14 Jan 5 Ways Email Distribution Lists Grow Your Social Media Audience

Email marketing was once the primary method of getting information on promotions, new products, and special events to your client base, but relying solely on email marketing is a bad idea in 2019. Approximately 3.2 billion people have social media accounts, and nearly 7 out of 10 marketers use Facebook for business purposes. Advertisers rack up combined expenses of more than $20 billion per year on Facebook ads alone.

Simply put, your patients — and competitors — are on social media, and you should be too. Follow the helpful tips below to effectively combine email blasts with social media marketing to capture the attention of current patients and potential patients.

Create Official Social Media Accounts

Your medical aesthetics practice needs its own social media accounts — even if you have a small medical practice or run several local facilities. You can use one business account per social media site or create separate accounts for each office to hyper-target local patients. When choosing which platforms you want to focus on, think about your audience. Each platform has a different main demographic, and where you choose to focus your marketing can make a big difference.

Instantly Find Existing Patients

You don’t have to start from scratch when you develop marketing campaigns. It’s possible to find your patients on social media sites, such as Facebook or Twitter, by uploading your email lists.

To find current email subscribers on Facebook, start by visiting Ads Manager. Click Create Audience, and then select Custom Audience. Scroll down to Customer List, and upload your file as a CSV, copy and paste it, or import it from MailChimp.

To upload subscriber lists on Twitter, click on the link that says Find People You May Know, and connect your Twitter to Yahoo! or Gmail. Alternately, you can upload a CSV from your email provider to your Twitter ads account. Access your ads account, then click Tools. Scroll to Audience Manager, and name your audience, specify the data type, and upload your data.

Capture New Emails from Social Media

Current social media followers have already expressed an interest in and engaged with your practice and are more likely than non-followers to actually make a purchase. When you run a Facebook ad, you have the option to capture email addresses directly from the ad unit box. You can target Facebook users who have messaged your practice anytime during the last year, which helps you connect with consumers who have forgotten about your office or misplaced your company’s information.

On Twitter, start by visiting your ads account and select Create New Campaign, then choose Add Tailored Audiences. You can upload your email list here or create a unique tracking link.

Just make sure to check privacy laws and opt-in statements before merging marketing lists. This helps prevent potential issues even though you’re only sharing existing information with your own company.

Know Your Platform

It’s okay to share the same information via email and social media, but you have to use a different approach. Don’t just paste emails word for word into Twitter or Facebook and share the same info twice. Pay attention to the language and format that performs well on each site.

For example, hashtags are popular on Twitter and Instagram, but it doesn’t make sense to stick them in an email blast. Vibrant, clear graphics are a must on Instagram, but images aren’t as important on Twitter. Long content is acceptable on Facebook and in emails, but readers expect short comments on Twitter.

Learn what patients want on each platform with A/B testing and adjust your message accordingly. Facebook offers tracking tools that show how many users click and view your links, and you can also track results from Twitter. This helps you figure out which deals, or products patients love so you can share popular content that resonates with readers.

Once you jump into the world of social media marketing, it can be tempting to stay there, but this would be just as big of a mistake as relying only on social media blasts. More than 4 billion people have internet access, but many of them don’t use social media regularly — or at all. Focusing your marketing efforts on a combination of email blasts and social media is the best way to keep in touch with current patients and keep attracting new patients.