Social Media and Email Integration Predictions for 2014: Were they right?
At Email Summit 2014, marketers were asked: what do you think the relationship between social media and email will be in 2014?
Now that Email Summit 2015 is right around the corner, let’s take a look back a few of those predictions:
One-way message turned two-way conversation
“For the first time, I’m becoming an optimist about what the capabilities are going to be,” said Dave Sierk, Email Strategy and Analytics, Dell.
As a self-described pessimist, email, it seemed, allowed for one-way communication only.
However, with the rise of social media, Dave explained, “We’re getting pretty pumped about how we can make social a two-way street,” and turn social media followers into email subscribers.
Slow social adoption as brands transition into the realm
“Email isn’t going away – it’s not dead … but we haven’t gotten to the point where we have the adoption rates in social media on both the user side and marketing or company side,” explained Shirley Salmeron, Northeast Sales Director, Teradata.
She described the experiences as “siloed,” and although they might flow together in the future, as of 2014, “[marketers] haven’t bridged the gap.”
Content and emails begin to imitate social sites
Brian Clark, Founder and CEO, Copyblogger, explained that the social media methods would rub off on email and content practices, which would “create more of an app-like, social media-like experience” for the user.
He predicted that both platforms would sharpen the other, which is why, he contended, “all social media platforms have started emailing you all the time.”
Marketers will understand how to use social in email
Justine Jordan, Marketing Director, Litmus, suggested that marketers can optimize the way that they’re using social media calls-to-action in their email campaigns.
She said, “choose the most effective channel [for your content and company] … and really add value around those links and icons.”
“Social definitely has a place in email,” Justine said. “It’s just a matter of finding it.”
Email content will be developed from social media activity
Loren McDonald, Vice President of Industry Relations, Silverpop, suggested email content would be influenced around social media experiences.
Emails would be personalized where a user would have a “different offer … based on the fact the brand knows [they] have an affinity toward that based on the things [they’ve] done on social media.”
One thing is clearer with this passing year – it’s no longer just the task of a marketer to be a good advertiser, but to be an effective experience-maker across channels and mediums in an effort to communicate and relate to customers regardless of how they consume content.
To hear more about what these influential marketers had to say, watch the compilation video.
Now that 2015 is right around the corner, how are you trying to optimize your customer’s experience with you?
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Categories: Email Marketing 2014 trends, 2015 trends, Email Marketing, marketing trends, predictions, social media marketing
