Honestly for small business there is no more powerful inexpensive tool to grow your business and brand exposure than social media. But the question really comes down to is exposure enough? The answer is no. Business owners actually need their companies to grow, which means they need sales. Social media has its benefits but tracking the return on your business investment, without paying for ads, has been the challenge for companies of all sizes. And the largest social media platform, Facebook has made it almost impossible to reach your target audience without purchasing some form of advertising package. If you're using a PPC and CPAs it's easier to see how effective your campaign is. But email is the tried-and-true tool of most effective and inexpensive digital marketing campaigns.
Email effectiveness can be clearly measured. Remember what gets measured gets managed. There is a lot of power in one email. Email marketing is still to this day, easily measurable and success to convert contacts is more accurate. Additionally, pulling in new customers via email and newsletter campaigns can be a more reliable strategy than that solely relying on social media. But why is that?
Here are the facts:
1 - your email has a built-in tracking system by default one that you don't have to have a plug in or an app to truly see how effective you are at getting your contents to the receiver. All major providers offer the exact same tool that social media tries to add or has an app for.
2 - all email providers let you know if an account is at least still active. Remember if you contact someone over a social media platform, they may have notifications through email strictly. Just eliminate the middle platform. You can even know if a person opened an email or not. This way you have a clear sign if a person is viewing what you're sending to them. This provides the marketer more insight into their communication effectiveness.
3 - and my favorite aspect of email - contact groups. You can easily create groups; then move a contact from point A to point B in the customer life-cycle based on what groups you move them through. Entire groups can be edited very easily and downloaded if you use an email campaign service provider. Although a targeted campaign can be created using social media; this is typically only available for paid ads. This is one advertisement; while a paid email campaign for the same price could have unlimited emails sent in the same timeframe.
Here ar to get the most out of your next marketing campaign using your email as the catalyst of communication:
1 - Have all of your business website accounts linked to the same email address. This makes it easy to connect with your current contacts, clients, and potential customers from one centralized database.
2 - Create easy to define contact groups: Clients, Potential Clients, Business Network, Affiliations, etc. This allows you to clearly target each group. Some contacts maybe in multiple groups, but try to keep that to a minimum so you can measure how effective your email marketing is at converting.
3 - Create a basic template. There are so many places to find professional and good looking templates. MS Word, InDesign online at Adobe Cloud, Canva, Google Docs and even in your email accounts Yahoo, Outlook, Gmail all have templates to get you started out right.
4 - An effective email needs eye catching content. So images are a must. But more importantly you need a clear Call to Action, clear direction, make it easy to share content and contact information. In other words; clearly state what you want the recipient to do with the information you're sending them. Also make it easy for them to do it. Provide a link literally saying “click me” so there is no confusion. Make your content easy to share on social media, so include links to networks in the email.
5 - Sign up for a trial account with email distributors. By definition a campaign has to have an endgame and target date. So this is a great opportunity to use a email campaign service as a test. There are many service providers with many types of trials. Constant Contact, Mad Mimi, MailChimp, and more. See if they have a basic trial offer to start and you run a beta test. Great for an initial announcement - “Here is our newsletter” or just a quick “Happy Holidays”. This gives you an opportunity to see how many people respond, take action, or share your content.
There are many benefits to using an email campaign service provider are the additional tools that have immediate benefits. Most remove duplicate emails, will delete emails that are no longer valid, and provide users with ability to remove their name from your list for you. This means your campaign will become more targeted with very little effort on your end.
I'm Ehren Muhammad, Founder of EMPro, Ltd
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IG: ChiBrother85
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EMPro, Ltd - Branding & Digital Marketing
We Brands Grow
Chicago, IL
