A Facebook spokesperson has confirmed that the social media company is testing out email marketing tools for Facebook Business pages in a statement to Adweek. The statement read:

“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.”

The test was spotted by super-sleuth social media marketer Meg Coffey, who shared her findings in early June. According to her screenshots, businesses who have this capability will be alerted with a pop-up on their Facebook Page navigation sidebar which says, “Now you can send customized marketing emails to your email subscribers.”

When the “Marketing Emails” button is clicked, they will see another pop-up notification asking the page manager to confirm their email address. Once confirmed, the manager can manually add email addresses to their list of subscribers or upload them from a spreadsheet – with consent from the contacts to receive promotional messages, of course.

Page managers can then compose marketing emails from the Facebook platform, including a subject line, preview text (optional), with the ability to create new audiences.

Larger, well-known brands and companies already have email marketing tools at their disposal, such as MailChimp or iContact, and may not have a need for this capability. However, it is a game-changer for small businesses looking to launch their email marketing strategy in an affordable way. This feature comes at the heels of the launch of Facebook Shops, a feature that enables retailers to create a virtual storefront and sell products directly to consumers, for free.

We look forward to learning more about this feature and including it in future monthly social media round-ups!