As an authorized local expert for Constant Contact, I often teach the benefits of email marketing as a lead generating tool. Combining email marketing with your favorite social media channel can be even more powerful. Recently, we put together a few campaigns with business owners and organizations to do just that.

When we work with clients to market their business, their email list is a very important key to reaching out to their “warm market.” These are people who they have met, do business with or may be interested in doing business. They can also be businesses and organizations who support their business such as vendors, business associates, and support associations.

There may be a chance your warm market is also involved with you on your social media channels and that is great. But what if they aren’t? Or, how could they help you achieve even more on your social media channels?

In a recent email campaign we conducted with a local organization, we reached out to those “raving fans” the organization had as a part of their email list and asked them to support the organization even more by going to their Facebook page and writing a review. To get their attention and give them even more of a reason, we offered an incentive by creating a contest to win a gift card. Can you do this? Yes, it’s ok to do this and not get in trouble with Facebook Promotions rules. In fact, when reading through the offers and promotions guidelines for Facebook, the major point that resonates from their guidelines is to include in the rules that Facebook is in no way associated with the offer or promotion. Here’s the link to learn all about the rules associated with the guidelines - (https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php).

So how do you go about creating an email campaign?

The first step is your goal.

 What is your goal for the campaign? We’ll start there first. Is it you want to build your Facebook likes? Is it you want to sell more products or services? Is it you want to get more attendance to an event? It’s important you identify the reason and make it a SMART goal.

Next, create a sense of urgency.

With any SMART* goal it needs to be timely. Offers and promotions need a deadline to create a sense of urgency. Create a small window of time for those receiving your email campaign to react and take action. A SMART goal is “S” Specific, “M” Measurable, “A” Attainable, “R” Relative, and “T” Timely.

Make it easy to participate.

Whatever you do, keep the rules easy and provide a direct link on the social media channel to exactly where you want them to go. If you want them to leave a review, take them to the review section. If you want them to see a link, put the link directly in the email.

Create an incentive.

Make sure that the incentive is something everyone on your email list would want or could use. It could be to a local restaurant if those on your email list happen to all be from the local area. It could be to a major company who provides a variety of products or services that anyone could use anywhere.

Some final thoughts to share about the email campaign.

How often should you email those you would like to target in the campaign? The answer, two times: once to introduce the promotion and a second time as an announcement for the final deadline.

Where to announce the winner? Since the promotion we were doing was through their email list, we could announce the results and the winner through email. We knew exactly who had participated.

What were the results of the campaign we conducted with the local organization? We doubled their Facebook likes and added 39 reviews to their Facebook page. Their goal for reviews was 25. The Facebook likes were a bonus for them.

With these step by step instructions there should be no need to question on how to create a promotion utilizing your email marketing system. Just remember if creating the promotion for Facebook, make sure to review the current Facebook guidelines. Author’s note: These instructions are ONLY to be used when creating your promotion through an email campaign. Promotions directly on Facebook must include certain information and can only be conducted through your business page.

The team of Interlace Communications is here to help you achieve your SMART goals with social media, email marketing, and print marketing. Give us a call at 484.709.6564 or email kasey@gomaava.com to help you create your next campaign.