You may already have a productive and reliable email marketing strategy, but that may not mean that you are getting the maximum benefit out of it. There are proven and effective ways in which you can squeeze out some more from your efforts when you use social media in the best possible way. 

If you do not know how exactly you can do it, do not fret, because you are not alone. Most people do realize the power of social media due to its presence virtually everywhere, but they seem to be ignorant about the power of email. 

Ideally, email is:

• The most traditional form of internet marketing
• The go-to solution that has an immense power to capture and generate more leads
• The one that can ensure proper growth of the business if you can build your email list and 
• A method that has helped businesses for decades to monetize their subscribers.

Therefore, email is not going anywhere, and with an average ROI of 40:1, this happens to be the most effective and productive advertising tool. 

Though modern brands, advertisers, and marketing services are now more focused on turning their social followers into loyal customers, there is no scope to overlook the financial advantage you may receive when you stick with email. Even better, if you integrate both Instagram and email.

Need to use the best UGCs

One of the best ways to integrate email marketing with Instagram is to use User Generated Content. This is one of the best practices of social media to market any brand and convey the message. This secret ingredient, when added to the marketing efforts, will fine-tune your efforts and provide some incredible results.

The need to use User Generated Content is best explained by a report published by the Internet Trends this year. It has come up with some convincing and compelling data that reflects the success achieved by those brands that use UGC on Instagram, along with their email marketing strategies. According to the report, the use of UGCs can:

• Generate more engagement among the Instagram follower analytics.
• Help win more likes and comments on posts
• Prioritize your posts in the feed and 
• Help in finding a large number of new users.

It will also be easy for the users to find you when you share your content on the Explore tab. However, to make the best use of the UGCs, you will need to follow the current internet trends and use some of the best tools for that matter. The specific types that can help you to win the UGC game on this photo-sharing platform include:

• The UPS Store, which is best for small business owners
• Aerie, if you want to keep it simple yet powerful
• Buffer, if you want to showcase personalities
• Wayfair, if you want to include customer testimonials
• IBM, to provide an inside look
• Netflix, if you want to use hashtags in the title to spread the word
• Hootsuite, to showcase your way of working
• Starbucks, if you want to keep things competitive
• Adobe, to show your capabilities and 
• BMW, if you want to show off.

In addition to these, there are plenty of other UGCs of different brands on Instagram that you can take a cue from to use UGCs in your marketing campaign.

Ways to use

Any small or big company needs to use the UGCs is a specific way to provide social proof for their brand. It can be anything from reviews to Instagram posts, but it is vital to make them stand out so that it is not lost among the millions of posts uploaded every day on this platform. Since people love to see variety, you can use such content in these following ways to leverage your emails in the most creative way. 

• Feature great reviews. This is one of the best ways to leverage UGCs in emails. You can use one or multiple reviews of a single product in a short email as the users are more likely to read it and get your message.
• Add a CTA button. In every review is there is a call to action button, the users will be taken directly to the landing page. However, make sure that you curate the reviews, even if it is funny.
• Choose the most popular ones. You should use the most trending, liked, and bestselling ones. For this, you will need to check and analyze the data you have. This is the best way to use user-generated content in an email. It will be clicked and shared more by the followers.

Lastly, make it a point to include only beautiful and relevant photos that will speak a thousand words about your brand and product. This is the best way to gain more customers and better social proof.

Applying UGC to email

According to experts like Gramista, there are ideally three best ways to incorporate and leverage user-generated content into your emails. These are:

• Customer reviews, as this is the easiest and most effective tactic to take the full advantage of user-generated content. 
• Hashtag campaigns, as this is the best way to increase the visibility of your posts on social media 
• Gamification such as leaderboards, high scores, and levels of difficulty. As this will give the users to generate content.

For all, offer some gifts or UK discount codes as that will further encourage them to participate in your marketing campaigns.

Improve your UGCs

You can take your UGCs to the next higher level by following these steps:

• Making it easy to share and interact
• Using social proof to achieve your goals
• Curating your feed and 
• Keeping it on message always.

This will improve the quality of your content and bring them to life.

Wrapping it up

Finally, you can use video content as well to help your audience to connect with you in a much better way. Research says that user-generated videos are ten times more likely to be viewed. It has higher shareability and a greater chance of going viral. 

All of these efforts will increase your Instagram following and build your email list.

Author Bio – Kristen Smith has been working on the importance of social media in marketing with thousands of real Instagram followers for her postings.