Contrary to popular belief, email marketing hasn’t been trampled by the increase of social media. Instead, email marketing is stronger than ever with many large companies planning to spend more on the medium in 2011*. However, combined with social media the overall impact of email messages can be enhanced. The trick though is to enforce it wisely.

Before the days of Twitter, Facebook and My Space, email was Social Media. Today,email remains the best medium to send out information to a targeted database, build relationships and share with friends. But by combining your email marketing campaigns and social media efforts you can create an enhanced viral effect for your messages and brand.

Improve social sharing of your email marketing campaigns through:

1. Strategising campaigns: Instead of separating email marketing and social media campaigns, strategise them together. Through doing this, you will be able to see how the two can complement each other to achieve online marketing goals.
2. Personalising your brand: Your brand has a specific personality which you need to maintain in a consistent manner. That is why it is important to strategise and compile copy for campaigns together as well. Creating a unified personality through using the same tone and character will familiarise customers with your brand.
3. Incentivising your email database: Give something back to your email database through offering special offers or deals to your email database only. But do encourage them to share the news to family and friends who would also like to gain from the specials. This way you could get more social sharing, additional subscribers to your email marketing campaigns and increase sales.
4. Intensifying content: If your copy is captivating, fun or informative it is obvious that it will spur on more social sharing than average content. Don’t just duplicate copy from email campaigns to various social networks. Plan strategically within your overall objectives and keep content fresh on each site.
5. Simplifying sharing: Make it easy for your email database to share your information on to social networks. Although the “Forward to a Friend” option has its moments, “Share to Social” (S2S) links increase click through rates by 30%. Add these links to your email marketing campaigns and enjoy the benefits of more people sharing and reading your messages.

If you have active email marketing and social media campaigns, make an effort to merge the two and see how implementing these tips can take your company from online invisibility to the digital spotlight.

* Of 925 business leaders interviewed across the world 65% plan to invest more money on email marketing in 2011. (Source:StrongMedia)

"Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does. "
Steuart Henderson Britt