For Small Business Email and Blogging Go Hand in Hand
As a small business owner, trying to develop an eMarketing strategy, it is not an either/or situation. You do not have to choose whether you communicate through a blog or email. The best strategy is a little of both. Your blog is an ideal way to create a two way conversation with your readers. Short posts, with questions or discussion starters make your blog an enjoyable read.
But not everyone has time to stop by daily or weekly to read your posts. To reach this audience, a once a month email, with a summary of your favorite posts, or a completely different article can help to strengthen your brand.
At Roundpeg, we began as an email marketing company and have migrated to social media. Because of our starting point, I found it interesting to read a post by Chris Garret who wrote a post for bloggers considering making the opposite transition. He outlined both the benefits and risks of pursuing this strategy. One of his most compelling points was the fact that a good email will build the subscriber base to your daily posts.
Other benefits include: Speed, ease of use, viral nature as people can easily forward a message. And certainly the cost. Using one of the popular tools available today, you can reach hundreds or even thousands of people for less than $50/month. In addition, most email tools include a level of tracking and feedback so you know who is reading your email.
We have used Constant Contact for about six years and have found it to be extremely beneficial and easy to use.
If you are going to add email to your marketing mix remember this is more invasive then a blog so be sure to ask permission to send the email and respect requests to unsubscribe so you are not labeled a spammer.
This won’t replace your blog, but can be a nice add on. And while you are at it, consider an occasional piece of snail mail to round out the mix.
A solid strategy suggestion, Lorraine. In our own organization we’ve noticed a considerable boost in traffic and loyalty since committing to both steady blogging and regular email contact. Attempting to rely exclusively on one or the other could cause a problem as well-developed relationships are both personal and educational.
What we found, too, however, was that the vital third piece of the puzzle laid out here is to be certain that customer email is being answered. This sounds like a no-brainer, but a recent study of 50 online retailers found that 34 percent did NOT respond to inquiries.
That’s where a service like Email Center Pro can help.
Email Center Pro facilitates efficiency, accuracy and effectiveness when managing business and customer addresses like info@, sales@ and customer_service@. There is no better way to ensure that email becomes a transparent piece of the overall work flow and that no message is either missed or duplicated. Add to that collaboration and analytics and you can see how the service acts as a complete solution for the email communication channel.