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As soon as Facebook and Twitter became the two big phenomena to have happened with people, businesses have begun trying to take full advantage of them. Every big company has started a Facebook page or a Twitter feed to reach out to the teeming millions and let them know about their latest ventures, offers, etc.
People have been enticed to “like” the page or “follow” the feed of big players in the industry. This has redefined the consumer-brand relationship once and for all. Every big and small brand is now on the lookout for increasing their social fan base by posting all sorts of trendy updates and offer notifications. The major challenge is to convert more and more “friends” and “followers” into customers.
For the more fashionable and contemporary businesses, converting social friends into customers doesn’t seem that difficult. The real challenge lies with the more traditional businesses, such as banks, financial institutions, brokers, etc. It seems to be difficult for them to attain an equal amount of leverage from social networks, or is it? Discover Card, a credit card company, made huge profits by offering their card holders a $50 incentive for every friend they could convert into their customer through a reciprocal $50. It worked wonders, and the company’s consumer base has grown like wildfire! And to add to that, Discover Card is not the only one to benefit from this referral system; Zeco Trading is another such example.
The fact proven from the previous examples is that even the most traditional of firms can gain from social approach based marketing. Nearly any company can extract massive benefits from the social networks, provided it knows whom to target and what to use as the bait. Another point to be borne in mind is that while Facebook and Twitter are great tools towards achieving social marketing bliss, email plays a vital role as well.
Email isn’t something that can be overlooked while executing a referral campaign. While links from a page or feed can be very useful, a welcome mail always goes that bit extra in convincing the recipient. Besides, emails have the advantage of making the recipient feel special, since unlink Facebook or Twitter; it’s not a public platform and allows you to address him personally. Also, you have the space to explain your program vividly and with appropriate visual tools to make it even more attractive. Email marketing is thus a perfect complementary tool to social or referral marketing.
