The Small Business Online Marketing Handbook: Converting Online Conversations to Offline Sales

Chapter 5

Optimization Tips for Email and Social Marketing

Now that you have an idea of promotions you can run, as well as some segmentation and timing options, we can discuss best practices for optimizing delivery by marketing channel. You've likely heard the term best practices before; these are simply recommendations based on industry standards that evolve over time. And because you can read entire books and even take college courses on how to optimize each of these marketing channels, consider the tips in this chapter the abridged version to help get you started. In addition, keep in mind that although best practices are a great place to start, you should still validate that the practice delivers the desired results for your specific business.

Effective Email Marketing

Email marketing has become a standard when it comes to scalable, cost-effective marketing solutions for businesses big and small alike. Consumers have also shown marketers year after year that they will continue to engage with businesses through email as long as these messages meet a set of criteria:

• The emails are only sent if a customer opts-in (I want to hear from this business).
• The messages must have content that is engaging and relevant to the consumer (I'm interested in what this business has to say).
• The email messages drive action (I know what to do when I read this email, and I want to do it).

Let's review the basic elements required to effectively leverage this channel and turn your online followers ...