In this discussion with Jason Baer, social media strategy consultant, from Convince&Convert we learn how to use Social media in relationship with other online channels. How are we going to be social and what type of relationship do companies want to have with there customers. Those are the basic questions every company needs to ask themselves, before they jump in. This year lots of companies move away from the experimental phase and take Social more seriously in there marketing mix.

Social is, just like Email, an other way to develop highly personalized and contextually relevant relationships with your customers. Think about a facebook page. What really is a facebook page other than a new way to do an email newsletter. Keep your brand top of mind and interact with your customers.

Make sure to listen to the 3 tips at the end of the video…

Loren McDonalds, VP of Silverpop explains in this interview how Send Time Optimization actually works. No matter how dynamic email consumers are, there is always an average on what time of the day or day of the week your clients opens and clicks your emails. So this is all about finding the optimum of being on top of their inbox at the right time. And it works…

Mobiel and social increases the relevance of email
In the discussion about where email marketing stands within the upcoming years, Loren said that social and mobile increases the relevance of email. Email marketeers will have to change with the rise of social media and mobile usage. As well as their marketing messages will have to change from being promotional to incorporating much more personality, humanism and education. Email marketing should become more social to help people to make a decision and use trust that a brand has build.

The power of Data
An other key area is that data-driven email marketing will become even more important. Data will have to be pulled in from social media and from everything that is behavioural. In other words marketeers should ‘listen’ to everything that happens around them. From real-life transactions to online visits. The tools of today makes it possible to track any individual during their tour on your website. Communication programmes will have to make use of this available behavioural data.

Marketing automation the key to more ROI
Finally Loren believes that automation will also become the most important enabler of marketing departments to deliver the volume they need. Because messages will become more personal and dynamic, you will always lack in resources to 1-on-1 react on individuals. Investing in automated trigger-based campaigns will give you the possibility to react and optimize!

Want to know what Dialogue Marketing is all about? In basic, it’s plain easy:  Listen, React and Inspire. Just watch this classic video and you know what we mean.