I have been following the evolutions regarding the integration of social media and email for marketing purposes and serving plenty of tips for a while now.
The evolutions don’t stop, I can’t even follow them, so let me give you an overview of facts and data about email and social media integration, especially since yesterday StrongMail released a report in which the company states that email and social media integration appears to have finally reached mainstream.
In this post, you will find all the recent facts about social media and email from various surveys and some industry news (including stuff I haven’t covered) that clearly shows that ESPs are increasingly adding features to integrate social media and email and that email marketers are going full throttle for social email marketing.
Social email marketing: when email and social media meet; the data
1) In its “2010 Marketing Trends” survey, StrongMail found that 69% of surveyed email marketers will be integrating social media and email marketing this year.
2) Earlier this week Silverpop looked back at the webinars it organized and other conversations it had with email marketers in 2009. Conclusion: “Email Marketing Goes Social” was the topic that appealed most to email marketers.
3) Back in December, Lyris CEO Luis Rivera said that there is a clear market demand for online marketing solutions that integrate email marketing with channels such as social media and mobile.
4) Also back in December, ShareThis, found that sharing through email and social channels is driving more and more readers, and is an increasingly popular way to interact with our content.
5) ESP Emma found that social media and email marketing integration is on the rise. The email marketing service provider posted a nice slideshare about the issue, stating “social media and email marketing are best friends – and not just on Facebook”.
6) In November, Responsys published an email marketing guide for online retailers that found email has become a strong component of retailers’ efforts to grow their followings on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. As of July, more than 30 percent of major online retailers were running “join our community” efforts in their email campaigns.
The integration of email and social media: what the Email Service Providers do
I already mentioned a lot of ESPs in the list with facts and data above. However, there certainly are more. MailChimp, Cheetah, iContact, GetResponse, VerticalResponse, you name them (sorry to those I forget).
Furthermore, a growing list of ESPs is adding features to integrate email and social media.
Just a few examples.
1) Earlier this week, VerticalResponse, released new social media features, allowing small business customers to increase email lifespan through Twitter and Facebook sharing from within the VerticalResponse application.
2) In December, Acxiom released its new social email marketing and customer engagement analytics platform, allowing the integration of email and social media.
Do I need to give more examples?
The whole debate started early last year. I remember that in Spring, Clickz organized a webinar about the future of email. One of the topics coming out of it was email and social media integration and how to reach social influencers in email. This led to a white paper by the Email Experience Council.
Since then, things have been going fast. And, given the number of ESPs that are announcing new social media features, even in this hardly started new year, and the increasing proof of the significance of social email marketing, things will be going even faster in 2010.
On top of that, there are still many ESPs, certainly local and regional players, that have to get into the social media integration game.
Now, all this stresses how email marketers and ESP are increasingly working on integrating social media and email marketing.
The next question that arises is what you can do as an email marketer to make it happen.
You can find dozens of tips about that on this blog, but I’ll try to make a clear list soon so that you don’t have to search too much.
Some related posts:
2010, the year of social email marketing
Main challenges for email marketers: social email marketing, engagement and email timing
ShareThis: email leads the pack in content sharing
Emma on email marketing in the face of social media
Social email marketing in retail
Acxiom releases social email marketing and customer engagement analytics platform
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