Locating Content to Fuel Your Email Marketing

Friday, March 21st, 2014
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Online merchants today have access to incredibly powerful email software and a wealth of customer data. So why aren’t more merchants utilizing these resources to increase the effectiveness of their email marketing? Most lack the high-quality content needed to power dynamic email marketing campaigns. The good news is that great content channels are available if you know where to look.

Company Blog – Make the company blog your content hub and create posts that repurpose existing content from email newsletters, social media, FAQs, customer reviews, product redesigns, etc. Empower employees to contribute their expertise and become the voice of the company. Tailor content for first-time visitors who are in “discovery” mode and unfamiliar with your brand, and include calls to action to encourage next step engagement. Push blog content out to social media, email, etc.

Employee Email – Review emails from customers and prospects for common questions and/or testimonials. Collect appropriate questions and responses, review and utilize to generate content for your blog.

Email Marketing – Ask customers to share their feedback and experiences with your company and/or products. Use your email marketing emails and responses as a source for content, a solicitation tool for content, as well as a distribution mechanism for content.

Print – All print advertisements are also in digital form, so repurpose them in your blog, email marketing, and social media sites.

Facebook – Link questions you post on your company Facebook page to a form hosted within Facebook, which can collect the responses. Post collected content to your FB page, blog, email, Twitter, etc.

Twitter – Similarly, link Twitter campaigns to a form page so that you can easily collect responses and post as content. Consider including a form field for email sign-up, too.

InstagramHost a photo contest on Instagram to encourage customers to share their experience with your brand. Post the winning photos on Instagram, and repurpose them on your blog, in your email marketing as well as your other social media sites.

Testimonials – Ask customers to share their experiences and problems solved through a feedback form to generate testimonials , which you can then share through all available channels. Notify customers when their story has been featured, and encourage them to share via social media.

Creating a content calendar is also recommended. This will help you know what emails are scheduled to be sent out and with what content, what blog posts you’ll need, what socials media posts you’ll have, and so on.

If you have other ideas about where to find great content, please share in the comments below.

Currently an eCommerce Account Manager at Nexternal, Matthew enjoys helping businesses succeed online. Prior to joining Nexternal, Matthew spent years implementing innovative marketing campaigns for a world renowned design firm and is particularly passionate about online marketing and entrepreneurship.