What exactly is causing the concern? Broadly, iOS 17 automatically removes tracking parameters from messages, mail, and links, making it more difficult to tie an interaction to a specific user. This new feature is termed Link Tracking Protection.

Don’t panic: link tracking is still going to be a viable tool and metric. Only specific link types for specific user cases will be affected, and Dotdigital customers will likely see less than a 1% effect on the data they get from their link tracking. This means we can applaud Apple for wanting to be a safer place for consumers while knowing our customers will still have access to data that will help them build successful strategies.

Why are they doing this?

Apple is taking further steps to make things more secure for its users. In this update, they are targeting cross-site tracking because of the way it violates privacy; their goal is to make this better for the community. Causing change for marketers is a side effect of wanting to be better. As part of the sending community, we can embrace these changes by learning about them and helping our customers understand what they mean and how they will impact their marketing strategies. 

How does Link Tracking Protection work?

Some links that are shared by organizations, marketers, or within social media may include a ‘query string’. Query strings can be used to track clicks and user journeys on websites, allowing marketers to analyze their users’ behavior in detail. Query strings in links are easy to spot; they start with a question mark, and multiple metrics can be tracked by conjoining parameters in the string with ampersands.

Here’s an example that tracks campaign id (1405123), marketing medium (email), and the recipient’s SnowYo customer ID (101):

https://snowyo.co/?utm_campaign=1405123&utm_medium=email&SnowId=101

Through our testing and interpretation of what’s been shared so far, we’ve determined that Apple’s Link Tracking Protection appears to pick up query strings and remove them from the link. The link is still functional and delivers the user to the target landing page, but the sanitization prevents marketers and organizations from tracking users who have clicked and arrived at their website through such links.

Private Browsing and Link Tracking Protection

Apple stated when referencing Private Browsing for Safari that ‘When a tracking parameter is detected, Safari strips the identifying components of the URL, while leaving non–identifiable parts intact.’ They also indicated that links will be sanitized when Private Browsing users copy a link containing a tracking parameter.

The changes to the new iOS primarily impact the Private Browsing Mode within Safari, and users with this mode enabled sharing links in mail or messages. This means that other browsers without similar limitations to tracking would not be affected under iOS 17. It is not fully clarified what the effect will be for iOS users who don’t primarily use Safari in Private Browsing Mode.

Mail, Messages, and Link Tracking Protection

Apple further clarified that Link Tracking Protection applies to messages and mail which are sent and opened by users of iOS 17. Not much additional detail was shared so there are still questions to be answered: is this a feature that can be disabled? Will links be sanitized if messages are being sent between 2 users? If a link is shared but the default browser is Google Chrome, will the link be sanitized of the tracking query link? There’s much to test and learn.

How does this impact Dotdigital services?

First of all, if you’re adding links to your marketing campaigns that don’t contain query strings, you’ll be entirely unaffected. If link click tracking is enabled, click reporting in your Dotdigital account is going to continue to work just fine – we use a hashed string in the URL for tracking and redirection purposes, and Apple’s Link Tracking Protection doesn’t remove this. 

However, you may use query strings within your marketing to track your users and traffic for contact data insights and analysis – for example, to track ROI, feed into your Google Analytics account, or in our Pages and Forms functionality so you can bind data from a query string directly from an email.

These insights are useful to surface recipient patterns and allow for analyzing how your marketing campaigns are progressing. They empower you to identify where improvements can be made and ultimately lead to the success of the strategies being used.

Based on our testing, the potential disruption to your marketing campaigns from Link Tracking Protection seems as though it will be small. It appears to be limited to Safari’s Private Browsing mode only, which will likely account for less than 1% of individuals within a Dotdigital account’s contact list. And if you’ve got our link click tracking enabled, you’ll still at least get click data in your Dotdigital reporting for these contacts.

What’s next?

When the beta release of iOS 17 happens this month, we will be monitoring the development of the new features so we can continue to understand and communicate how they operate and affect you and our Dotdigital platform. 

We know having the right data to help make sure you get the most from your marketing strategies is key to the success of your business. Continuing to be up to date with what’s happening is something you can trust we are doing. If you need further help, please don’t hesitate to reach out. 

How you use them and which you choose to include in your social media marketing plan will vary depending on your brand and your audience. Remember, the goal is to surprise and delight, and sometimes, the weird and wonderful is what it takes to engage customers and stop the scroll. Of course, you know we love a cross-channel approach, and social media and email marketing can really help each other out.

This list is extensive, it’s not exhaustive. With so many more holidays popping up all the time, there are sure to be some we’ve missed. But this list is designed to help inspire some new campaigns and help you plan unique ways to engage your customers.

January 2023

Themes for the month

Dry January #DryJanuary

National Mentoring Month #Mentoring Amplifies

National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month

January hashtag calendar

January 1 – New Year’s Day #NewYearsDay

January 2 – National Motivation and Inspiration Day #MotivationandInspirationDay

January 2 – Science Fiction Day #ScienceFictionDay

January 2 – World Introvert Day #WorldIntrovertDay

January 4 – National Spaghetti Day #NationalSpaghettiDay

January 4 – Back to Work #BacktoWork

January 5 – Bird Day #BirdDay

January 8 – Bubble Bath Day #BubbleBathDay

January 8 – National Vision Board Day #VisionBoardDay

January 11 – Human Trafficking Awareness Day #HumanTraffickingAwarenessDay

January 11 – Clean Off Your Desk Day #CleanOffYourDeskDay

January 13 – National Sticker Day #NationalStickerDay

January 13 – Make Your Dreams Come True Day #DreamsComeTrue

January 14 – Organize Your Home Day #OrganizeYourHomeDay

January 14 – Dress Up You Pet Day #DressUpYourPetDay

January 15 – National Hat Day #NationalHatDay

January 17 – Martin Luther King Jr. Day #MLKDay

January 18 – Winnie The Pooh Day #WinnieThePoohDay

January 19 – Popcorn Day #PopcornDay

January 20 – Penguin Awareness Day #PenguinAwarenessDay

January 21 – National Hugging Day #NationalHuggingDay

January 22 – Chinese New Year #YearOfTheRabbit

January 23 – National Pie Day #PieDay

January 24 – National Compliment Day #NationalComplimentDay

January 25 – Opposite Day #OppositeDay

January 27 – Chocolate Cake Day #ChocolateCakeDay

January 30 – Croissant Day #CroissantDay

January 31 – Backwards Day #BackwardsDay

February 2023

Themes for the month

National Black History Month (USA)

Random Acts of Kindness Week: February 13-19

LGBT+ History Month (UK)

February hashtag calendar

February 2 – Groundhog Day #GroundhogDay

February 2 – World Wetlands Day #WorldWetlandsDay

February 3 – Golden Retriever Day #GoldenRetrieverDay

February 4 – World Cancer Day #WorldCancerDay #WeCanICan

February 4 – National Bubble Gum Day #BubbleGumDay

February 6 – The Grammy Awards #Grammys2023

February 6 – Frozen Yoghurt Day #FrozenYoghurtDay

February 7 – National Send a Card to a Friend Day #SendACardToAFriendDay

February 8 – National Boy Scouts Day #BoyScoutsDay

February 9 – Pizza Day #PizzaDay

February 9 – New York Fashion Week begins #NYFW

February 11 – Make a Friend Day #MakeAFriendDay

February 12 – Super Bowl LVII #SuperBowl2023

February 13 – Self-Love Day #SelfLoveDay

February 13 – Galentine’s Day #GalentinesDay

February 14 – Valentine’s Day #ValentinesDay

February 14 – Singles Awareness Day #SinglesAwarenessDay

February 17 – Random Acts of Kindness Day #RandomActsOfKindnessDay

February 17 – London Fashion Week begins #LFW

February 18 – Eat Ice Cream For Breakfast Day #IceCream

February 20 – Love Your Pet Day #LoveYourPetDay

February 20 – Presidents Day #PresidentsDay

February 21 – Mardi Gras #MardiGras

February 24 – Toast Day #ToastDay

February 26 – National Wear Red Day #WearRed

March 2023

Themes for the month

Women’s History Month

American Red Cross Month

Ramadan: 22 March – 21 April

March hashtag calendar

March 1 – Peanut Butter Lover’s Day #PeanutButterLoversDay

March 2 – Dr. Suess Day #DrSuessDay

March 3 – World Wildlife Day #WorldWildlifeDay

March 3 – World Book Day #BookDay

March 4 – Employee Appreciation Day #EmployeeAppreciationDay

March 7 – Cereal Day #CerealDay

March 8 – International Women’s Day #InternationalWomensDay #IWD2023 #EachforEqual

March 8 – Organize Your Home Office Day #OrganizeYourHomeOfficeDay

March 9 – Meatball Day #MeatballDay

March 10 – International Day of Awesomeness #IDOA

March 12 – National Girl Scout Day #GirlScoutDay

March 12 – The Academy Awards #Oscars2023

March 14 – Potato Chip Day #NationalPotatoChipDay

March 14 – National Napping Day #NationalNappingDay

March 16 – Panda Day #PandaDay

March 17 – St. Patrick’s Day #StPatricksDay

March 18 – World Sleep Day #WorldSleepDay

March 18 – Awkward Moments Day #AwkwardMomentsDay

March 19 – National Let’s Laugh Day #NationalLetsLaughDay

March 19 – Mother’s Day (UK) #MothersDay

March 20 – First Day of Spring #FirstDayofSpring

March 20 – International Day of Happiness #InternationalDayofHappiness

March 20 – World Storytelling Day #WorldStorytellingDay

March 21 – Elimination of Racial Discrimination Day #RacialDiscriminationDay

March 21 – World Poetry Day #WorldPoetryDay

March 22 – World Water Day #WorldWaterDay #Water2me

March 23 – Puppy Day #PuppyDay

March 25 – Tolkien Reading Day #TolkienReadingDay

March 26 – Good Hair Day #GoodHairDay

March 26 – Earth Hour Day #EarthHourDay

March 31 – Transgender Day of Visibility #TDOV

April 2023

Themes for the month

Stress Awareness Month

National Poetry Month

April hashtag calendar

April 1 – April Fools Day #AprilFools

April 2 – World Autism Awareness Day #AutismAcceptance

April 3 – Find a Rainbow Day #FindARainbowDay

April 3 – World Party Day #PartyDay

April 7 – World Health Day #LetsTalk

April 7 – Good Friday #GoodFriday

April 9 – Easter Sunday #HappyEaster

April 9 – Unicorn Day #UnicornDay

April 10 – Siblings Day #SiblingsDay

April 11 – Pet Day #PetDay

April 19 – Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day #PJDay

April 20 – National Lookalike Day #NationalLookalikeDay

April 21 – National High-Five Day #NH5D

April 21 – World Creativity and Innovation Day #Innovate

April 22 – Earth Day #EarthDay2023

April 23 – National Picnic Day #NationalPicnicDay

April 24 – Pigs in a Blanket Day #PigsInBlanketsDay

April 25 – World Malaria Day #EndMalariaForGood

April 28 – Superhero Day #SuperheroDay

April 28 – Take Our Daughters & Sons to Work Day #COUNTONME

April 29 – International Dance Day #InternationalDanceDay

April 30 – Adopt a Shelter Pet Day #AdoptAShelterPetDay

May 2023

Themes for the month

National Barbeque Month

Lupus Awareness Month

May hashtag calendar

May 1 – May Day #MayDay

May 3 – Thank a Teacher Day #ThankATeacher

May 4 – Star Wars Day #MayThe4thBeWithYou

May 5 – Cinco de Mayo #CincoDeMayo

May 5 – World Password Day #WorldPasswordDay

May 6 – Nurses Day #NursesDay

May 8 – World Donkey Day #DonkeyDay

May 10 – World Lupus Day #LupusDay

May 11 – Eat What You Want Day #EatWhatYouWantDay

May 12 – Limerick Day #LimerickDay

May 13 – World Cocktail Day #CocktailDay

May 14 – Mother’s Day (US) #MothersDay

May 15 – International Day of Families #FamilyDay

May 15 – National Chocolate Chip Day #ChocolateChipDay

May 16 – Love a Tree Day #LoveATreeDay

May 17 – World Baking Day #BakingDay

May 18 – Visit Your Relatives Day #VisitYourRelativesDay

May 20 – World Bee Day #BeeDay

May 21 – Endangered Species Day #EndangeredSpeciesDay

May 22 – Sherlock Holmes Day #SherlockHolmesDay

May 24 – National Scavenger Hunt Day #NationalScavengerHuntDay

May 24 – Brother’s Day #BrothersDay

May 25 – Wine Day #WineDay

May 28 – Hamburger Day #NationalHamburgerDay

May 27 – Heat Awareness Day #NoFryDay

May 29 – Memorial Day #MemorialDay

May 30 – National Creativity Day #NationalCreativityDay

June 2023

Themes for the month

Pride Month

Men’s Health Education and Awareness Month

June hashtag calendar

June 2 – Rocky Road Day #RockyRoadDay

June 3 – Donut Day #DonutDay

June 5 – World Environment Day #WorldEnvironmentDay

June 5 – National Cancer Survivor’s Day #NCSD2023

June 6 – Drive-in Movie Day #DriveInMovieDay

June 7 – Chocolate Ice Cream Day #ChocolateIceCreamDay

June 8 – World Oceans Day #WorldOceansDay

June 8 – Best Friends Day #BestFriendsDay

June 10 – London Fashion Week begins #LFW

June 11 – Make Life Beautiful Day #MakeLifeBeautiful

June 14 – National Flag Day #FlagDay

June 14 – World Blood Donor Day #GiveBlood

June 16 – Fudge Day #FudgeDay

June 17 – Eat Your Vegetables Day #EatYourVegetablesDay

June 18 – International Picnic Day #PicnicDay

June 19 – Martini Day #MartiniDay

June 19 – Juneteenth #Juneteenth

June 19 – Father’s Day #FathersDay

June 20 – World Refugee Day #WorldRefugeeDay

June 21 – First Day of Summer #FirstDayOfSummer

June 21 – National Selfie Day #NationalSelfieDay

June 21 – World Music Day #WorldMusicDay

June 21 – International Yoga Day #InternationalYogaDay

June 24 – Take Your Dog To Work Day #TakeYourDogToWorkDay

June 27 – Sunglasses Day #SunglassesDay

June 30 – Social Media Day #SMDay, #SocialMediaDay

July 2023

Themes for the month

National Ice Cream Month

National Grilling Month

July hashtag calendar

July 1 – Joke Day #JokeDay

July 2 – World UFO Day #WorldUFODay

July 4 – Independence Day #July4th

July 5 – Bikini Day #BikiniDay

July 6 – Fried Chicken Day #FriedChickenDay

July 7 – World Chocolate Day #WorldChocolateDay

July 9 – Fashion Day #FashionDay

July 10 – Pina Colada Day #PinaColadaDay

July 11 – Cheer Up the Lonely Day #CheerUpTheLonelyDay

July 12 – Malala Day #MalalaDay

July 13 – French Fries Day #FrenchFriesDay

July 14 – Mac & Cheese Day #MacCheeseDay

July 15 – Give Something Away Day #GiveSomethingAwayDay

July 16 – Guinea Pig Appreciation Day #GuineaPigs

July 17 – World Emoji Day #WorldEmojiDay

July 17 – Ice Cream Day #IceCreamDay

July 18 – Nelson Mandela International Day #MandelaDay

July 20 – Lollipop Day #LollipopDay

July 21 – Junk Food Day #JunkFoodDay

July 24 – Tequila Day #TequilaDay

July 24 – Parents’ Day #ParentsDay

July 26 – All or Nothing Day #AllOrNothing

July 28 – Milk Chocolate Day #MilkChocolate Day

July 29 – Lipstick Day #LipstickDay

July 30 – International Day of Friendship #DayOfFriendship

July 31 – Harry Potter’s Birthday #HappyBirthdayHarry

August 2023

Themes for the month

National Immunization Awareness Month

Black Business Month

August hashtag calendar

August 2 – Coloring Book Day #ColoringBookDay

August 3 – Watermelon Day #WatermelonDay

August 5 – Blogger Day #BloggerDay

August 5 – Beer Day #BeerDay

August 7 – National Sisters Day #SistersDay

August 8 – Cat Day #CatDay

August 9 – Book Lovers Day #BookLoversDay

August 11 – Sons and Daughters Day #SonsAndDaughtersDay

August 12 – World Elephant Day #WorldElephantDay

August 13 – International Lefthanders Day #LefthandersDay

August 13 – Bowling Day #Bowling Day

August 15 – Relaxation Day #RelaxationDay

August 16 – Tell a Joke Day #TellAJokeDay

August 17 – Non-Profit Day #NonProfitDay

August 18 – Never Give Up Day #NeverGiveUp

August 19 – World Photo Day #WorldPhotoDay

August 19 – World Humanitarian Day #WorldHumanitarianDay

August 20 – National Lemonade Day #NationalLemonadeDay

August 23 – Sponge Cake Day #SpongeCakeDay

August 25 – Banana Split Day #BananaSplitDay

August 26 – Dog Day #DogDay

August 27 – World Rock Paper Scissors Day #RockPaperScissor

August 29 – Chop Suey Day #ChopSuey

September 2023

Themes for the month

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Suicide Prevention Month

Friendship Month

Back to School

September hashtag calendar

September 2 – World Coconut Day #WorldCoconutDay

September 4 – Eat An Extra Dessert Day #EatAnExtraDessert

September 4 – Labor Day #LaborDay

September 5 – International Day of Charity #CharityDay

September 6 – Read a Book Day #ReadABookDay

September 7 – Superhuman Day #SuperhumanDay

September 8 – International Literacy Day #LiteracyDay

September 9 – Stand Up To Cancer Day #KissCancerGoodbye

September 11 – Day of Service and Remembrance #911Day

September 12 – Grandparents Day #GrandparentsDay

September 13 – Positive Thinking Day #PositiveThinkingDay

September 15 – Greenpeace Day #GreenpeaceDay

September 15 – London Fashion Week begins #LFW

September 19 – Talk Like a Pirate Day #TalkLikeAPirateDay

September 21 – International Day of Peace #PeaceDay

September 21 – Miniature Golf Day #MiniGolfDay

September 21 – World Alzheimer’s Day #Alzheimer’sDay

September 22 – Car-Free Day #CarFreeDay

September 22 – Hobbit Day #LordOfTheRings

September 23 – First Day of Fall #1stDayOfFall

September 24 – International Rabbit Day #InternationalRabbitDay

September 26 – European Day of Languages #EDL2023

September 27 – World Tourism Day #WTD2023

September 28 – Good Neighbor Day #GoodNeighborDay

September 29 – World Heart Day #HeartDay

September 30 – Love People Day #NationalLovePeopleDay

October 2023

Themes for the month

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Global Diversity Awareness Month

National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month

National Cyber Security Awareness Month

October hashtag calendar

October 1 – World Vegetarian Day #WorldVegetarianDay

October 1 – International Coffee Day #CoffeeDay

October 2 – Name Your Car Day #NameYourCarDay

October 4 – World Animal Day #WorldAnimalDay

October 4 – National Taco Day #NationalTacoDay

October 5 – World Teachers Day #WorldTeachersDay

October 6 – Noodle Day #NoodleDay

October 10 – World Mental Health Day #WorldMentalHeathDay

October 11 – International Day of the Girl #DayOfTheGirl

October 13 – Train Your Brain Day #TrainYourBrainDay

October 13 – World Sight Day #WorldSightDay

October 14 – World Egg Day #WorldEggDay

October 15 – Global Handwashing Day #GlobalHandwashingDay

October 16 – World Food Day #FoodDay

October 17 – Spreadsheet Day #Spreadsheets

October 19 – Evaluate Your Life Day #EvaluateYourLife

October 21 – Reptile Awareness Day #ReptileAwarenessDay

October 22 – Make a Difference Day #MDDAy

October 24 – United Nations Day #UNDay

October 25 – Greasy Foods Day #GreasyFoodsDay

October 26 – Pumpkin Day #PumpkinDay

October 28 – Chocolate Day #NationalChocolateDay

October 30 – Checklist Day #ChecklistDay

October 31 – Halloween #Halloween

November 2023

Themes for the month

Men’s Health Awareness Month #Movember

Epilepsy Awareness Month

November hashtag calendar

November 1 – World Vegan Day #WorldVeganDay

November 2 – International Stress Awareness Day #StressAwarenessDay

November 3 – Sandwich Day #SandwichDay

November 4 – Candy Day #CandyDay

November 4 – Use Your Common Sense Day #CommonSense

November 8 – Cappuccino Day #CappuccinoDay

November 9 – World Freedom Day #Freedom Day

November 11 – Veterans Day #VeteransDay

November 11 – Singles Day #SinglesDay

November 12 – Happy Hour Day #HappyHourDay

November 13 – World Kindness Day #WKD

November 13 – Tongue Twister Day #TongueTwisterDay

November 14 – World Diabetes Day #WDD

November 15 – Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day #CleanOutYourRefrigeratorDay

November 16 – International Day for Tolerance #ToleranceDay

November 16 – Fast Food Day #FastFoodDay

November 18 – Mickey Mouse’s Birthday #MickeyMouse

November 19 – International Men’s Day #InternationalMensDay

November 19 – Women’s Entrepreneurship Day #WomensEntrepreneurshipDay

November 21 – World Hello Day #WorldHelloDay

November 23 – Espresso Day #EspressoDay

November 23 – Thanksgiving Day #Thanksgiving

November 24 – Black Friday #BlackFriday2023

November 25 – Small Business Saturday #SmallBusinessSaturday

November 26 – National Cake Day #NationalCakeDay

November 27 – Cyber Monday #CyberMonday

November 28 – French Toast Day #FrenchToastDay

November 28 – Giving Tuesday #GivingTuesday

December 2023

Themes for the month

Hanukkah: December 18 – December 26

Christmas: December 24-26

Kwanzaa: December 26 – January 1

December hashtag calendar

December 1 – World AIDS Day #WAD2023

December 2 – Play Basketball Day #PlayBasketballDay

December 3 – Make A Gift Day #MakeAGiftDay

December 4 – Cookie Day #CookieDay

December 5 – International Ninja Day #DayOfTheNinja

December 7 – Cotton Candy Day #CottonCandyDay

December 8 – Pretend to Be a Time Traveler Day #PretendToBeATimeTravelerDay

December 8 – Brownie Day #BrownieDay

December 9 – Christmas Card Day #ChristmasCardDay

December 10 – Human Rights Day #HumanRightsDay

December 11 – International Mountain Day #InternationalMountainDay

December 12 – Gingerbread House Day #GingerbreadHouseDay

December 14 – Monkey Day #MonkeyDay

December 15 – 10 Days to Christmas #10DaysToGo

December 18 – Bake Cookies Day #BakeCookiesDay

December 21 – Crossword Puzzle Day #CrosswordPuzzleDay

December 21 – First Day of Winter #WinterSolstice

December 24 – Christmas Eve #ChristmasEve

December 25 – Christmas Day #MerryChristmas

December 31 – No Interruptions Day #NoInterruptionsDay

December 31 – New Year’s Eve #NewYearsEve

As well as including reviews and ratings on your products and services, making your emails shareable helps you increase the number of impressions of your marketing efforts. The customers who share your content are effectively becoming brand advocates, creating a secondary audience for you to connect with and engage.

There are more ways you can drives shares than simple email forwarding. In fact, if you think beyond email forwards, you’ll find customers much more receptive to your tactics.

To create ‘shareable’ content follow these five rules and watch your audience flourish.

1. Write editorial content

Editorial content should be a core part of your email marketing strategy. While the bulk of your email marketing will take the form of promotional emails, your daily, weekly, or monthly newsletter should consist solely of content designed to engage and educate your customers.

In this age of content consumption, subscribers are hungry for information that’ll help them connect with a brand. Blogs and updates about your brand’s efforts to be eco-friendly or examples of your corporate social responsibility policy are great to create an emotional bond with your customers.

When you have a clear understanding of the persona’s you’re targeting, you can identify key issues, causes, and interests your audience shares. This will help you plan topics for your newsletter. As you produce articles that connect with readers, they’re going to connect and share your content with friends and family who share they believe would be interested.

2. Add social share buttons

To make sharing even easier, ensure you’re adding social share buttons to every email you send.

These are particularly useful for brands who produce reports, educational, or insightful editorial content. Pulling out interesting facts and figures and pairing them with a ‘share on social media’ link will drive email recipients to post about your content.

Social share buttons are not just great in your newsletters. Add them to your transactional emails such as order confirmations to drive shoppers to share about their new purchases. For B2B brands, add them to your event marketing emails.

Wherever you add social share buttons, you’re making it easier for your email recipients to become brand advocates with a simple click of a button.

3. Run competitions

Competitions are a tactic guaranteed to engage your readers. After all, who doesn’t want that chance to win something for nothing?

There is a range of competitions you can run from your email marketing. Social competitions using hashtags or comments on your posts to enter is a great way to get your email subscribers to connect with you on social media. It also helps increase the number of impressions your brand has. Encourage users to combine both tactics for more chances to win and really get noticed by their respective followers.

You can also add gamification to your email-based competitions. Doing this is just another tactic that’ll surprise and delight readers. And, the more delightful they find the experience, the more they’ll want to share you with their friends and family.

4. Reward referrals

Referrals are just another way to get customers to share your brand with others. Running a referral rewards program encourages email recipients to share your emails and spread the word about your business.

There are various referral reward strategies you can adopt. Whether you choose to reward every referral or implement a points-based loyalty program that assigns points for every share, offering additional benefits creates a stronger connection between you and the reader. Recipients will begin to recognize your brand as one that values its customers making them more engaged with your marketing, and willing to share your brand.

Always include the refer-a-friend CTA in your email marketing to ensure customers are always aware of the option and rewards they’ll receive for sharing your business.

5. Keep subscribe buttons in the footer

As well as unsubscribe links in your footer, you should also include a link to your email subscription form.

When customers share your emails, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to subscribe to your newsletters and email marketing. By keeping a subscription link in the footer of all your emails, you’re never missing a chance to expand your marketing mailing list.

Final thoughts

These are our five rules to follow if you want to increase your organic list growth.

Every business is different, as are your audiences. While these tactics work for the majority of brands they may not suit your brand. Always be testing your email marketing strategy to ensure it’s working for you. Taking the time to optimize these tactics will provide greater returns in the future.

For more ideas about how to grow your mailing list check out our cheatsheet: How to grow your mailing list.

Social influencers have emerged from this and are now instrumental in many successful marketing strategies. People love to hear what other people are wearing, buying and doing. That’s why, today, 69% of people trust social influencers and peer recommendations more than they do brands.

As a result, including social proof in your email marketing campaign – if not all your marketing campaigns – is essential. Tapping into your audiences’ social feeds sounds simple, right? After all, you have their email address, and there’s no better place to start than that. But encouraging them to actively share your content is a whole other ball game.

But have no fear, we’ve got four top tips to help you:

Follow us on…

Directing subscribers to your social accounts should be high on your to-do list. Especially when they’ve just signed up.

Introducing your various social media channels should be an integral part of your welcome program. New subscribers are engaged with your brand. Make the most of it and direct them to your social channels as quickly as possible.

Whether it’s the core of your message or at the end, make your CTA clear, easy to understand, and accessible on mobile devices.

And, don’t just think of it as part of your welcome program. Social links should be a part of every email you send.

Make sharing easy

When you’ve invested time and effort into creating engaging content, don’t let readers forget about it when they close your email.

Most web content, especially mobile-friendly web content, has an easy-to-identify share button. To increase the lifespan of your work, make it as easy as possible for subscribers to share. If they find it interesting, so may their social circle. Email subscribers are 3x more likely to share content, so use this and make it as easy as possible.

Newsletters like The Skimm do this by including sharing links at the end of every content block.

But that’s not the only way to encourage your audiences to spread the word about your brand. People who discover a new brand through referral marketing are 4x more likely to buy from it.

Key to getting customers to refer are incentives. Once you’ve decided what you’ll offer them, invite customers to post referrals via social media. This has the dual benefit of promoting your business and giving them more opportunities to receive your referral perks.

Give customers a voice

We’ve already told you how important social proof is to the modern consumer. It’s important that your social accounts are an open and friendly environment. Your audience must feel comfortable talking to you, and the best way to do this is by encouraging them to express on your social channels.

You can achieve this by frequently sharing posts where your brand has been tagged and mentioned by fans and followers.

Alternatively, directly asking for feedback has the added benefit of empowering your customers and making them feel like a valued member of your audience.

Never forget the importance of peer-to-peer reviews. They’re becoming ever-more influential in the decision-making process, so capitalize on your customers’ social habits. Give them a voice, help them be heard, and get good publicity for your brand at the same time.

Promote your content across social

Give your content a new lease of life by repurposing it for social media. This is a useful tactic if you create editorial newsletters on a regular basis. Why not share the link to the web version of your newsletter on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook?

Or perhaps you have a dedicated landing page for each article. Share these links along with a CTA to sign up in the hopes of increasing your subscriber database.

Think about engaging ways content can be repurposed for social media. Pose a question to the audience, run a poll, turn features into a podcast, or create vox pops after an event. With each post, include a link for new subscribers.

Conclusion

Both social media and email are excellent channels for customer acquisition and retention. It’s only logical to use the one to support the other. Using the tactics outlined above, you’ll see your database grow, social followers increase, and customer engagement soar.

Suggested reading

Utilizing the click-through behavior of your email recipients is an effective way of maximizing these multichannel opportunities and can help increase brand recognition. Considering that consumers spend on average 135 minutes on social media per day, as opposed to 20 minutes on email (Statista, 2017), it’s important to factor repeat marketing into your strategy mix.

Here’s how it’s done:

In the Dotdigital platform you’re able to segment customers based on their email behavior. By leveraging these engagement metrics at campaign-level, you can deliver a more relevant and tailored sales cycle to consumers across the web.

Things to consider:

• You’re a car dealership; how do you convert the prospective customer who’s opened and clicked your email about the new-generation car that’s on sale?
• What can you do to seduce a customer who’s currently in the market for a beauty product? How can you make it irresistible – above and beyond others – to purchase?
• You’ve not quite got the attention of that IT decision-maker yet, but you know they’re active on social media. How can you leverage this?

Whether you’re the car dealer trying to promote your offers, the beauty stylist whose product is a perfect match for the customer’s skin complexion or the B2B provider whose solution meets all your prospect’s needs – repeat marketing is a tried-and-tested way of increasing revenue.

By using the segment builder in Dotdigital to query subscribers’ email opens and clicks you can begin to amplify your brand, encompassing various online channels by pairing paid adverts to their email interactions. To further optimize, Dotdigital’s web tracking behavior monitors and records browse history, allowing you to pool subscribers together based on web visits. This additional visibility can make your repeat marketing even more powerful.

Delivering content to your subscribers across online channels will give your campaigns more weight in influencing their behavior and will put your brand in a competitive position. Likewise, cross-channel marketing allows you to push images and videos to your consumers in a subtle, un-intrusive way, which can tap into their psychology. Pair this with email and they’ll be looking out for your messages when scrolling the inbox.

The top social media sites allow you to upload a list of email addresses and then target content to their users, so long as they’ve associated their email address to their account.

Examples:

• Facebook/Instagram ‘custom audiences’ – you can create an audience from your customer list, match contacts to their corresponding Facebook profiles and target with relevant ads and content
• Twitter ‘tailored audience’ – you’re able to target users that are within your segmented subscriber list by uploading their email addresses; what’s more, you can use Twitter usernames (@user) to target relevant influencers
• LinkedIn ‘contact targeting’ – like the above, by uploading the email addresses of your contacts, you can: market to prospects, retain customers and win back lapsed clients through tailored content

At the end of the day, it’s about being creative and recognizing that the consumer is just a human being like me and you. Consumers’ lives are hectic, with an exhaustive flow of information that’s received on a daily basis; therefore, a prompt on any one of the above channels could spring the idea back into their head, bring them back to the email, phone or website and generate a positive action.

Before you can do any of this, however, you need to collect those all-important email addresses. Here are three ways you can make your social networks work harder:

Simple sign-up form on your brand page

With a social platform like Facebook, it’s possible to integrate a newsletter sign-up feature into your brand page. If you’ve got hundreds of thousands of likes, this is your prime opportunity to convert sole social followers into subscribers. Check out our support portal to find out how to add a sign-up form to your Facebook page with Dotdigital.

Competitions and prize draws

Who doesn’t love a free competition? Especially if it’s easy to enter and the prize is awesome. Offering up an incentive on social media is a great way to collect email addresses, and for two reasons. Firstly, it’s more of a subtle list acquisition approach and, secondly, the nature of the environment it’s hosted in increases its shareability.

Twitter Lead Generation Cards

Lead Generation Cards allow you gather names and email addresses via promoted tweets. It’s a great way to use relevant content to hook prospects in and ultimately start getting them engaged with your brand. Many companies offer up free guides or training in exchange for people’s details.

The aim after all of this is to start prospects on their journey with your brand, until, in an ideal world, you nurture them into lifetime advocates. In today’s digital world, where customer expectations are constantly exceeding, the need to deliver ultra-relevant communications is essential. That’s why many companies are looking to social media, as it offers one of the richest sources of data for brands looking to connect with their customers on a truly personal level.

Want to learn how you can benefit from data created and stored in another channel? Download a copy of our free whitepaper – Convert data into meaningful customer action.