And with sites like Twitter attracting one out of every 300 web visits, there is ever increasing potential for marketers to tap into recipients’ social networks to reach a wide new audience through one of the all-time most effective marketing tools – peer recommendation.

With this in mind, we have picked a few tips to help you supercharge your email database using social media:

Offer referral bonuses – As mentioned earlier, peer recommendation is one of the most effective marketing tools and it’s also one of the many perks of social media. Offering some sort of reward to new and existing subscribers if they refer their friends can be a very method in accelerating list growth.

Run exclusive competitions – The offer of the chance to win a free gift is always a good way to increase sign-ups. Everybody loves a freebie.

Drive people to a web form on social media sites – Adding a web form as a tab on your Facebook page or sending a tweet with a link to your form on Twitter is a simple yet powerful way to introduce fans and followers to your subscription list.

Use social media as conversation starter – When building and/or improving an email marketing database, the key is demonstrating that you have valuable content to share with new subscribers and then turning those connections into customer relationships and additions to your mailing list.

The most important thing when it comes to social is whether or not you have made your content worth sharing. Look at your campaign and ask “would I actually pass this on myself? Is it relevant enough?”

Have you tried anything else that has worked well to link email and social? If so, we’d love to hear about it and possibly even feature on the blog.

Leave us a comment and we’ll get back to you!

Here at dotMailer we have a broad range of interests, in addition to email of course! For example, Peter Simmonds likes flying planes, Simon Bird enjoys relaxing with a good book and I like windsurf (do ask and I’ll gladly show you the videos!)

However, Ben Bishop stands out with his chosen endeavour, not only because it’s essentially his true career calling, but also because of the success he’s experienced to date.

You see, Ben’s an actor; a BAFTA-nominated actor (and ex UK BMX champion)! In his career, he’s done it all, working with some of the greats including Terence Stamp and John Hurt and strutting his stuff at Shakespeare’s Globe, just down the road from our London Bridge office.

In light of thriving career, we wanted to profile his good work on the stage in tribute to the great work he does in our offices week-in, week-out.

So without further ado, let’s hear from the man himself:

“It’s 2008 and I’m sat on a train going to a meeting at Shakespeare’s Globe for the new season. Whilst sat there reading the script, I find myself suddenly poked in the ribs by a young, handsome chap, with devilish looks and a cheeky smile that asks to see my ticket. And that’s when dotMailer founding Director and all round legend Tink Taylor sits down in front of me.

“A nice surprise!

“Tink had been a friend of a friend for years. We got chatting and he began to tell me all about the success of dotMailer and how the company was looking for someone to book demos for the sales team.

“Being an actor the only way to survive is by doing many jobs in between doing what you love, so over the years I’ve gathered my fair share of experience on the phones. He suggested I come in for an interview and the rest, as they say, is history!

“After a decade as a struggling actor and having around 18 other jobs such as gardening, charity fundraising (a high street chugger) pizza chef, washer uper, telesalesman and van driver to my name, I had found somewhere I could do some great work without compromising on my dream.

“I owe a lot to dotMailer. In the last two years, my acting career has stormed forward and I’ve been allowed to attend all acting meetings and filming obligations. What’s more, the team is always interested in what I’m up to and watch (or claim to watch!) everything I’m in.

“The support that dotMailer has offered has been fundamental in building this life for me. I couldn’t have known that the biggest break for me would actually come off of the stage. But if anyone else out there is looking for a job, I can tell you, this is the place to be! You won’t regret it. “

It’s really great having people like Ben on board and he’s a great spokesperson for the inclusive and friendly culture we’ve tried to develop here at dotDigital.

We’re always on the lookout for the best talent; so if you think you like the sound of working for us, give us a shout.

See our recruitment page for more info, we are always looking for new people from UX designers and product developers, Salespeople, Support, and client services. Whatever your forte, we need you!

We’ve all seen it, haven’t we? An email that pops into the inbox with a typo in the subject line or, even worse, without a subject line at all! It’s an easy mistake to make, but also easy to avoid.

Here are our top 5 tips for avoiding these types of email marketing blunders:

1. Use an inbox preview tool

Don’t forget that while an email might look perfect in your email client’s inbox, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will look good in others. Inbox preview tools will allow you to see what your email will look like in a range of different email clients so you can be certain that everyone you send to will get a perfectly displayed message.

2. Use a spellchecker

It seems an obvious one, but make sure you use the spellchecker in the dotMailer editor before sending your campaign. It’s amazing how many little typos it might pick up.

3. Get a team of proof readers

Two pairs of eyes are better than one! Get as many people as possible to proof the email before you submit for final sign-off.

4. Put a sign-off process in place

Make sure that there is an approved sign-off process in place so that no email marketing message is sent out before it has been sanctioned by a senior member of the business. This means that junior employees are supported and won’t end up with egg on their face. Remember, clicking send on an email campaign that is going out to thousands of people can be scary!

5. Send to someone outside the organization

As a final check, why not send the email to someone that isn’t connected to your business at all. Maybe to a spouse or friend who can give you a totally objective opinion on the email and pick up any little niggles you might have missed because you are too close to it.

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It’s often hard to keep coming up with fresh new ideas but, to really get the best results, it is vital!

With this in mind, here are my top tips for revitalising your email marketing campaigns!

1. Get a new template design – the look and feel of your message is absolutely crucial. It’s important to give your recipients a bit of variety though, so if you’ve been sending the same template for a while, consider changing things a little bit. Don’t forget to get a professional to help with the design, as it’s not quite as easy as you might think!

2. Keep your copy short and snappy – does your email contain vast swathes of text? We read very differently online than we do offline, so try and keep your sentences and paragraphs short and to the point. This will keep your recipients engaged and they will be more likely to take action.

3. Experiment with more images – the old saying really is true: a picture is worth a thousand words! Including more images in your emails can help you deliver more of a bang. Keep an eye on your open rates however as sometimes, if your recipients have images turned off as standard, they might not be able to see you full message first time. If in doubt, segment your list and see if you get better results with more images or not. Or alternatively, apply for email accreditation and your emails can in some circumstances have images turned on by default.

4. Try using a friendly ‘from’ email address – friendly ‘from’ addresses are a great way to inspire confidence in your recipients and encourage them to open your email. If you don’t have a friendly ‘from’ address, then consider investing!

5. Segment and test – segmenting your recipient list and then testing different aspects of your campaign is a great way to find out elements that could be improved. We’ve put together a handy list of different parts of your email campaign that can be tested.

6. Give your subject line a makeover – your subject line is the first thing your recipients will see and so is vital to improve open rates. Therefore it must pack a real punch to convince your recipients to open. Here are some tips on how to get the most out of your subject line.

7. Start collecting more data about your recipients – if you want to really start doing some advanced segmentation and targeting, then you’ll need to collect more data about your recipients. You can do this by linking your email marketing platform up with your CRM database and/or by running a survey.

8. Include social media sharing links – after you’ve made all these changes to your email, I’m sure your recipients will be delighted with the messages they are receiving. Chances are they might want to share the message with their like-minded friends. To encourage this, include social media sharing links in your email message. Don’t forget to include a subscribe button too so that the new people that read your message can sign-up to receive further emails in future.

Have you tried any of these? Have they worked? Let us now in the comments. And make sure you subscribe to our blog to get our regular tips and best practice email marketing advice.

Social media is the latest buzzword in the marketing industry. But social media does not work well in isolation. By integrating your social media activity with your email marketing, you can improve the effectiveness and results from both disciplines, bringing outstanding bottom-line results.

Unfortunately many marketers just aren’t taking this on board. In fact, our recent Hitting the Mark study found that only 17% of email marketers from the UK’s top retailers included social media sharing links in their emails (read the full report here).

Here are my seven top tips to better integrating email and social media marketing:

1. Include ‘share on social network’ links in your email messages – chances are, your email recipients will have many like-minded friends on social networks that could also be potential customers. Encourage them to share your email content with their friends by including ‘sharing’ links in your email newsletters.

2. Encourage social media ‘followers’ and ‘fans’ to sign-up to your email newsletters – the reverse is also true: you probably have lots of followers on Twitter or fans on Facebook that would be interested in receiving your email newsletters. Have you asked them? If not, why not!

3. Use blog posts as content for email newsletters – by using your blog posts in your email newsletters, you not only have a great source of wonderful content, you also raise the profile of your blog and encourage your recipients to check it out!

4. Add social network ‘subscribe’ buttons to your email messages – if recipients like the content in your newsletter, then they are likely to be potentially interested in following you on social networks too, so make it easy for them

5. Ask for social media details during sign-up – you ask for a range of contact information when recipients sign-up to receive information from you. So why not ask for their social network details as well? And if they give them to you, make sure you follow them and add them to your CRM database.

6. Use metrics from email campaigns to identify most popular social networks – your email platform should be able to give you a range of metrics, allowing you to see which of your recipients added your content to which social networks. This will give you very valuable information relating to the social networks that are the most popular, helping you to focus future activity.

7. Ask for feedback – stuck for content for your next newsletter or just keen to get some reaction to your latest email? Why not ask your community on social media? Get them more involved and make them feel part of the process.

Have you tried any of these? Are there other tactics you find work well? Let us know in the comments!

Why not follow Tink and/or dotMailer on Twitter!