How to integrate Search Engine and Email Marketing

In the world of inbound marketing, integrating tactics provides marketers with incredible leverage. However, integration can often be challenging because individual marketing tactics sometime exist in silos with little collaboration. This is especially true with an unlikely power couple, search engine optimization and email marketing.

Search engine optimization is likely a strong source of traffic and leads for you already. And email marketing is most companies’ primary inbound lead generation channel. While both tactics rock on their own, they experience some exciting amplification when combined. Let’s look at a few ways we can combine search and email for even more leads!

Here are 7 Ways to Integrate Search Engine and Email Marketing

1. Distribute Link Building Content Through Email – Yes, email is mainly about lead generation. But don’t be short-sighted in your lead generation efforts. Search engine traffic can provide a steady flow of quality leads over time. For many companies, email marketing is their largest channel for marketing reach.

Emailing lead generation-based offers is definitely a great idea, but by also distributing content like infographics or awesome blog posts occasionally via email, you can improve the reach and, subsequently, the inbound links and authority of the pages where that content resides. In the future, you could then replace the content on that page with an awesome lead generation offer to take advantage of all of the search engine traffic the page is getting.

2. Optimize for the Best Lead Generation Topics – Look at your email data. Which offers and topics have the best open and click-through rates? If you have been doing email marketing for a while, then you probably have great historical data related to your lead generation efforts. Use this data to help you prioritize your search engine optimization efforts. Then optimize for the top-performing keywords and offers from your email campaigns.

3. Test Offer Conversion Prior to an Email Send – You don’t have to email an offer to your list the second it’s completed. Instead, you can use traffic from search engines, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and your blog to take a look at the conversion rate of the landing page and the offer. Use this data to make tweaks and improvements to the content or its landing page before sending it out to your entire list.

4. Use PPC to Boost Email Click-Through Rate (CTR) – In the crowded world of inbound marketing, your prospects usually need to be exposed to your ideas several times before they will convert. When planning your next big email send for lead generation, plan a PPC campaign that starts the day before and lasts a few days after the email send to help provide additional support for the email and its offer. The awareness built through these PPC ads can help increase click-through rates for your emails.

5. Search Engine Optimize Landing Pages – Don’t hide your landing pages! Landing pages are key to your inbound marketing success. Make sure that, beyond sending them out in marketing emails, you take the time to optimize the content of your landing pages for search engines. This means killer page titles, a great URL structure, and relevant copy optimized with keywords on the page itself.

6. Focus on Email Sharing for Link Building – Part of building links for search engine optimization is getting your content in front of as many people as possible. Simply sending out content to build links just isn’t enough. Instead, add social sharing links to the content you are promoting in your email. Include a quick message that also encourages folks to forward the email to their peers.

7. Use PPC to Test Email Subject Lines – Subject lines are a huge part of email marketing success. Instead of simply guessing which subject line you think will work best, use PPC to collect data on subject line options. Create five subject lines. Run a different PPC ad for each subject line. After you’ve accumulated enough data, determine which subject line had the highest click-through rate, and use it for your email send.