I read a very interesting article the other day on the Marketing Sherpa blog highlighting how social media and email work together. Some of the takeaways that stuck with me are statistics that were found in Merkle’s study “View from the Social Inbox 2010”:
42% of social media users check their email four times a day or more as opposed to 27% of those that do not use social media
63% indicated that their email address for social media is the same for opt-in permission based email
What does this mean and how do they relate to each other?
First the obvious: social media users are two times more likely to be checking their email at least four times per day, disproving the long standing notion that email deployment should only occur Monday – Friday and in the morning.
Since social media users are regularly checking their inbox, email campaigns can be deployed at non-traditional times (evenings and weekends), with greater confidence that they will be viewed, and even better, acted upon.
For example, if a restaurant would like to offer a special for the weekend, they can deploy an email Friday afternoon knowing customers on their distribution lists will view their email.
Given this information, experimenting with non-traditional email send times can dramatically increase the ROI of certain campaigns.
Email as a Viral Marketing Catalyst
With over 60% of social media users having the same email address for their social media accounts and opt-in permission emails, the barrier to share relative messages from one channel to the other is no longer limited.
Besides viewing the email and completing the Call to Action, the greatest benefit an engaged social media user can bring to an email distribution list is the potential of making the email message viral amongst their social network.
Social media users tend to have “friends/followers” who share the same interests amongst a variety of things. As marketers, our challenge is to serve up relative content to the customer that they find worthy of sharing.
The Merkle study indicates that 20% of Facebook, MySpace and/or Twitter users have posted or shared an email/message from their opt-in permission emails. With highly engaged social media users checking their email four times a day, the potential of an email reaching beyond the original distribution list is high, a key catalyst to establishing a viral expansion loop.
In fact, Silverpop estimates that posted/shared messages on social networks reach around a 25% greater audience than an original email communication. It’s amazing that your email distribution list could increase 25% through your recipients sharing with their social network.
Thinking back to the restaurant example from before, one email sent out Friday afternoon notifying your email distribution list of your weekend special could turn into a pretty significant ROI!
So how does this become a reality? If I knew the simple answer I would be making a lot more money writing this blog. With that said, I think it all goes back to knowing your customer and keeping them engaged with your brand or product. The more you know about them, the more likely that you can present them with beneficial content, which may cause a ripple effect well beyond your original intended audience.
Those who are familiar with our company and our culture know that we are constantly thriving to be thought leaders in our industry. Our blog has proven to be an excellent channel for conveying useful information to our peers. By extension, many of our employees use Twitter and other social networks to further extend our reach.
To make keeping up with Three Deep one step easier for our followers, we have recently created an application for iPhone and iPod Touch users. After all, we figured if Seth Godin has one, we probably should too!
This flashy piece of digital goodness serves up our company blog, as well as Twitter feeds from individual team members that are frequently posting on industry trends, best practices, and even a bit of humor.
The app. is named simply Three Deep, and can be downloaded at no cost from the iTunes App. Store or by clicking the link below. If you like the app., please be sure to rate and comment. Enjoy!
For our followers that do not have and iPhone or iPod Touch, there are many other ways to keep up with what’s going on at Three Deep. You can follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and by subscribing to our RSS Feed.
It’s funny how in a country with hundreds of millions of people, the world can seem really small through Social Media. This past Thursday, two members of Three Deep – Brandon Smith (aka @bg3dppc on Twitter) and Jeff Sauer (@jeffsauer) attended a gathering of Twitter users in the Twin Cities at an event called the Minneapolis Tweetup.
The event was held at the Bulldog in NE Minneapolis, which is one of the better restaurant/bars in the Twin Cities, and the promise of free food and cocktails made it an event not to be missed.
We met some great people at the event (@kareemy, @ddn, @swineheart, @paulmalenke to name a few) and called a successful event after about 2 hours – and decided to leave the happy hour around 8 PM. After driving home, I logged on to check my Twitter account and noticed some interesting news about the event:
Continue Reading Three Deep Attends Minneapolis Tweetup, Meets Mark Cuban →
Our company President, Dave Woodbeck, sent the above slide deck to several members of our team this weekend, and I found it worthy of sharing on our blog. I made the executive decision to tone down the actual title of the slide show (what the f**k is social media?) to prevent any misunderstandings from those who read the title and get scared away.
The actual content of the presentation is much less harsh than the title would imply. The underlying theme throughout: you need to join the conversation! You can’t simply ignore the social interactions that are happening around your company, brand, clients, friends, family, etc. While the tactics used to deliver messages may change, social interaction will only become more open and candid. Like-minded individuals will be forming groups, talking, interacting, etc… and those that listen will be the ultimate winners in the social media landscape.
Continue Reading What is Social Media? – Excellent Presentation Social Media →
With over 60% of social media users having the same email address for their social media accounts and opt-in permission emails, the barrier to share relative messages from one channel to the other is no longer limited.
To make keeping up with Three Deep one step easier for our followers, we have recently created an application for iPhone and iPod Touch users. After all, we figured if 
