Ideas for Remarkable Online Marketing by @KunalKripalani

Preference. With greater freedom to choose, we as online marketers must enhance our targeting capabilities so that we get noticed by a larger proportion of our potential audience (subscribers, followers and fans.)  I feel like i'm stating the obvious here, but ExactTarget have provided the evidence to back it up:  People don't interact with brands in silos:

There's an overlap between channels like Email, Facebook and Twitter but different audience subsets have their preferred interaction channel. For example, it's a younger audience that is more likely to share your message on Facebook.

The report supports what we have come to accept as best practice content guidelines for engagement:

On Facebook, provide infotainment

On Twitter, it's all about what's new and keeping people informed.

How is Social Media impacting your email marketing?

As email marketers, we are fundamentally interested in finding ways to increase:

• The numbers who click links in an e-mail
• Sales revenue that is generated as a direct result of an e-mail campaign.

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Even though social network usage has surpassed email, this chart suggests that email still rules the roost.  9/10 US consumers receive promotional email, only 4/10 are followers of a brand on Facebook and only 5% follow on Twitter. However, the results are overly simplistic for 2 reasons:

1. Once customers are given the choice to hear from a business via social media in addition to or in place of email, the gap will narrow. Greater freedom in contact choice is also linked to greater loyalty.

2. Furthermore, the comparison fails to take into account the increased viral potential offered by Facebook. The average Facebook user has 130 friends who could potentially see your brand endorsement and continue to exponentially spread your message. This fact alone is compelling enough to make your social network page the hub of a promotion using WildfireApp, run an e-commerce store using Payvment or do a product launch like SPCA Petfood or Dentyne have successfully done.  With 500 million users worldwide, Facebook is a safe bet, but for data to back up a channel decision, try using Flowtown to build a social profile for each customer.

1. The most elementary of steps is to include social sharing links in your email

It's time to go beyond the default 'email to a friend' option. Here's why:

A Getresponse poll that analysed 500 million emails that included links for Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Digg found found that:

• Overall, social media links improve CTR by 30% (7.2% to 9.4%)
• A Twitter link drives the best CTR: (10.2%) than email without one.  An increase of 40%
• The more links, the more clickthrough (11.2%)
• Interestingly, the social bookmarking service that started it all, Digg, offers the lowest CTR (5.3%)

2. The next step is to create hybrid email that drives traffic to both your website and social media.

More people use social networks than email.  It's prudent for us to position ourselves to adapt to changing contact preferences. So in your email communications, you can demonstrate a compelling reason to connect with you on a social network including samples of the unique content available and remember the entertainment and social-interaction elements that people are looking for.  Balance the email with your regular product offers that customers have come to expect.  Remember, either/or options are better than yes/no options.

Your marketing team should be able to copy/paste the needed HTML code, or you could try using a hosted email marketing provider like iContact, Netsuite or GetResponse that have built-in social media features (including tracking.)

How do you communicate with your customers? And how does this compare to how your customers want to communicate with you?  It's being available where your customers are, just like opening a new branch. When Second Life was in its hayday, US based multinationals and banks took to it like moths to a flame and opened virtual branches with transactional capability within second life that used the native currency, Linden dollars.

Today, with over 400 million users, Facebook offers the virtual experience of choice.  With a native currency, Facebook Credits, and full transactional capability, organisations are staking their claim with Fan pages and applications galore.  One example is 1800 Flowers. Another is Pampers, who cleverly used it for a new product launch. How can you get started? Kim Boatman offers a few suggestions over at Inc.com.  Also, there's an Australian based outfit, Moluko, doing good things in this space.

Starbucks keep coming up with intuitive Facebook integrations like their Starbucks Card application.  Useful online management functions have not only been imported into Facebook, but also tailored to fit.  For example, reloading a friends card.

Related Reading: Glenbrook's Model for Social Payments by @GP_Russ_Jones

All up, it looks like an open book that needs to be written.

Cheers, @kunalkripalani