5 Sweet Ways Social Media Can Help Feed Your Hungry Email Lists

Our attention is a valuable commodity. Whether it be television, a monitor, a tablet, or a phone, we devote a great deal of attention to looking at something on a screen each day.

Each day we receive between 100-120 emails. How long would it take to read all those emails? Possibly longer than the average 147 minutes a day we spend on social media. 147 minutes. That’s two hours!

If you’re like most people, you’ve recently been pruning your mailing lists. No? Perhaps you should. Most of the emails we receive and send are marketing emails. 

Look at your conversion rates – are they 25%? Then 75% of your emails went to people who weren’t interested. Why are you bothering the good people? Be nice and unsubscribe them. They’ll thank you, and maybe you’ll meet them on social media again anyway and start the conversation fresh. Perhaps even on LinkedIn.

Should Businesses Take Social Media Seriously?

A recent study by Social Media Today found that 35% of people used social media to read news stories, find content (31%) and find inspiration for activities and purchases (27%).

People also ask questions on social media. They also use Google to find answers to their questions. A recent study reported that 14% of all Google searches are in the form of a question. What sort of questions? For instance, questions about financial advice and investment. 

Content is available to answer these questions on websites and social media. Putnam Investments reported that social media is becoming a new norm for connecting financial advisors with clients. According to their report, LinkedIn was the most popular channel (85%), with Facebook in second place (65%).

“Nine in ten advisors said that social media has changed the nature of client relationships during the pandemic and they expect slightly more new business to come from social media activity.” Putnam Investments

Can I Do Email Marketing Using Social Media?

We send emails to communicate information and to share documents and files. Emails are often a way to connect with family and friends. When we sign up for a newsletter or other marketing device, we give permission. Permission to speak directly with us.

We also give permission to connect and share information on social media. Social media is very content-heavy. Many platforms are seen as aggregators of not only news but content that inspires us to do and buy things. We can find discussions and advice about what is discussed on social media, news, and current events.

You can't add an email signup form to your social media platforms, but that doesn't mean you can't use social media to grow your email lists. 

• You can share the link to your landing page – with your lead magnet – or include it as a link in your bio. 

• You can also talk about the benefits visitors get when they sign up for your email list to get them to click through to your landing page. 

• You can show visitors a snippet from previous email campaigns to give them a taste of what to expect. 

• Suppose you have email subscribers who have responded to your emails and commented positively about your newsletter or campaigns. In that case, you can share this as social proof and convert followers into subscribers.

“Drip marketing on social media is harder than email. With email drip campaigns, you can automate sending emails at a regular schedule … you can save time and energy by running a social media drip campaign using tools like Hootsuite and Buffer.” SocialMediaToday

How Do I Convert My Social Media Followers to My Email Subscribers?

Social channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others are a great way to engage people to sign up for your email lists. Email gives you direct access to your subscribers. More importantly, no one can poach your mailing list subscribers away from you. The most important aspect of getting email subscribers from your social media: you move prospects out of those channels and into yours – your email list!

Personalization is the gold standard of using the permission that people give us with their email address or connection on social media.

Personalization remains critical to achieving customer loyalty and increasing customer lifetime value. To create value for the customer, you need to provide personalized offers and differentiate yourself from the competition. Sharing these offers over social media helps you convert followers into leads.

“Email marketing is about action. It’s about bringing people to your website and further down into your sales funnel.” Andrews Wharton

5 Ways to Use Social Media to Add Subscribers to Your Email Lists Without Paid Ads

1. Collect Email Addresses from Your Facebook Page

If you have a Facebook page for your business, you may have many followers who have never visited your website before. One easy way to convert these fans into subscribers is to add a recommended link directly to an email signup form.

Facebook offers call-to-action buttons for business pages to do just that. These buttons appear prominently above the cover image and are visible without scrolling.

Go to your Facebook page and click the blue “Add a Button” button. You will need to click on the File Contact Us tab. Provide a link to your website to which users will be redirected that contains an email signup form. 

Anyone visiting your Facebook page will now see a prominent call-to-action button that will prompt them to sign up for your email list.

2. Offer Additional Value with Free Content

Offer usable content with real benefits! Everyone likes to give their email address when offered something they want. Often that something is knowledge. People want to know more than they knew before, preferably from that “one company” because it has exactly what they want. Is that company yours?

Content distributed free of charge on the various networks is great, but make it clear that you get even more if you subscribe to our mailing list. 

What sort of content makes a lead magnet?

• eBooks

• webinars

• sweepstakes

• or specifically-created excerpts from video courses

“Don’t just give your content away for free… give your best content away for free. Ensure that the content you are gating is worth charging $50-$100 for, and then give it away in exchange for an email address. That’s the secret to a high-converting gated article.” OptinMonster

3. Social Media Collaboration & Partnerships with Other Networks

Collaborations work well to get your name out to another network. Collaborations that your company is currently engaged in easily lend themselves to a webinar or in-person panel discussion. 

Depending on the topic area or industry, cooperation with industry leaders just makes sense. This increases the reach for all involved and gives you a broader reach of potential subscribers for your event.

Social media collaborations are often automatically associated with Instagram marketing. After all, who hasn’t seen the influencers who showcase certain products? But Insta didn’t invent that. Everyone has a circle of influence. The right platform for such collaboration will most likely be LinkedIn for many businesses.

“Make a downloadable asset together like an ebook or a white paper or a mini training. You can again share this asset with your LinkedIn connections. You can talk about industry insights, statistics useful to your audiences, tips, and tricks useful to your audiences. For example, a mindset coach and a therapist can work together to create a resource that helps alleviate anxiety and share it with each other’s audiences.” Lori Young, LinkedIn

4. Make the Most of Clickable Links with Creative CTAs

Inbound marketing is about turning your visitor into a lead and guiding them through your funnel. A Call to Action (CTA) is one of the most important elements to achieving this. The easier it is to sign up for your mailing list, the more email subscribers you can attract. Most social media platforms allow users to add at least one clickable link, if not more, to posts and profiles.

Take advantage of this by including strong calls to action that ask users to take the action you want, such as joining your email list. With a clear CTA, it's easier for readers to do what you want them to do, which also means more leads.

Your CTAs are a chance to create eye-catching links, which may cause your followers to look twice.

• No thanks, I love being exhausted

• No thanks, I’ll figure it out myself

• I don’t want to know the latest trends

• I don’t want to grow my business

Reverse psychology call to action phrases Wordstream.com

5. Share a Newsletter on Social Media to Attract Subscribers

For you: Once you've created a new newsletter, use the content for your social media channel. Why? You’ve created great content and sent it to a limited audience. If people haven’t subscribed, they don’t know what they’re missing. Give them a taste. 

Each social media channel has different characteristics and requirements, so not every newsletter is suitable to share. In addition, a newsletter gives subscribers added value. Don’t give away the farm! 

For your subscribers: "Share With Your Network” is a feature that allows newsletter recipients to share individual articles or the web version of a newsletter issue with their contacts on social networks. The feature offers a great opportunity for content referrals and potentially spread content AND generate new leads via the followers of other’s social media audiences. 

“Every campaign you create using Mailchimp has its own unique URL which will take people to an online version of your email campaign. By linking your Mailchimp account to your social media accounts, you can automatically create a social media update with a link to your newsletter each time you send a new campaign.” Mailchimp.com

AWI Can Help Your Email List

Wondering how complete is your email list? You can Be Certain with AWI’s Email Suite team. What are you waiting for?