomes at a reasonable or targeted cost,” she says. “By conducting a series of tests and iterating across each segment, you’ll better understand the most valuable content to each audience during an exact moment in time. Like all marketing efforts, any plan you put into place must be tested and iterated upon to find the optimal strategy.”

Mailchimp & Co tips for pairing paid social media and email marketing:

1. Message match: One of the pillars of creating a successful multi-platform marketing ecosystem is consistency. Both your paid ads and emails should use similar copy and assets, because inconsistent marketing materials can be a turn-off for users.
2. Know your audience: Although consistency is key, be aware of where your target audience is in their customer journey. Someone who already subscribes to your newsletter doesn’t need (or want) the same information as someone unfamiliar with your brand.
3. Foster symbiosis: Increase social media engagement by reminding your subscribers about what your brand’s up to on social (maybe you’re running a contest that’ll pique their interest, for example). Inversely, social can be an excellent venue to encourage people to sign up to your mailing list. .
4. Use retargeting ads: Retargeting campaigns remind your website visitors of your products and services after they leave your site without buying. After visiting specific pages, it allows you to retarget them—with tailored content—as they scroll through their favourite social channels.
5. Keep on honing: When using paid social media, see what’s working with different audience segments. Once you’ve identified where the majority of your conversions are happening: hone in.
6. Influence signups: Hiring an influencer to introduce your brand to their followers can help you jumpstart your exposure to new audiences. Instead of just being a story segment, use their platform to drive newsletter signups. Hint: offering a promo here is a great way to incentivize this. Once you’re in an inbox, you can begin building a long-term client relationship.

When working together, paid social media and email marketing are a winning combination. It’s a marketing secret weapon that not only helps you gain new followers, but sets you up to build lasting client relationships, too. With this integrated strategy in place, you’ll create a marketing ecosystem primed for success.