An interesting article on MediaPost last week by Jack Loechner pointed out an
increasing trend of social media and email convergence by small businesses. In 2009 all of these useful cross-digital channel tactics were only done by 20% to 36% of small businesses surveyed:
* Tweet email newsletters
* Broadcast blog entries to email list
* Add sign-up forms on social media pages
* Include follow links in email messages
* Place link to email in social media pages
However, the same survey found that in 2010 roughly half of small businesses plan to integrate in at least one of these ways. Why? Increases brand awareness, grows email lists, and accelerates the ROI of either together.
This is all about channel convergence. Make the different promotional media work together to reinforce each other, and cross-reference each other. Especially because our consumers are fickle, and are swapping and experimenting in the digital world. Know what else this means? Move beyond just the "hub and spoke" architecture of the website in the middle and other online venues pointing to it. The "spokes" or "channels" can point to each other just as well, and the consumer journey can stay exclusively on the other digital channels and never get to any "core" website.
In healthcare, one just needs to make sure the appropriate experience is well documented and approved by review committee, as needed.
