By Mélanie Attia, Product Marketing Manager, Campaigner
The holiday season seems to sneak up earlier each year. Even before Halloween decorations went up, retailers have had their holiday marketing plans all tied up in a bow. It’s all part of the purchase cycle — be there when people are ready to shop. Fortunately, you can be right beside them with a well-timed email-marketing program. To make an even bigger impact this year, consider adding all of the bells and the tinsel with social media.
Social media is a great way to extend your reach. Facebook has 500 million users and continues to grow, and on Twitter, over 10 billion tweets have been broadcasted since 2006. Here are three ways to incorporate these tools into your email-marketing program.
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1. Spread the Holiday Cheer – If you don’t have one already, add a fan page for your business on Facebook. Repackage what’s already been sent out in your emails on the page. Share the link with your email subscribers and suggest they share it with their friends. Maybe even motivate them with a discount if they promote your updates on their pages. The result: you have a new audience to read your news and potentially add their names to your email contact list to receive additional information, promotions and incentives in their inbox.
2. Keep Your Fans Joyful & Merry – When you add your fan page, be sure to include a sign-up form that hooks into your email marketing service. Use the data collected to segment your email list. Keep the engagement going by sending personalized emails that may be more social in nature or have ties to relevant conversation on the fan page. You can also use the segmented list by the date of sign up to resurrect email campaigns that have already been sent to other segmented lists earlier in the holiday season.
3. Deck the Halls with Fun Content – Both Facebook and Twitter offer a fresh channel to republish e-newsletter content and promotions. The catch is that you only have 140 characters for each “tweet” message you publish for your Twitter followers. The upside: it provides a direct way to interact with customers and shoppers who may not yet be aware of what you’re selling. Retailers can tweet sales and promotions and add incremental revenue during the period of that sale. It’s a great place for recommendations on hot gifts this year. With a bit of added effort you can even track the holiday keywords and chime in with your specials of the day. Just make sure you include an easy way to link to the reference and opt in to receive your emails.
4. String the Garland Just Right – Use hyperlinks to make sure your customers and prospects can find you through your newsletters and your web site. Create a “link cycle” by doing the same on your blog, web site, Facebook and Twitter pages. If your email marketing service includes reporting on who clicks on these links, retailers can use the most popular on Facebook and Twitter. If the report shows it is a big draw, let the world know. Mark the comment or tweet as what’s hot this week or Top holiday sellers.
Use this holiday-infused social media plan to keep up with the competition. This is your chance to get creative and social with your customers during one of the most important seasons of the year!
Mélanie Attia is the Product Marketing Manager for Campaigner Email Marketing and is focused on managing the Campaigner marketing programs and product messaging. She can be reached at mattia@protus.com. For weekly email marketing tips throughout the holiday season, visit http://blog.campaigner.com/.
