There’s no denying that Instagram and email are two of the greatest ways to interact and engage with your customers and potential target markets, and they’re probably the two channels that are highest on your list of ways to market your business. However, while you may create content for both, have you ever thought about combining the two?
That’s right; I’m talking about using your Instagram content within your email content, bringing all the benefits this process provides. From linking posts to repurposing content, these are the strategies you need to know.
Should You Use Instagram Content in Emails?
Firstly, you’re probably wondering whether this is even a viable process to invest your time. After all, you’re not going to do something if it doesn’t get results, so let’s take a moment to look at the facts.
According to Curalate and Movable Ink:
- Over 76% of emails will include social icon links, but
- Only 14% include social images.
- Of this 14%, 53% of emails use Facebook, 14% use Twitter content, such a tiny 3% use Instagram images.
Shocking.
When you then start to consider that Instagram nurtures, on average, 29% more engagement than Facebook, and a massive 60% more than Twitter, it blows to mind as to why this would even be the case.
By including high-quality images from Instagram, embedding them in your email content to make them clickable and interactive, you have the opportunity to dramatically enhance the quality and interactivity of your emails in a way that no one else does, and not just copying and pasting images in.
Here’s how you do that.
How to Integrate Instagram Content into your Email Content
Below, I’m going to talk you through some of the ways you can seamlessly use your Instagram content within your email content, helping you maximise the usage of your social media content, and make your email content far more engaging than it already is.
Integrate Hashtags
All businesses should create their own interactive hashtags, which you use to tag your own photos, special events, content drives, or users to tag photos of your products. Including these hashtags within your emails and linking to make sure they’re clickable is a great way to lead people to these hashtags and get them using them.
“Not only does taking this approach help to expand the visibility of your hashtag, but it also helps you find content that’s being posted under your hashtag, which can be used for a variety of purposes,” shares Fiona Maris, from a business writer at Paper Fellows and OX Essays.
Share User-Generated Content
There’s nothing like UGC. Let’s say someone buys a product and loves it so much that they take a picture using it and share it online. That’s so much social proof saying how great your product is because someone is putting their reputation on the line to all their followers, saying this product is great.
Now, if you can find these images (hopefully using your hashtag), you can share UGC within your emails to spread that message of social proof to email subs.
Run a Contest/Giveaway
There are many great ways to run a contest these days, which is a great way to get people excited about your brand and interact with your business. Don’t worry; you can be way more creative than just asking people to take a photo and share it under your hashtag and then sharing this content in your emails or marketing your giveaway in your emails.
Of course, how you approach it really depends on the nature of your business, so really think outside the box as to what you’re trying to get people to do and how they’re going to be thinking about your business.
“For example, if you run a skincare product company, you could do something like getting people to send in photos of what they think is beautiful. It doesn’t have to be skin or body image related, just something that people would see as beautiful in the world. It could even be a photo of a random act of kindness,” explains Jason Nash, from a project manager at State of writing or Essay Roo.
Take a look at this IG post by ClubW.
A simple user-generated social media post sharing an entry of a giveaway that was happening among ClubW followers. Here is an example of the email they sent.
A simple yet effective way to combine the giveaway into both IG and email content.
Repurposing IG Images for Email
Perhaps the simplest way to use Instagram content in emails is just to repurpose the images and the content you’re posting. Let’s say you have an image with a short caption detailing a new product you have coming out, for example.
You can then take the imagery you’ve posted on IG and include it in a standalone email, expanding the caption to give a more detailed insight into the new product. This is a simple and effective way to boost the visibility of your product launch, and you’ll have content for both IG and your marketing process.
Conclusion
These are just a handful of ways you can use and integrate IG content into your email marketing content, but it’s really up to you to be as creative as possible. Always do your best to stand out and do something different since this is what will draw attention to both your IG and email marketing campaigns.
Author’s Bio:
Kristin Herman is a tech and marketing enthusiast and a dedicated writer at Academized and UK Writings. She also writes and edits Boom Essays writing blog.
