What is digital marketing? How can some digital channels be combined and have SEO baked in?
How can you make this scheme actually work?
You already know that social media contributes to your SEO efforts. Well, so does email marketing! In fact, email marketing and marketing automation is one of social media’s predecessors — one that can be quite profitable.
Hence the need for various email marketing and marketing automation platforms, such as Moosend and MailChimp, two of the best free email marketing services-and various marketing tactics.
But how do these tactics work together? What kind of impact do they have on each other?
Let’s go ahead and see…
Why combine them?
First of all, let’s clarify a very basic thing: the marketing approach email marketing uses is very different from the one social media marketing does.
The two media are quite different, but this doesn’t mean you can’t make them work together. Especially since email marketing provides measurable ROI — up to 4400% to be exact — and social media’s ROI can’t be easily measured.
Email marketing is used to entice, engage and keep an open dialogue between people who opted to sign up. In short, it’s not like you’re going to send a newsletter and your work is done. You need to maintain a profile that will gently nudge the user into interacting with you.
On the contrary, social media can be used to actually draw attention and help a brand go viral. A clever punchline and a well-made visual, perhaps a post with a sneaky QR code that people will have to scan to get special prizes -kind of like a treasure hunt game- will draw more attention and reach a larger audience.
Combining the two media will help get rid of an obstacle or two.
Let’s say you’ve already got a mailing list and you’ve just created your first social media profile. Try uploading your email list on your social media profile.
Just click on the “Find people you know” button for Twitter, “Add connections” for LinkedIn and so on, and click on the email option each social media platform will give you. This way, you’ll create a followers’ count without even trying, simply by following your subscribers.
Urge your followers to share your posts around and incentivize the offer. That way, you’ll get more brownie points when it comes to referrals and you’ll grow your reach through affiliate marketing.
Let’s assume that you’re a company like Amazon or eBay. Your product is a service. And let’s assume that you want to use affiliates and referrals to grow your prospects’ base.
You can have your prospects share your posts or your email. Every person clicking on the post will be redirected to a landing page with one simple purpose: to get your prospects to sign up and earn either some kind of discount code or an incentive like free shipping.
But here’s the thing: you need to incentivize the process for those who are going to share the post around, otherwise why would someone share your post in the first place?
Perhaps, the more people they get to sign up to your website and services, the better their chances at a huge discount.
That way, you incentivize both ways and people are eager to share your social media posts around and have more people sign up.
Not to mention that the more people to see your ad, post or anything your followers decided to check out, the better when it comes to being viral and generating more traffic and, ultimately, more conversion.
To get new followers and — in the end — buyers
It’s a shame to have just a selected few see your email marketing campaigns, as you’ve invested a lot of effort there.
And despite its cost, it’s also a shame to not spread the word when it comes to your email marketing efforts through your social media channels as well.
Include one of the stunning visuals you’re going to use in your next email campaign in one of your posts and spice things up with a headline promoting a discount or a customer loyalty program.
Then create a landing page — optimized for conversion, of course! — and link the landing page to your post. Urge them to subscribe and give them a little extra if they share your landing page with their loved ones.
A prospect won’t convert to a customer just because you asked nicely. You’ll need to include multiple touch-points into your strategy, and this means leveraging social media to your advantage.
But your efforts won’t be enough without the use of some good SEO tactics.
How is that even possible?
It may sound a little strange and the two media may seem to be quite different from each other, but in reality they’re not, as you can always use one to promote the other and vice versa.
First of all, you can add a subscription form or a little subscribe button to your Facebook page and encourage people to subscribe.
Secondly, repurpose content from your emails.
Turn them into posts and ask for feedback. If people love these, urge them to subscribe to get more content like that.
Create a contest that will be urging people to subscribe to your mailing list for better chances at winning, or maybe to know more.
Of course, this goes vice-versa as well.
The buttons of your social media pages need to appear down at the bottom of every email newsletter you send. This way you can spark curiosity and have your prospects connect with you using different methods.
Another benefit of using social media buttons on your email campaigns is the credibility those add to your brand overall.
Your brand’s social media pages are the place for your prospects to communicate with you in real-time, which is increasingly important in 2020.
Time for some SEO
I’ll bet most of you wonder what SEO has to do with these two mediums — especially with email marketing. Well, there’s a strong relation, even though it may not seem obvious.
It all comes down to the content you decide to use for each campaign and each post.
One thing SERPs are affected by is the time spent on a website and the bounce rate. You could have excellent SEO and it still wouldn’t work well if too many people bounce from your website.
Linking your website from your email marketing campaigns is one way to get quality traffic — in other words, control the quality of people who visit your website.
Remember that those are the people who’ve already subscribed to your email list and they’re, by extension, already engaged and eager to receive your content.
Also, by making your content shareable to social media, you can easily engage people outside the realm of your email marketing campaigns… However, this content practically demands some SEO optimization, as social media have a direct link to SEO.
Social media platforms are mini-search engines
Don’t tell me you’d never thought of that…
Social media platforms have those little search bars and those search bars work in the exact same way as a search engine. In other words, they look for keywords.
So, in order for your content to pop up first, you need to work with keywords, to show that it’s interesting and up-to-date.
And hashtags are keywords as well.
So, optimize your content for the keywords you’re trying to target each time and then post it on social media with captions that contain spot-on hashtags.
Now, of course the links you receive from social media do not affect your SERP efforts. Directly. But indirectly, there is much at stake if you don’t optimize for SEO and don’t get links from social media shares.
Keywords will mean that your content will pop up first, which means more traffic, which means more brand awareness and buzz around your name.
And who doesn’t need some buzz?
Content always needs optimization
Using keywords and SEO optimization, you can create content that will be segmented, making your life easier when it comes to going for some serious targeting.
After all, well-written and valuable content can always appeal to a wider audience and feel tailor-made and specific.
And if you’ve no idea what type of content your audience would love, just ask them through a poll or a survey.
Another reason you should optimize everything for SEO is that you can always repurpose your old content, be it from your emails or an older social media post and turn it into a blog post, a roundup post or website content.
Of course, this goes vice versa since you can repurpose old web pages and blog content and create fantastic social media posts. Especially if it’s video content, which is always short, bite-sized and easily comprehensible — therefore, full of keywords and SEO optimized, provided the content is valuable, of course.
Takeaway
Combining email marketing and social media is no easy task, but it’s one of the most beneficial things you can do, as it shows brand consistency and can easily create more buzz around your name.
What’s more, it can make you go viral, increase your reach and satisfy your already existing prospects.
By combining social media and email marketing and creating content based on SEO principles, you’re aiming for high engagement and, in the end, conversion. You’re also creating content your prospects will find valuable and will spend time on, as they’re the ones creating trends and — by extension — keywords.
About our guest blogger
Téa Liarokapi is a content writer working for email marketing software company Moosend and an obsessive writer in general.
In her free time, she tries to find new ways to stuff more books in her bookcase and content ideas — and cats — to play with.
Note from Rank Magic:
If you struggle with this, we can help. We can help personally with your SEO issues, and can recommend strategic partners who specialize in email marketing and social media. Reach out to us!