a marketing guide for small business
Email Marketing
Email Marketing: Best Practices
Feb 29th
Email Opt In
Last week I received an unsubscribe notice and was immediately concerned. This hadn’t happened before and I wanted to know why this person had decided to unsubscribe.
Had I done something wrong? Wasn’t the information of value?
As my brain was going through a long list of reasons as to why this may have happened, my email service provider automatically asked them why. This subscriber response was…
I get too many emails…don’t have time to read them all. I just have to give some of them up. Sorry.
I breathed a little easier. First, what a sweetheart. He actually took the More >
Email Marketing: How To Create Content
Feb 20th
What goes into your email newsletter?
Small business man preparing to write E-newsletter
This is where the rubber meets the road. I’ve seen perfectly capable small business owners freeze in utter fear staring at the email newsletter form while all of the color drained from their face. I understand writing can be a challenge for some and we’ll discuss some workarounds for those who are consistently experiencing writer’s block. I also know it can be intimidating to send a message to a faceless audience. You don’t ‘really’ know these people, yet they raised their hand and told you they were interested More >
Email Marketing: The Subject Line
Feb 6th
Today, we’re going to discuss the all important subject line of email marketing. For those of you who are new to this email marketing series, you may want to review the following posts:
How to get your emails opened
Email Subject LineThe subject line is probably one of the most critical aspect of email marketing. Why? Because without a subject line that motivates the reader to click through to read your email, all is lost. You’ve spent valuable time crafting a great email message, but only a small percentage More >
Email Marketing: How To Get It To Deliver
Jan 29th
Email Communications Game Plan
We’ve discussed the value of email marketing, how to capture valuable email addresses and we’ve touched on email frequency. Before we dive into the gritty tactics of email marketing, we want to focus on how to ensure your email efforts deliver the results you want to achieve. Think of this as creating a game plan for your email marketing efforts. A plan that will not only get your emails opened, but will also help you achieve your goals.
1. Define your email readersAsk yourself…
- Who are they?
- What do they want, need or are seeking?
Are they industry leaders or peers? More >
Email Marketing: Frequency
Jan 26th
The Line between Annoyance and Engagement
We’ve already discussed the value of email marketing and how to capture the illusive email addresses. The next question to be answered is how frequently should a small business distribute its email newsletter.
Let’s remember that the ideal is to hit the sweet spot with those willing to turn over their email addresses. It is a bit like straddling an invisible line between annoyance and genuine engagement.
Unfortunately, the attitude I hear and see being expressed by many small business owners when it comes their email marketing is:
I’ll get to it when I can.
This attitude does nothing More >
Email Addresses – How To Get Them
Jan 18th
Snake Charmer For Email Addresses?
How is it that some small business owners can collect email addresses from their customers like a snake charmer while others consistently come up empty?
Why is this?
I think it has a lot to do with the mind set of the business owner. Some just don’t understand or believe in the bottom line value of having their customers’ email addresses.
Another contributing factor is if the small business owners believe it will benefit them, then they don’t have a systematic approach to capturing email addresses. Sometimes they ask, often they forget. (more…)
Email, Is It Passe`?
Jan 17th
Email Marketing
The answer: No, email is not passe`, particularly for small business.
Don’t believe me? Here are five reasons why email will be with us for a very long time.
- Email Marketing has already been around for 30 years and shows no signs of dying off any time soon. In fact, every 60 seconds approximately 170 million emails are sent.
- Email remains one of the primary communications tools in the business world.
- According to a Pew Study, 92% of U.S. adults use email and search, about a third more than the percentage of U.S. adults using social media.
- All of the social media tools, Facebook, More >
9 Reasons Not to Ignore Email Marketing
Aug 29th
Image via Wikipedia
Why bother to collect email address of my customers?Because it will make a positive difference to your bottom line. It is that simple and it is the truth. Period.
It sounds strange to most professional marketers that in 2011 there remain some small business owners who just don’t understand why they would bother to collect the email addresses of their customers or of their prospects. But there are some. Are you one of them? Then this post is for you. (more…)
7 Tips in Creating Email Marketing Contents
Aug 29th
Image by Alyssa L. Miller via Flickr
Don’t know what to say in that e-Newsletter?Perhaps the biggest barrier to email marketing is that the small business owner doesn’t feel comfortable writing the e-newsletter. They done all of the up-front work. They’ve collected the email addresses. They’ve set-up an email service provider. And then their faces turn white at the thought of having to actually write something every month. As best I can tell, the fear seems to stem from the belief they have to write sales-y pitches or they have to be very creative in their writing and many aren’t More >
Make Email Marketing Work for Your Store
May 16th
Email Marketing is still sexy
These days email marketing isn’t as sexy as Facebook or Linkedin. It’s been around for a very long time and, as such, was the early forerunner of ‘social’ marketing. The act of chatting with your customer base is about as ‘social’ as one can be. Which is why I’m often surprised by how many small business owners haven’t:
- started the process of collecting customers’ email addresses or
- actually emailed anything to their email list
The benefits of email marketing are numerous. (more…)
