Business pages on Facebook may soon have the ability to send marketing emails with a new set of tools that are currently being tested.
The tools will allow small-to-medium sized businesses to upload contact lists and compose marketing emails in a user-friendly interface.
Businesses can send emails directly through the Facebook platform and track the performance afterward.
Facebook Marketing Emails Spotted in Early Testing
A test was recently spotted by social media marketer Meg Coffey who shared screenshots on Twitter.
Send marketing emails from your page? What new sorcery is this Facebook?!
Have you seen this new feature where we can now send emails directly from Facebook? This is definitely new to me and only available on one account so far. pic.twitter.com/aSIkSx1uDo
— Meg Coffey (@TexanMeg) June 1, 2020
According to the screenshots, it looks like pages that have access to this tool will be alerted with a notice on the left sidebar.
After clicking on the Marketing Emails tab, a screen appears that prompts the page manager to confirm their email address.
A notice reads:
“Reconnect with your email subscribers using marketing emails. Select your audience, customize your design, and track performance all in one place. Confirm your Page’s email address to get started.”
When the page manager confirms their email address they can begin adding email contacts to their subscriber list.
Subscribers’ contact information can be entered individually or uploaded from a spreadsheet.
Before adding any contact information, Facebook asks page managers to confirm they’ve received permission to send promotional messages to those contacts.
After contacts are added, page managers can begin creating email messages in the Pages app.
Here’s an example of what it looks like when composing a marketing email in Facebook:
Facebook Confirms Test of Marketing Emails
In a statement to Adweek, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed the company is testing the email marketing tools spotted by Meg Coffey.
The test is said to be limited to a small number of small and midsized businesses.
Here’s the full statement:
“We’re testing new email marketing tools with a small number of businesses to help them more efficiently notify their customers of changes to their services and operations.
We’re evaluating whether these tools are beneficial for people and businesses before deciding whether to expand it further.”
As stated, if this feature turns out to be beneficial to businesses then it may be rolled out more broadly.
This feature is likely to be most beneficial to businesses who do not currently have an email marketing solution of their own.
Facebook’s email marketing tools offer a fast, easy, and free way for SMBs to send promotional messages at scale and track results.
Businesses that already have an email marketing solution in place probably won’t find these tools robust enough to switch from what they’re currently using.
For businesses that are new to email marketing, on the other hand, this looks like a fine way to get started.
Although it’s worth noting that businesses are still required to get contacts to opt-in to a promotional mailing list.
This tool does not send marketing emails to all users who like a particular page, or anything like that.
Pages are required to upload their own mailing lists, as liking a page is not the same as granting permission to receive emails.
I expect we’ll hear more information about these tools once businesses have more time to test them.
