The From Line
Sending, Managing & Monetizing Email
Recently I brainstormed with a mutual fund CMO about how to use social-to-email marketing within the highly regulated world of financial services. One of the reasons I got out of financial services (mutual funds and ETFs, capital markets, and wealth management), where I spent a decade of my career as a marketer, is because of the increasing restrictions on the sales and marketing departments. Yes, in ways it forced me and my colleagues to get creative, but it also had a dizzying effect over time. In the US, the reality is that financial advisors are putting themselves at risk of being fined by pushing the limits of FINRA rules. There’s a fine line between networking and a regulator’s definition of advertising. Too many advisors are tweeting stock tips without disclosure, or sounding overly-promissory in just 140 characters. But because social sharing helps expand campaign reach, this marketing channel cannot be ignored (not even by financial companies).
It may sound impossible, but what I told her was this: To use social media for enhancing email campaigns, you have to be vague and intriguing at the same time. Engage people, ask questions and then link to the details.
Ask your compliance department if the following example would be safe:
1. Create an email campaign as you normally do.
2. Insert a social sharing button for recipients to send to their friends.
3. Post an abbreviated subject line to your social streams, including a link to the email. No benefits, just a news headline.
4. The email and landing page will have risk disclosure as usual
5. Measure social sharing and other analytics as you normally do with email campaigns.
The good news is that with email campaigns, sharing a message always accompanies a link to a message and/or landing page. Depending on which slice of the financial industry you’re in, just be careful where you tread and make sure employees understand the rules.
Useful articles about social sharing sites in financial industry are:
http://www.fa-mag.com/fa-news/5695-financial-advisors-breaking-rules-to-use-social-media.html
and
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/15/fsa_social_media/
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As I was doing my daily research on B2B social media I came across a great blog post from Kipp Bodnar. Kipp gave insightful predictions for B2B social media in 2010 one of which I found to be particularly true for this year, “Influencer Marketing Gets Even More Important.” Many clients continually ask me how to identify an influencer from email campaigns and how to market to them once they are identified?
To answer this question, the FaceBook and Twitter links that are prominent in today’s email marketing are not just to extend a message’s reach. The simple action of clicking these links gives the marketer a bull’s eye as to who their greatest ‘influencers’ are and which social media forums they communicate with.
Recommend Strategy:
Based on the ability to identify your influencers using the methodology described above, segment these influencers and treat them differently. Make sure the content they’re receiving is special and let them know that. Also, try to find these people in their favorite forums and follow them. They’ll appreciate it and reward you for it.
Here’s the link to the article for your reference:
Please feel free to reach out to me or anyone here at Gold Lasso with questions.
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A letter to ad agencies:
All of your agency’s clients are hearing social media campaign pitches right now from your
biggest competitors. Okay, so while that might not be totally true, it’s possible that your
clients are wondering if another agency would be a better choice to raise their social presence.
Your website lists it as a capability, but perhaps still can’t point to the success of completely
viral campaigns such as the Old Spice Guy.
All of your agency’s clients are hearing social media campaign pitches right now from your
biggest competitors. Okay, so while that might not be totally true, it’s possible that your
clients are wondering if another agency would be a better choice to raise their social presence.
Your website lists it as a capability, but perhaps still can’t point to the success of completely
viral campaigns such as the Old Spice Guy.
Well, I’m here to tell you this: that could be you featured on Mashable just like the Old
Spice Guy and I’m going to tell you how to get a leg up on the competition.
Spice Guy and I’m going to tell you how to get a leg up on the competition.
I'm not going to tell you how to be creative -- that is clearly what agencies have always been
good at. But once you have your concept in place, the most important part of going viral?
Get that first burst of activity within the first hour or two of campaign execution. To fuel an
important exponential response early, you should immediately execute an email campaign.
Email is the only direct form of viral marketing (versus passive mediums like twitter, facebook
and youtube which require fans to “catch” your news feed…when they get around to it).
This is one reason why email is never going to be replaced by social media. Social sharing sites
are still destinations while email is targeted, lists can be segmented, and ROI can be clearly
measured and analyzed. Plus, you are able to control timing and measure when someone
received a message and if they opened it.
good at. But once you have your concept in place, the most important part of going viral?
Get that first burst of activity within the first hour or two of campaign execution. To fuel an
important exponential response early, you should immediately execute an email campaign.
Email is the only direct form of viral marketing (versus passive mediums like twitter, facebook
and youtube which require fans to “catch” your news feed…when they get around to it).
This is one reason why email is never going to be replaced by social media. Social sharing sites
are still destinations while email is targeted, lists can be segmented, and ROI can be clearly
measured and analyzed. Plus, you are able to control timing and measure when someone
received a message and if they opened it.
-- Lauren
PS: Nobody has created the ability to do A/B split campaigns for social sites. If you hear of it,
let me know because given the technology behind how social media sites work, I am willing to bet
let me know because given the technology behind how social media sites work, I am willing to bet
it’s not the real thing. Trust me on this.
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Last night I received a message from Facebook regarding our Fan Page. The stats were rather vague but still helpful. Here are the stats that were reported:
+xxx Fans this week (xxx total Fans) x Wall Posts, Comments, and Likes this week (x last week) xxxx Visits to your page this week (xxx Visits last week)
The message looked a bit spammy at first until I checked out the headers. Plus the email address that it was sent to is only used for Facebook so that helped with the legitimacy in my mind.
According to an article from Mashable the feature has not been officially announced yet but jives with January’s rollout of Post Insights which tells you the reach and feedback level of each item you post to a Fan Page.
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Recently Gold Lasso rolled out a social media feature for eLoop clients. A powerful tool, social media is a popular topic in interactive marketing. It offers unique opportunities for increasing the reach of an ordinary email campaign, exposing it to a much larger scale than other marketing methods. The potential for social media's impact on campaigns is exponential.
In order to ensure social media exposure from your email campaigns, it is important to incentivize the reader. Create a compelling promotion; two for one, half price, new products or any other incentives that will influence online word of mouth via social media sharing. This will increase your exposure to new customers and reinforce messages with existing clients.
By integrating social media with messages in eLoop, you can measure the number of reposts, who shared information with their networks and how many times the information was shared.
One feel-good approach is to use cause marketing to encourage posting to social media. Being associated with a cause and supporting one such as cancer research fundraising, holiday food drive or simply tweeting about social issues can be the differentiator for getting additional exposure. Using the cause marketing approach is not only rewarding but could potentially keep your messages alive on the web even longer.
To share more ideas on leveraging the social media tools that we offer, contact Gold Lasso on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. And remember to stay tuned for GL Jive, our online client community - perfect for information exchange and brainstorming!
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