Marketing

For many small businesses, summer is slow season, making it a great time to evaluate the success of your email marketing efforts to date. Take advantage of the summer slowdown, and spend some time reviewing your email contact lists. Like growing a beautiful lawn, a growing email list needs care and maintenance along the way to ensure that healthy growth continues. Giving a little TLC to your list reinforces that you’re continuing to send relevant information to each of your subscribers—and that you can reap the benefits of having engaged customers come busy season.

Here are some simple, effective ways to manage, and nurture, your growing email list:

Segment your lists

Creating smaller, targeted lists and letting your subscribers choose which list they want to be on allows them to tell you what they want to hear. And it means you can send more relevant emails to those who want to receive them. For example: a nonprofits can have separate lists targeting members, donors, volunteers, and board of directors; a clothing retailer can offer mailings targeting those interested in men’s, women’s, or children’s apparel; a restaurant that offers live music on the weekend can segment their lists by those interested in only dinner specials and those interested in the musical acts. (more…)

If you own a website, chances are, you have been contacted by one of these idiots. They call every month promising the “number one spot” on Google! They tell you that your site is not showing up in searches… and THEY can help (for a small price). Before you sign up for their GUARANTEED RESULTS, watch this video. Warning: Signing up with the wrong company can cause Google to DE-LIST your site completely!

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Eric Spellmann continues to be one of the highest rated speakers at our national America’s SBDC conferences.  His unique view that small business websites should “do” something pushes against the standard “online pamphlet” view of most web design companies.  He believes your customer’s websites should be driving qualified leads and sales on a weekly basis.  Eric speaks at a number of other national and state conferences nationwide, but enjoys running one of the most successful web design companies in the country.  He truly believes in the SBDC mission as it helped him start his own company many years ago.  To contact him, visit his website at EricSpellmann.com.

Many new companies face a similar marketing problem. They have difficulty disseminating their message to their target market without spending a lot of money on advertising. One way to solve this problem is to partner with a company that serves a like-minded audience.

Identify the right partners

Small businesses need to pursue partnerships with companies that not only serve a similar audience, but also share the same goals. For instance, be sure to ask yourself how working together could be mutually beneficial to both companies. Furthermore, both companies should allocate a similar amount of resources.

Don’t overlook smaller companies

Many entrepreneurs salivate over the idea of being able to partner with a large company. While it can certainly help with building credibility as well as access to a significant distribution channel, there are drawbacks. Many large companies have specific guidelines to follow when evaluating a potential partnership. (more…)

Smartphone usage is sky-rocketing, and with it, so is the number of people that are reading email on a mobile device. According to Litmus, 43% of email is now opened on a mobile device. That number is up 138% from 2010. This means that your email marketing need to be mobile friendly, so that it displays optimally between a desktop/laptop and a mobile device, and looks great regardless of where your customers and prospects read it.

The good news is that there are some really simple things you can do now to ensure that your emails are mobile-friendly:

1. Be as concise, and have a clear call to action

Make sure to include a clear call to action, and put it near the top of your email, Tell your readers what you want them to do, and make it really easy for them to do so. Your messdage should be clear and concise message — a staple of any email, but it’s even more important when designing for mobile. Screen real estate is very valuable on mobile so keep the design very clean and simple and focus on the essentials. (more…)