People understand the value of having an in-house email list, but many small businesses haven’t started building their list or planning their email marketing strategy. Remember that there are only two things a business owns in the online world – your website and your email list.
Email list building is an important part of your inbound marketing effort. Even with all of the new marketing channels, the importance of building a quality list of interested subscribers is as strong as ever. In fact, according to Smart Insights State of Email Marketing Infographic, over 50% of marketers rate email marketing more effective than other marketing channels.
Email marketing and marketing automation are terms that are used somewhat interchangeably, causing confusion for small businesses who are trying to decide which solution they need. This confusion stems from the fact that both solutions are based on using email as a primary way to communicate with your leads in the hope that some leads will convert into customers.
Providing valuable lead magnets as part of your inbound marketing activities can maximize the number of targeted leads you get for your offer by providing an incentive for them to sign up. But how many sign up forms have you seen that simply ask you to “sign up” to receive their email updates?
I get my ideas for blog posts based on conversations I have with clients. I would never have thought to write about why it is important to grow your email list in this era of online marketing. I was amazed by how many small business owners still question why they need to build an email list.
Feathers seem to have been ruffled by the appearance of the new Gmail Tabs and the automatic filtering of messages bound for your inbox. Popular opinion seems to be that if you send an email newsletter, it will end up in the Promotions category (tab) and therefore, people won’t see it.
For the small business owner, it is always a pleasure to find useful tools that help you better market your business. It’s even more of a pleasure to find one that offers a robust free option. MailChimp is an email marketing and list management service that is simple to use and supports many powerful features. …
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