There’s been talk about whether social media will mean the end of e-mail. For my part, I believe e-mail and social media can comfortably coexist and will do so for some time. But for e-mail to serve the sender well, it must take a few cues from what we find so attractive about social media to begin with. Your e-mails must
1) come from a real person. Assign senders who naturally espouse the personality of your brand and are comfortable with communicating company messages in their own, natural voice. They should be the same people interacting with customers and partners on Twitter and Facebook. Consider including their faces in your e-mails just as you might post them to a Twitter or Facebook profile.
2) shine with personality. Let your spokespeople become the community leaders your target audiences will be eager to rally around. Let their personalities deliver your messages. Not only will you establish more human connections, but you will also establish trust.
3) talk up community. Think of your e-mail recipients the way publishers think of their readers—you’ve got to keep the customers coming back. Inform them. Entertain them. But most important, involve them. As long as your recipients care about what you have to say, you can count on them to read the next e-mail. And the next. And, perhaps, you might pick up some Twitter followers or Facebook page fans along the way.
4) show that you listen. You are probably already using e-mail tracking to gauge reader behavior. But are you gauging customer attitudes on your social networks? Are you using this info to speak to your e-mail audiences the way they want to be spoken to? It’s true that social media can make and break reputations in minutes, but so can e-mail if it’s behind the times. Know what your customer moods and attitudes are at the very minute you hit “send.”
Ajay Goel is CEO of e-mail marketing firm JangoMail.
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