There are hundreds of millions of small businesses around the globe, and they all have one thing in common: they need to market themselves to customers. Without marketing, customers wouldn’t know the business exists, nor would business owners have any way to stay in touch with their patrons.
As it turns out, SMBs also face another common predicament — increasing pressure to do more with less. In the complex realm of digital marketing, that means sending more messages, generating more sales, showing up in more places and taking on more responsibilities, all without any additional time, training or budget.
Sound familiar? It’s a reality that’s become all too familiar for SMBs around the world.
We’re passionate about helping small businesses succeed. That’s why we’re constantly digging into the latest trends to stay ahead of the curve. Our newest research study, Small Business Now: The State of SMB Marketing, explores the biggest barriers preventing small businesses from marketing effectively, and how they can overcome those obstacles to get closer to their customers.
Here’s what we learned after surveying 1,300 businesses across Australia, Canada, the UK and the U.S.:
It’s clear that the economy is a bigger concern today than it was in 2023, and overall marketing confidence is low. In the face of that uncertainty, many SMBs expect to spend more time and resources on marketing this year to stay top-of-mind with their customers.
If this sounds like you, a quick word of caution. Simply cranking up the dials across the board is unlikely to improve your campaign results. Instead, identify the holes in your current strategy and focus on using the right marketing tactics that’ll generate results.
Often, the first step to accomplishing this is by evaluating and choosing the right marketing channels rather than placing all of your proverbial eggs into one basket. This can help SMBs to diversify the audience they are reaching, ensuring a flow of new interest while still building relationships with established customers, donors, and supporters. By pairing owned channels (like email, events, and SMS text messaging) with other opportunities like social media and online advertising, SMBs can confidently create a stronger marketing foundation.
Small businesses wear a lot of hats, so it’s not surprising that marketing takes a backseat to other responsibilities. But, what’s surprising is exactly how little time for marketing most SMBs have, and how frequently they put it off for later.
And, that lack of confidence? It has a direct impact on time spent on marketing. Small businesses with low confidence in their marketing strategies are 1.5 times more likely to procrastinate or skip marketing altogether.
The good news is that if you’re struggling to fit marketing into your day, there are tools to help you be successful. Constant Contact’s automation technology and content generation tools help SMBs work faster, send more messages and get more done without requiring any more of your precious time or resources. That means less time spent on marketing, but better results — so you can focus on what you do best.
In fact, our last Small Business Now Report uncovered the fact that 33% of small businesses were saving more than 40 minutes a week on marketing by using artificial intelligence and automation, specifically in the areas of social media, content creation, and email marketing – the very spots where marketers are now struggling the most.
Small businesses need to acquire customers to grow and thrive, but with over 80% of SMBs expressing concern about the economy, the pressure to choose the right channels and tactics that yield results is immense. It’s especially difficult if they don’t understand which channels to leverage or how to improve their campaigns.
Again, does this sound familiar? If you’ve ever found yourself scratching your head, wondering where and when to connect with your target audience, or how your marketing strategy is getting you closer to your goals, then you’re not alone.
Your business is important to you. So important, that you spend hours thinking about how to reach more people, build relationships, and grow your business. With Constant Contact, you can take a deep breath and leave the thinking to us. We’ll use cutting-edge technology to help you reach the right people at the right time with the right message. Banish writer’s block with content generation, drive sales or events and maximize the impact of your campaigns.
Small businesses are feeling the squeeze from all sides, grappling with economic worries and a lack of confidence in their marketing strategies. Many are preparing to invest more time and resources, but more isn’t always better. What’s crucial is investing wisely by focusing on strategies that actually deliver.
This is exactly where Constant Contact shines. We understand that running a small business is no small feat, especially when it comes to marketing. Our platform is designed to take the stress out of marketing so you can stop guessing about what your customers want, and where they are most likely to interact with you, and get back to running your business. Whether you’re struggling to find the time, unsure about your strategy, or feeling overwhelmed by the need to market your business, Constant Contact delivers.
So, if you’re spending sleepless nights wondering how to connect with your audience, or how to turn likes into sales, let us help you. With Constant Contact, you get more than just a service provider; you get a partner who’s as committed to your business’ success as you are.
Interested in taking a deeper dive into the results? Download the full report, or see our previous reports on the Constant Contact Data Hub.
Report Methodology
Constant Contact’s Small Business Now report analyzes insights from over 1,300 small business decision-makers at the Director level and above at companies with under 250 employees. Polls were conducted in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States and aggregated to determine global trends. All stats are representative of their associated demographics. The survey was conducted by Ascend2 in February 2024.
Acquiring a new subscriber to your email list is always good news — but the steps you take following their signup define whether they’ll engage with your business or lose interest. One of the best things you can do to encourage further interaction is to send an onboarding welcome email.
What is an onboarding email? Onboarding emails thank new clients for subscribing and introduce them to your business. They explain what customers can expect from your future brand messages, define your company’s offers, and provide contact information if the subscriber wants to contact you. It’s the first step to establishing a continuous relationship with audience members and building retention.
Here’s what you need to know about creating an effective onboarding email strategy that maximizes results.
An onboarding email campaign consists of a series of emails designed to welcome new subscribers and introduce them to your business. These emails are not necessarily sales-oriented (at least, not at the start) but aim to build relationships so the customer is more likely to purchase from you in the future.
Typically, an onboarding campaign starts with a welcome email — the welcome email triggers automatically when a new subscriber joins your list. It may include basic information about your brand and ask the recipient to confirm their subscription via a link.
A follow-up email for onboarding processes may include product or service recommendations, customer testimonials, or relevant brand content targeted to a subscriber’s interests.
Welcome emails and onboarding emails are part of an onboarding campaign strategy but have different goals. Welcome emails introduce the brand to the recipient and thank them for signing up.
An onboarding email encourages further customer interaction, such as setting email preferences, visiting the brand’s website, or scheduling an appointment. When designing your campaign, it’s important to distinguish between both types of emails.
An inviting onboarding email campaign does more than introduce your business. It boosts customer engagement, increasing open rates, click-throughs, and purchases. Here are a few strategies you can incorporate into your customer onboarding strategies to enhance results.
If your brand has an app, use your welcome emails to encourage subscribers to download it. Well-designed apps are great engagement tools and allow clients to navigate your product and service offerings conveniently from their phones. Plus, if customers elect to receive app notifications, you can alert them to critical updates, like a one-day sale.
Sometimes, your email open rates and click-through rates may decrease. That doesn’t mean you can’t turn it around. Instead, design a series of winback emails sent after client inactivity.
Re-engagement emails seek to reattract clients who appear to lose interest in your brand. They might include an exclusive discount on your products or an opportunity for a gift. There’s an incentive to entice the recipient to open the email and take action.
Sometimes, customers subscribe to your mailing list after signing up for a free trial or making a purchase. If that’s the case for your brand, consider including a trial extension or recommending related products in your onboarding campaign. For instance, if a client signs up for your email list after buying a jacket from your company, you could recommend a matching hat or gloves in your onboarding email sequence.
Some brands find it helpful to include customer testimonials or product demonstrations in their onboarding messages. Favorable testimonials showcase your brand in a positive light to people unfamiliar with your company. They can encourage clients currently on the fence to take action.
The difference between an outstanding onboarding email and an average one is usually the content. Savvy marketers know to make the most of every aspect of their onboarding message, from the subject line to its design. Here are a few tips to craft a compelling onboarding email.
On average, consumers receive more than 100 emails per day. That’s a lot of messages, and a portion might go unread. Don’t let your email idle in the inbox — use a captivating subject line to increase open rates. Give the recipient a reason to read your email, and they will.
However, a consumer simply opening an email won’t lead to a boost in sales. To encourage further engagement, include a clear call to action (CTA) that tells your subscribers what you want them to do.
Do your subscribers need an extra nudge to take the next step with your brand? Pepper in a few examples of highly satisfied customers. For instance, you might incorporate customer feedback from a prominent review site or a pre-recorded customer success video into your email. When subscribers see how happy others are with your brand, they’re more likely to take the next step.
Subscribers aren’t very likely to interact with blast emails that don’t feel relevant. They want personalized content that feels like it’s meant just for them. Tailor your messages to make them understand that you are supporting their interests.
While mentioning their name is a good start, you can go further and include content based on prior brand interactions. For instance, if they recently purchased from you, thank them and ask for feedback about their shopping experience.
You may be wondering, “How do I write an onboard email?” When designing emails, aim for a clear, easy-to-follow format that subscribers can read on any device. Break your messaging into text blocks and incorporate eye-catching images. Make sure your CTA is prominently placed and directly links to your desired landing page.
HR departments often use onboarding emails for new hires. Have you found yourself asking, “How do I write an HR email to onboarding?” An employee onboarding email template might include:
If you’re using onboarding emails in an HR setting, think about what new employees need to know about your organization and include those details.
Customers can sign up for your mailing list at any time. And when they do, you might not be in front of your inbox, ready to send them an initial welcome email. That’s where investing in email marketing tools can help.
Email automation tools are essential for any brand that incorporates onboarding campaigns into its marketing strategy. Automation tools trigger pre-drafted messages whenever a client takes a specific action, like signing up for your mailing list. The new subscriber receives your emails in a timely sequence that fits their engagement with your brand.
Constant Contact’s email marketing tools include automation features that are perfect for any email onboarding campaign. With our software, you can design and schedule emails in advance, cutting down on manual work and boosting customer engagement.
Changing minor elements of your marketing emails can enhance campaign results. Consider creating two or three versions of an onboarding email with different subject lines, images, or CTAs. Send them to a small portion of your subscribers, and note which one outperforms the others. This technique, known as A/B testing, can help you finesse your messages before sending them to a broader audience.
If your brand offers an app, consider integrating user notifications to match your onboarding strategy. For instance, you might encourage new users to set their email preferences and shopping interests. You could also offer a special discount on first purchases for subscribers who download the app. Coordinating your app messaging with your onboarding emails may boost engagement rates.
Consider personalizing your onboarding email campaign to match subscriber interactions with your brand. To start, map out a workflow for engagement activities.
For example, if a customer clicks on your CTA but doesn’t fully convert, you could send them an automatic follow-up email with an additional incentive to take action. Customizing your workflows makes your messages more relevant to the subscriber’s intent.
You can try more advanced techniques once you implement your onboarding email campaign strategy and see results.
Most marketing campaigns aim to keep subscribers interested in their emails. You can vary email marketing content based on how subscribers interact with it. For instance, a recipient who almost always opens your marketing emails might be more likely to make a purchase than someone who last read an email from you several months ago. You could send frequent readers product recommendations and work on winning inactive subscribers back to your brand.
There are two primary email formats: plain text and HTML
While you can use either format, HTML emails make the most sense for marketing emails, especially when promoting products. Plain text is best for informational emails where the focus is on the message.
Approximately 85% of consumers use smartphones to check their email. That means most subscribers may read your email on a mobile device. So, optimizing your message format to fit smartphones and regular PCs is imperative. Most email marketing tools (including Constant Contact) include mobile optimization features that help build beautiful, effective email marketing campaigns.
Some brands offer free product trials and encourage users to join mailing lists during signup. If that’s the case for your company, use marketing emails to your advantage and set up a workflow to transition users to paid clients. Some techniques that might also increase conversion rates include emphasizing product value or offering a discount for a limited period.
Not sure where to start with your onboarding email campaign? Take a look at these onboarding examples from top brands to get inspired.
Adobe’s onboarding email template includes information about its suite of creative products and a direct link to explore account options.
Flickr’s welcome email introduces new users to features they may enjoy.
The New York Times provides subscribers with a personalized newsletter of content they may enjoy based on prior interactions.
You might encounter a few challenges as you implement your onboarding strategy. Here are a few to watch out for — and how to conquer them.
Occasionally, consumers will subscribe to your mailing list but ignore the registration confirmation or stop opening your emails. If that happens, try to re-engage them through follow-up emails or winback campaigns.
If your subscriber joined your mailing list as part of a free product trial, the goal of your onboarding emails is to convert them to paying customers. As their trial period draws to a close, ask for feedback about their experience. You might provide a special discount on paid trials for users who respond to your post-trial survey.
Some brands offer multiple services or products that integrate with each other. If that’s the case for your brand, encourage customers to try relevant products via a trial extension or upgrade offer. Access to additional features may result in higher paid conversion rates.
Use key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your onboarding emails, including:
Leverage automation tools that simplify your marketing efforts and streamline the customer journey so you can focus on other important tasks that guide your audience through the sales funnel.
Developing an onboarding email campaign strategy requires creativity, planning, and know-how. If you’d like to expand your email marketing knowledge, download our free, comprehensive ebook on How to Create the Perfect Email.
You may also want to read our guide to marketing automation and personalization. Both resources can assist you as you establish a flourishing email marketing strategy.
Email is a solid marketing tool that can help you connect with your audience and develop a loyal customer base. To start, introduce them to your brand and what it offers, then encourage them to provide information about their demographics and interests to help your business personalize their experience.
Onboarding emails are a great way to build genuine connections with your audience. Use our tips to create an onboarding email strategy that resonates with subscribers and delivers results.
Customers are bombarded with advertisements everywhere they look. On an average day, they might see email ads, social media ads, search engine ads, and TV ads — all before lunch.
The challenge for brands is to cut through the noise and actually connect with customers. So, how do you make your ads stand out from the dozens of others your target audience sees daily? The answer is personalized marketing.
Let’s break down what exactly personalized marketing is and how you can use it to help your business grow.
Personalized marketing is an advertising strategy that involves sending customized, targeted messages to customers by using data about their habits, interests, and purchasing patterns.
Traditional marketing takes a one-size-fits-all approach to communicating with customers. With personalized marketing, you tailor each message to the customer who sees it. It’s a crucial aspect of digital marketing, especially for channels like email marketing.
The majority of customers now expect brands to personalize their interactions. By tailoring your marketing efforts to each customer’s needs, you can position your brand as more reliable, more relatable, and more consistent in meeting those needs.
Implementing personalized marketing strategies will ensure you keep up with and even surpass competitors using broad, impersonal marketing messages. You’ll build stronger relationships with customers and get more out of your marketing campaigns.
Personalizing your marketing efforts can lead to a variety of positive changes.
Personalizing your marketing messages will increase customers’ engagement with your ads and your brand in general. The more targeted and personalized your ads are, the more likely they are to catch the customer’s attention. Showing them ads for products they’ve already viewed, for example, can be the tipping point for convincing an undecided potential buyer.
Personalized marketing can also inspire greater brand loyalty. Sending customized messages to customers shows them you see them as more than just a potential sale, encouraging them to stick with your brand. Existing customers tend to spend more than new customers, so it’s worthwhile to boost brand loyalty with personalized ads.
The feeling of being understood by a brand isn’t just about emotional connection either — it’s also about making a more convenient, comfortable shopping experience.
When customers are able to get what they want quickly and easily, they’re more likely to come away with a positive impression of your company. They’re also more likely to keep coming back.
Personalized marketing based on data such as previous purchases, demographics, interests, and company interactions can allow you to show customers ads for the products they’re most likely to purchase.
Most marketing professionals agree that personalization leads to increased conversion rates.
Customers are more likely to engage with customized ads and complete sales or other conversions from those ads. McKinsey Digital’s findings suggest that companies can boost revenue by up to 15% by implementing personalized marketing.
Personalized marketing campaigns are effective for both B2C and B2B brands. In either sector, personalizing your marketing messages will help you connect with customers, improve engagement, and drive conversions.
There are many different ways to implement a personalized marketing strategy. Here are a few examples you can use as inspiration.
Targeted email messages are some of the best examples of personalized marketing because they’re so adaptable. Something as simple as customizing each email subject line with the customer’s name rather than a generic greeting can make a big difference.
You can implement customization in many other ways in emails, too. For example, you can send custom offers, cart abandonment emails, or unique product recommendations in your personalized email messages.
Rather than promoting the same products to every customer regardless of their interests, why not tailor your recommendations to each person? Personalized product recommendations are more relevant and thus more likely to engage customers.
Every customer has different interests, needs, and purchase histories, so it makes sense to customize your recommendations for each person.
Integrate your customer data with your marketing efforts to provide relevant, personal recommendations for each customer.
You can also personalize your marketing campaigns on social media. For example, you can create ad campaigns showing sponsored messages and target them to customers with items waiting in their carts. This kind of personalized message is better equipped to catch social media users’ attention than generic ads and may prompt them to complete their purchases.
Any marketing strategy has challenges, personalized marketing included. The right approach, however, can help you overcome them.
Be aware of the following potential problems ahead of time so you’re equipped to deal with them effectively if they come up.
The only way to customize your marketing efforts is to collect and store data about customers and website visitors. The more data you have access to, the better you can customize your ads.
However, you must be mindful of data privacy regulations, such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California’s Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). You also need to ensure that your approach to data collection and use doesn’t violate customers’ trust.
The key to managing these concerns and regulations is getting approval from customers before collecting and using their data. Being as transparent as possible helps you to stay compliant and build trust with your customers. According to Business Wire, most people are willing to share their data with brands for personalized interactions and incentives, so don’t hesitate to ask.
Having access to more data will improve your personalization efforts, but it will also make data analytics and customer segmentation more difficult. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the quantity of data you’re working with.
The solution is to integrate your data collection and analysis with your marketing platforms. To do so, you’ll need the right tools. That means using powerful customer relationship management (CRM) software and staying on top of all the latest developments in marketing tech.
Marketing automation tools pair well with personalization, so be sure to use both.
In recent years, marketers have placed a growing emphasis on marketing personalization. The current trend is toward implementing customization across multiple channels like email marketing, social, and search.
The following are some statistics that highlight the value of personalized marketing:
Going forward, expect to see brands put even more emphasis on personalization as a way to stand out. There will probably be more focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to make these customization efforts easier.
You may also notice brands adjusting their privacy policies in light of new data privacy regulations affecting customized marketing.
When you’re ready to dive in, follow these steps to implement your own personalized marketing efforts.
Your first step is deciding what kind of strategy you want to use. Do you want to personalize email marketing campaigns, social media marketing, search engine ads, or some combination of these marketing channels? Reviewing customer data about where and how most customers interact with your brand can help you decide.
You should also set clear goals for your marketing personalization efforts. Personalization geared toward improving brand loyalty will look different from strategies focused on bringing in new customers.
Next, you need to identify your target audiences and segment them.
Think about who your target customers are, what they need, and what interests them. Once you understand your target audiences, you can begin segmenting them into smaller groups with shared characteristics. Some of these categories might include:
The third step is to develop tailored campaigns based on these segmented customer personas.
For example, you might create messages specifically for customers above 40 years old in the high-income bracket promoting your more expensive range of products. Alternatively, you could offer coupons or limited-time deals to people who left items in their carts.
There is no limit to the different customer personas and customized messages you can create.
Instead of trying to manually manage all this data and information, rely on technology to aid your personalization efforts.
There are lots of personalized marketing tools and platforms available to help you. These are just a few you’ll want in your toolkit:
Choose marketing software that integrates with your existing tools, like your CRM software and any data analysis platforms you use. Customer data platforms (CDPs) and data management systems can help you organize all the data you collect. That way, you’ll know your data is secure and accessible for your customization efforts.
Starting personalized marketing may seem intimidating, but it’s more doable than it sounds. Apply traditional marketing logic to this more modern marketing approach.
The traditional four Ps of marketing are place, product, price, and promotion. All four also apply to personalization. You need a couple of things to successfully personalize your marketing messages:
When launching a personalized marketing campaign, focus on promotion. Think of your personalized messages as a one-on-one conversation to persuade the customer to buy your product or service.
Don’t worry if you don’t get your personalized ads right immediately. A/B testing your ads will help you determine which messages work best.
You can send out two similar yet slightly different ads to limited audiences and see how they respond to them both. A/B testing is a great way to continually refine your personalization efforts throughout a campaign.
After your personalized marketing campaigns are underway, you need a way to make sure they’re doing well. Be sure to collect data on every part of the campaign and keep an eye on these key performance indicators:
In personalized email marketing, specifically, you also have to consider metrics like the open rate, deliverability rate, and unsubscribe rate. Choose your metrics based on the marketing channels you’re using, and track how these metrics change over time.
Read now: Email Marketing Metrics: Measuring Success Beyond Open Rate
Personalized marketing is an essential strategy for connecting with customers and driving conversions. Customers expect personalization, so utilizing this strategy will deliver the best customer experience possible. Implement personalized marketing across channels like email marketing, social media, SMS, search, and more.
Continue to explore new personalization opportunities and strategies as they arise. New customer data and personalization tools may open up new avenues for providing tailored marketing experiences.
Marketing campaigns are as varied as the brands that use them. Whether you’re using email digital marketing, search engine marketing, or some other marketing channel, successful campaigns have some essential traits in common. Once you understand the process of planning and developing impactful campaigns, you’ll be ready to launch your own.
Here’s a breakdown of how to create a marketing campaign for a product or service that will deliver results for your business.
A marketing campaign is a strategic, organized effort to promote your brand. Your campaign typically includes several steps and activities geared toward various promotional goals. Some examples of marketing goals for campaigns include:
Your campaign’s style and structure will differ depending on the goals you want to achieve, but all campaigns have some key factors in common. You may wonder, what are the five essential parts of a marketing campaign? They are:
In the past, marketers relied on channels like television, radio, and print to run their campaigns. Today, brands can still use traditional marketing channels, but they also have many digital marketing options available. Email marketing campaigns, for example, are increasingly popular thanks to their high ROI.
So, how do you start a marketing campaign? Before you launch your marketing campaign, you need to establish some foundational details, such as your goals and budget.
Your goals will guide your campaign’s strategy. A campaign geared toward attracting new customers will look very different from one aiming to increase customer loyalty.
Think about exactly what you want to achieve through your campaign. What difference do you hope this campaign will make to your business? List these goals and make sure they meet the SMART framework — goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.
Determine which KPIs will help you measure your campaign’s success toward these goals. For example, if your goal is to increase conversions, select metrics like your click-through rate (CTR), conversions, and sales to track during your campaign.
Marketing campaigns must address a clearly defined target audience. Who are your brand’s ideal customers? What traits do they share?
Answering these questions will help you narrow down your target audience. Keep in mind that different campaigns can have different target audiences. In one campaign, you may target previous customers who haven’t made a purchase recently. In another, you could target consumers who have never purchased from your brand.
Whatever your target audience, it’s essential to consider their unique needs. Put yourself in their shoes and think about what matters most to them. Determining your audience and their needs will ensure your campaign connects with your target customers.
At its core, a marketing campaign is a message from your brand to your target consumers. You must create a compelling message addressing your customers’ needs and concerns.
Consider the main problem that your product or service can solve. Why should customers choose your brand over competitors? That’s the question your value proposition needs to answer.
Once you’ve established your goals, target audience, and value proposition, you can move on to specific campaign development. How do you structure a marketing campaign? The next step is selecting the marketing channels you’ll use.
Brands have many different marketing channels to deliver their campaigns. You must decide early on what channel or channels to use because your selection will significantly impact the structure of your campaign.
If you’re wondering how to create an email marketing campaign, for instance, you’ll need to learn how to create content optimized for email. On the other hand, if you’re wondering how to create a successful influencer marketing campaign, you’ll need to follow a different set of best practices for your content.
Use your knowledge of your target audience and your goals to select the best channel for your campaign. Go where your target audience is most likely to see and engage with your campaign message.
Every marketing campaign operates over a set timeline. Part of how to create a digital marketing campaign is deciding how long you want your campaign to run.
Your timeline will depend on your budget, campaign type, and goals. Remember that a short yet highly impactful campaign can be as useful as a longer, more subtle campaign.
Marketing campaigns are a team effort, and everyone needs to understand their role. Some roles you may need to assign include:
Make sure each team member knows what you expect so they can contribute their best to the campaign.
By now, you’ve learned almost all the key parts of how to create a successful marketing campaign. All that’s left to do is implement your marketing campaign and analyze your results.
If you’re running a digital campaign, go into your campaign platform and click launch. Your campaign will go into effect immediately unless you specify a different timeline.
After launching your campaign, there’s still more to do. Your next step is to continually assess and improve the campaign based on the data you track.
Start monitoring and analyzing your campaign data as soon as you launch. Your KPIs can tell you a host of information about how successful your campaign is and what adjustments need to be made. Depending on the marketing channel you’re using, there are different ways to access this data.
For example, if you use a video marketing strategy on social media, you should have access to a campaign dashboard on the platform. These dashboards contain key metrics about your campaign that update regularly. Similarly, Google provides an analytics platform when you run ads through their search network.
Consider using additional data monitoring and analysis tools for even deeper insights into your campaigns. The more data you have, the better equipped you’ll be to make strategic decisions about your campaign.
In some cases, customers may provide feedback about your campaign. Be receptive to this feedback and consider making adjustments if common issues or themes emerge.
Your campaign strategy should always be flexible enough to adjust if necessary. Be open to learning more about what works and what doesn’t. Making changes when something isn’t working will help you get more out of your campaigns. Plus, digital campaigns offer excellent flexibility, so you can make adjustments if needed.
Examining marketing campaign examples may help inspire you for your own campaigns. Here are some excellent campaigns to learn from.
Coca-Cola used the power of social media to promote its soda in the successful “Share a Coke” campaign. The brand released special Coke bottles with people’s names on them and encouraged customers to post pictures when they found their own names.
Another campaign that garnered a lot of attention was Always’ “Like a Girl” campaign. Always promoted a series of commercials in which girls from diverse backgrounds discussed what “like a girl” means. The videos went viral on YouTube with the hashtag #likeagirl and encouraged consumer engagement.
To promote the new iPhone by highlighting its advanced camera features, Apple launched the “Shot on iPhone” marketing campaign. The brand encouraged iPhone users to share videos and images they took with their iPhones using the hashtag #shotoniphone. Millions of people shared content, and Apple promoted the best images on billboards with the simple caption “Shot on iPhone.”
These campaigns share a key feature in common — they inspire a response from viewers. Coca-Cola, Always, and Apple directly encouraged consumers to post their own connections or responses to the campaigns on social media, which fuels organic growth.
When possible, create thought-provoking, original campaigns. They’re more likely to stick out to your target audience. If you can persuade audiences to engage further with the ads, such as by posting on social media, that’s even better. The best thing your campaign can be is memorable and impactful. Keep that in mind when you’re developing your marketing campaign strategy.
Managing a marketing campaign manually is tricky, even for the best teams. Instead, rely on useful tools and resources to help you run your campaigns. Try these options:
Email marketing tools like Constant Contact help brands manage their email campaigns. The software includes an AI content generation feature that writes email messages and subject lines for you with just a few keywords. You can also access hundreds of pre-designed, drag-and-drop templates to ensure your promotional emails are organized and striking. Once you launch your campaign, track the results with an analytics dashboard full of real-time KPIs.
Plenty of tools also help you create content, develop pay-per-click (PPC) ads, and run search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns. If you plan on using any of these channels, compare the different available tools to see if any would be useful.
Even if you have a limited budget, there are still tools you can use. Plenty of free marketing tools are available online, and many advanced marketing software options offer limited free trials.
You may have to test a few different software options before you find the ones that work best for your team. Look for tools that integrate well with any existing marketing software you use. These tools should make running your campaigns easier, not more complicated.
Some organizations may also benefit from exploring in-person campaign channels like direct mail and events. For direct mail, there are tools to help you design your mailers, update your mailing list, and track deliveries. Promotional events are very different from one brand to the next, but many digital tools are available to help you plan and promote your event and communicate with invitees.
Be open to trying different campaign channels and finding tools or software to help. You may find unexpected promotional opportunities across new channels.
Market engagement tools like Marketo Engage can help you track customer interactions with your campaigns.
Be aware that ongoing marketing efforts may require you to offer increased customer support. If your campaign brings in new customers, you may have an influx of people with questions or concerns you must address. Ensure your customer support team has enough bandwidth for increased customer demand.
Any team can plan and execute a successful marketing campaign as long as they follow the right steps. Make sure you set campaign goals, define your target audience, and develop promotional content that speaks to their needs. Once your campaign is up and running, track KPIs to evaluate your success.
If your first campaign doesn’t produce the results you were hoping for, don’t worry. Learn from each campaign and apply those lessons to the next one you run. Rely on helpful marketing software like Constant Contact to get even more out of your campaigns. CTA: Download our ebook “How Top Executives Choose the Right Marketing Platform” today to learn more about what software works best for your business.
Donations form the backbone of most nonprofit organizations. They make it easier for nonprofits to sustain operations and fulfill their mission. That’s where virtual fundraising events can help. By providing interested donors with virtual event options, nonprofits can solicit donations from businesses and consumers anytime and anywhere.
Virtual fundraising has several benefits, such as reduced overhead costs, expanded audience reach, and high flexibility. However, you will only see the results you’re looking for if you plan an exciting virtual event that people want to join. That’s why we’ve put together this guide on how to do a virtual fundraising event, complete with a ton of ideas to get you started.
Virtual fundraising involves soliciting online donations from community supporters. The money raised can support various organizations, such as nonprofits.
Hosting a virtual fundraising event for your nonprofit organization can be relatively easy. Start by brainstorming unique ideas that will attract supporters. Plan out the logistics of your event and promote it in your community. Then, ensure you have the appropriate tools to collect donations and manage participant information. You can also solicit sponsorship for your event for a little extra fundraising boost. Learn more on all of this below.
You want to plan something memorable to make the most of your next virtual fundraising event. Use these ideas for inspiration, and watch engagement escalate to new heights!
A Giving Day is designated for volunteers and followers to donate time or money to their favorite nonprofit. On Giving Day, you reiterate your nonprofit’s mission and how it helps support a cause. You can highlight your organization’s recent achievements and how you hope to use donations you receive for future goals.
Make sure to spread the word through all your marketing channels. People need to know about your Giving Day to support it!
A virtual challenge encourages your followers to complete an activity over a set timeframe. Ideally, you’ll tie the challenge into your nonprofit’s mission. For instance, if you run a nonprofit focused on environmental sustainability, you might challenge people to generate zero plastic waste for a day and reward participants with a unique gift.
Virtual challenges are a great way to showcase your nonprofit’s objective. Plus, they’re lots of fun to participate in! You can even tailor them for the season when you’re holding them.
Only some events have to revolve around soliciting donations. Sometimes, you will want to build awareness in your community and attract new supporters. An awareness campaign can help you reach your goals. Consider leveraging social media or video platforms to showcase your nonprofit volunteers in action. When people understand what you’re working toward, they may join in to help you achieve it!
Traditional galas are typically held at night and include entertainment and activities for nonprofit supporters. However, you can increase engagement by offering a virtual option to people who can’t attend in person or save money by holding the gala entirely online. To do so, use streaming software to record and transmit the event, including presentations, entertainment, and raffles. You can solicit donations from people who tune in.
A virtual walk or run is a fantastic way to boost supporter engagement and raise money for your nonprofit. Set a goal, like walking or running a 5K, and ask people to sign up. They can decide where to participate and ask for donations from family, friends, and colleagues. On the event day, you can provide awards to high-performing participants.
A mission-driven nonprofit can stimulate conversation and interest by holding a discussion or roundtable event. Consider requesting knowledgeable outside experts like journalists, university professors, and corporate executives to share their thoughts about topics relating to your nonprofit. Participants can use the opportunity to learn more about pressing issues and ask questions.
Hosting a virtual class can improve engagement among your supporters. Think about what your followers could learn from your organization, or ask someone to volunteer to lead a course that covers an interesting topic. For instance, a nonprofit focused on environmental concerns might host a class on climate change or sustainable food systems.
A virtual happy hour is a great way to inspire community among your backers — especially if they don’t live close enough to participate in a local event. Encourage everyone to join with their favorite tipple or mocktail, and include engaging activities to boost enthusiasm. For instance, you might host a few online games or include breakaway sessions for small groups to meet.
Some nonprofits find that virtual artistic activities like painting attract lots of participation from their backers. Consider holding a paint-and-sip event, where everyone works on their creation while enjoying a glass of wine. During the event, you can host discussions on topics important to your nonprofit or let the participants get to know one another.
During a virtual movie night, participants all watch the same movie simultaneously. You can stream it so everyone has access, and afterward, you can discuss what happened and what you liked about the film. You can charge attendees a small fee to join, which you can put toward fundraising goals.
Do you have a few book lovers among your audience? Consider hosting a monthly virtual book club where everyone reads the same book and then gets together to discuss it. You can alternate between classics that most people will like and books that align with your nonprofit’s vision. Reading about topics related to your nonprofit helps motivate supporters to work toward your goals.
You can extend the longevity of nonprofit fundraising events by holding them more frequently. Consider hosting these virtual fundraisers any time during the year.
Peer-to-peer fundraising helps nonprofits expand their reach by leveraging supporters to request donations from friends, family, and colleagues. You can use peer-to-peer fundraising for activities like charitable walks or runs or to expand awareness of your nonprofit. Ask your supporters to solicit donations via social media, email, or other channels, and recognize those participating.
A raffle or penny social is an excellent way to boost engagement. Choose a few items to auction off and sell digital raffle tickets to your followers. If you don’t have any items to auction, see if any local businesses would be interested in donating a few to your cause. Your supporters will enjoy the chance to win something, and your nonprofit can keep the fundraising revenues to support its goals.
Selling merchandise that reflects your nonprofit’s name and values is a great way to increase visibility in your community. And, best of all, you don’t need to invest in lots of inventory to make it successful. Design your merchandise using a tool like Canva, then create an online store to sell products on demand. Your nonprofit will receive a commission for each item ordered.
There are many fun ways to engage supporters through social media, including contests. Create a contest that relates to your nonprofit’s vision and is easy to participate in. Use hashtags to track entries and award the winner a special prize.
Do the beneficiaries of your nonprofit work need some specific items? Ask your supporters to provide them with an online wishlist drive. Select items from an e-commerce site, then share the wishlist with your followers. They can purchase the items and deliver them directly to your nonprofit, and you can distribute them to those in need.
A pledge drive encourages supporters to commit to making a donation, which you’ll collect at a later date. You can hold pledge drives throughout the year and encourage backers to provide contact information so you can follow up with them when it’s time for recurring donations.
Hosting a virtual fundraising event requires planning, just like an in-person event. However, it isn’t usually as logistically intensive since you won’t need to book a location, hire a caterer, or hang decorations.
If your virtual event includes an auction, you’ll want to take a few extra steps to make it a success. First, decide on a team to plan and organize the event. You’ll need a staff member to seek donations from local businesses, a marketing professional to advertise the event, and an emcee to host.
Your next step is setting minimum prices for each item. You don’t want to price them too low, but pricing too high may decrease the number of bids you receive. Try to strike a balance and target your fundraising objectives for each item.
Investing in auction software to showcase the available items and streamline the bidding process is a good idea. That way, your attendees will have a smooth and enjoyable experience and hopefully sign up for the next one.
You can coordinate most virtual fundraisers using special software. Some of the best virtual fundraising event platforms include Zoom and Webex Events. Some live streaming tools include functionality for audience participation so your supporters can ask questions at the end of a session.
Other software tools that can significantly aid your fundraising efforts include customer relationship management (CRM) systems and email and social media marketing tools. Our tools include options to manage your supporter list, send virtual fundraising event invitations, and measure results.
As you brainstorm ideas for your next virtual funding event, keep these tips in mind:
When promoting a virtual event, use stories to captivate your audience and encourage them to join. You can share uplifting stories of people positively impacted by your nonprofit to motivate people to donate. For instance, if your nonprofit helps secure shelter for homeless people, you might interview a past beneficiary and share the story through video or social media.
Privacy is essential, and you want to protect trust in your nonprofit by sharing donor contact information and obtaining their consent. Protect all participant information, including names, addresses, and financial details.
Many nonprofits utilize online fundraising events to further their mission or attract donations. Here are a few examples.
PETA uses peer-to-peer virtual fundraisers to solicit donations for animal causes. In this example, a supporter solicits donations to fund the cost of building a doghouse for unsheltered backyard dogs.
CURE Epilepsy hosted a gala that included entertainment, research updates, and community stories to support efforts toward curing epilepsy.
The American Cancer Society uses virtual challenges to raise money and encourage healthy living among its supporters.
Holding virtual fundraisers is a great way to build community awareness and solicit funds from supporters. To get started, decide what type of event best suits your nonprofit and plan it out. Once you’re ready, you can share the event with supporters via your communication channels, including email and social media.
Constant Contact can help you run successful virtual events with our digital marketing tools designed to engage your audience and make your life easier. Try it for 14 days free and download our Omni-channel events guide for more tips!
Picture this: you’ve got a stellar business idea and are eager to put it into action. However, you don’t have a staff (yet), and time is limited. How will you manage business operations while managing all your marketing channels? The answer: marketing tools designed for small businesses.
The best marketing tools for small businesses can save you time and money. They can streamline your marketing processes and help you manage customer relationships. There is a broad range of available marketing tools, including full-service digital marketing platforms, email, and social media management tools.
Read on to learn more about how to evaluate your current marketing processes to determine where the appropriate tools can fill the gaps.
What are tools in marketing? Marketing tools fall into six basic categories. Some assist with messaging strategy and content creation, while others help manage marketing campaigns or customer relationships. Whether you are on the cusp of starting a business or already running one, you can choose the best tools to support your organization.
Customer relationship management (CRM) tools strategically manage client relations. You can use them to input information about your customers, like their contact details, purchase history, demographics, and interests. Some CRMs track customer interactions, so you know where each customer is in the buying journey and the channels they communicate with you the most.
Businesses that run multiple marketing campaigns at once or have a variety of products to sell — like e-commerce stores — can benefit from project management tools. With a project management tool, you can monitor your marketing campaigns simultaneously and track outcomes. Communication tools can help your teams stay on top of goals and interact with one another, even when working in different offices or remotely.
If your brand uses social media platforms for marketing, social media marketing tools for small businesses can help monitor your accounts. You can use them to schedule posts in advance, track engagement, and integrate messages into one channel.
Email marketing tools are ideal for companies that use email for marketing purposes. They can help you manage your subscriber list, schedule and automate communications, and track campaign performance. Most tools include ready-made templates that are useful for designing emails.
These tools help you create materials to put in front of your audiences and draw them to your brand. They help create everything from social media posts to more long-form content and can be great if you need help brainstorming ideas.
If you rely on your business website to capture new customers (and most companies do), you want people to find it. Incorporating search engine optimization (SEO) practices helps search engines analyze and rank your website in search results. SEO and analytics tools can streamline your efforts and monitor client website engagement.
You may be wondering: What tools do I need to start a small business?
There are a few must-have marketing tools that pretty much any organization can benefit from. Some are entirely free — like Google Analytics — while others require some initial investment. Remember that paid tools typically offer more features than free ones, so you’ll want to determine your business needs and compare options.
Here are some of the top online marketing tools for small businesses.
SEO tools enhance your organization’s online visibility in search engines, helping to attract more visitors to your website. Here are a few top products to consider.
Email marketing tools for small businesses help manage subscriber lists, create automated email funnels, and monitor client engagement.
When you have many clients, it’s easy to lose track of where they are in the buying journey. CRMs help you stay on top of customer relationships. A CRM can monitor each client interaction with your organization so you can determine which marketing resources to use when closing a sale. Plus, it’s great for tracking customer contact details and interests.
Here are some of the best CRM digital marketing tools for small businesses.
With so many options available, it can be a challenge to determine which marketing tools are best for your business. You don’t want to overinvest and break your marketing budget, but you don’t want to miss out on sales simply because you don’t have the right strategies and software.
To make an informed decision, first identify your marketing needs. Where can tools help you connect with customers and share your marketing message? Are there any time-consuming tasks that can benefit from automation? What marketing channels are you currently using? Are you an experienced digital marketer, or is it new to you?
Let’s consider an example. Say you’ve been asking yourself, “How do I market my small business like a pro?” If you run an e-commerce store, email and social media are likely your primary marketing channels. In that case, you’d likely benefit from SEO tools to optimize your website’s content and a social media and email marketing tool to connect with customers. You could evaluate the options by price and features and select the ones that best fit your organization’s needs.
Some marketing tools offer overlapping features or integrate with tools you use frequently. Of course, you don’t want to pay for multiple tools that perform the same functions.
Make a point to carefully evaluate all the features of the marketing tools to eliminate any product overlaps. For instance, if your CRM contains all the email marketing features you need, purchasing separate email marketing software is probably unnecessary.
To newbies, online marketing can seem overwhelming. After all, there’s a lot to learn — from optimizing your website to designing an effective customer funnel. Fortunately, there are lots of resources that can help you get up to speed and use the marketing tools available effectively.
You can consider signing up for a digital marketing course at your local community college or university or reading books written by experienced digital marketers.
You can also leverage free online tools to learn the ins and outs of online marketing.
Constant Contact offers several comprehensive articles that cover the essentials of online marketing:
What is the most successful marketing tool for small businesses? Small businesses don’t have to rely entirely on social media and email marketing to attract customer attention. Other tactics, like Small Business Saturday, event marketing, and video content creation, can grow your client base.
Organizations with a physical or online storefront can use Small Business Saturday to draw in customers. It occurs every Saturday following Thanksgiving every year and encourages consumers to shop at their local retailer rather than big box stores. You can advertise special deals on Small Business Saturday, which may attract more sales and increase revenue.
Holding special events like webinars or participating in popups, expos, and other customer-facing activities can help you build an audience and establish credibility in your market. Similarly, video content creation can get your brand in front of your target audience.
Technology is constantly evolving — and so are the tools you may use in your marketing toolkit.
Many small business owners are leveraging AI to do some of the work for them and aid with tasks like identifying topics to write about for SEO, generating content ideas, and more. AI and automation are two newer and rapidly evolving features that can substantially benefit your business, saving you time and optimizing growth opportunities. Consider looking for tools that include those features in their platforms.
Today’s tools make effective marketing accessible to everyone — not just big brands with huge advertising budgets. You can invest in a few platforms and reap the benefits of professional marketing materials, including emails, social media, your website, and beyond. Many free marketing tools for small businesses make it easy to try different options, develop your skills, and perfect your campaigns.
Stay on top of the latest trends that can add value to your organization as marketing evolves, and watch your audience and bottom line grow.
Every time you attract a new customer, it’s a win for your organization. However, keeping customers long-term is even better. Your loyal customers are likelier to purchase more frequently from you, increasing their lifetime value.
Companies focusing on customer retention rather than constantly chasing new clients can build a devoted audience that brings in consistent sales. A single happy customer might buy from you multiple times a year, whereas a new client might purchase once and then forget all about your organization.
In this article, we’ll discuss the aspects of a solid customer retention strategy, how to build one, and the three R’s of marketing — retention, refinement, and relationship.
Chances are you have a few brands you like to purchase from. Maybe you’re a dedicated Nike fan or drink Diet Coke regularly. Whatever your favorites are, you know you’ll buy from them when needed. You’re a loyal customer, and your purchases are a part of your favorite brand’s regular income stream.
When you try to retain customers, you’ll see steadily increasing revenues. Boosting customer retention by just 5% can enhance profits anywhere from 25 to 95%. And you’ll find it much easier to make sales to existing customers, the probability of which increases by 60 to 70%.
You can categorize your customer retention marketing strategies into four phases.
How do you know whether your customer retention efforts are working? By measuring them! Here are a few metrics that can help you analyze customer retention.
The formula to calculate the customer retention rate (CRR) is pretty straightforward:
CRR = ((Customers at end of the period – New customers during the period) / Total customers at the start of period) x 100
So, say you start the quarter with 500 clients. By the end of the quarter, you have 750 customers and acquire 400 new ones. Your CRR is 70%, or ((750 – 400) / 500) x 100.
Customer churn rate and lifetime value are other metrics that help evaluate e-commerce customer retention strategies.
The churn rate is the percentage of people who stop buying from you during a period. It’s frequently used in subscription businesses, where subscribers pay a set fee over specific periods.
Lifetime value estimates how much a customer will spend with your brand over time. For example, a repeat buyer who likes your restaurant’s pizza might make it a bi-weekly household staple. Over a year, they might spend $650, or $25 every two weeks, on a pizza.
Purchase frequency refers to the average number of times a client buys from you during a specific timeframe. Repeat customer rates indicate how many clients purchase from you after their initial investment. Understanding both is essential to estimating customer retention rate, lifetime value, and churn. The higher your purchase frequency and repeat customer rates, the stronger your customer retention rate will be.
Since high customer retention can dramatically impact revenues, implementing a few strategies to improve your retention rate is vital. Here are a few options to consider.
Clients want to feel appreciated and valued. Providing robust customer service demonstrates your commitment to their needs. Make it easy for customers to contact you when they have an inquiry. Provide a few channels they can use to request help, such as a dedicated phone line, website chatbot, and email. If you have a physical storefront, train your employees to respond effectively to onsite customer service issues.
Whenever you communicate with a client, go above and beyond to personalize your interactions and provide top-notch service. One-on-one communications, such as emails, SMS, phone calls, and onsite discussions, should be tailored to meet specific client needs and interests. For example, you can segment your marketing emails to target different customer groups or refer to a client’s past purchases in an SMS text.
A referral program encourages clients to recommend your brand to their colleagues, friends, family members, and others who may need your products. Customers who participate earn incentives, like free products or services, discounts, or other rewards. Implementing a referral program can boost your sales and customer retention rates since clients know their recommendations will bring value to them.
When you have a loyal audience, they’ll pay attention to your ads, promotions, and content. Your customers will engage with your brand by visiting your website, following your social media posts, and taking action on other marketing materials.
Once a customer buys from you, follow up with them about their experience. Ask for feedback about your products, customer service, and purchase process. If clients mention anything they don’t like, work to resolve the issue so future customers have a positive experience.
Some companies find they can improve customer retention by adopting a subscription-based business model. Under a subscription model, clients can access your products or services by paying a regular fee, typically monthly or quarterly. Subscription models can substantially increase customer retention since clients only receive products if they continuously pay for them.
If a subscription model isn’t a suitable fit for your business, consider implementing a loyalty program that rewards customers for their purchases. For instance, you might offer clients a discount on future purchases based on the loyalty points they accrue with you.
Any time someone shops with your brand, give them an end-to-end experience they’ll want to share with others. If people shop with you online, ensure your website is easy to navigate, the purchase process is seamless, and you have helpful customer support tools. Onsite businesses should provide a clean and orderly storefront and pleasant customer service reps.
Customers with a satisfying shopping experience are 72% more likely to tell others about it.
Find ways to go above and beyond to meet your client’s needs. Today’s customers expect only the best from the brands they purchase from and are quick to note if your products or services don’t deliver. From your first interaction with a client to the time following their purchase, give them a unique experience that will keep them returning for more.
Customer retention requires more than effective marketing and customer service initiatives. For optimal results, incorporate your customer retention efforts into all aspects of your business operations.
When a new client expresses an interest in your brand, encourage them to sign up for your email marketing and SMS texts. You can invite customers to follow your social media channels and direct mailing lists. Use your marketing platforms to educate clients about your products and services or provide relevant content that fits their interests.
Regularly reminding clients what your brand offers ensures they don’t forget about you. Maintain consistent marketing strategies that cement your company’s name among your following. Send out retention emails and SMS texts steadily (but not overwhelmingly!) and keep your social media channels active.
As you implement customer retention strategies, establish key performance indicators (KPIs). Metrics such as customer retention rate, churn, lifetime value, and repeat purchase rate evaluate client satisfaction and retention. Set benchmarks for your target retention objectives and work to meet them. If you fall short of your goals, look for ways to improve your retention strategies.
There are several brands known for their highly effective B2B SaaS customer retention strategies. Take a look at these customer retention strategies examples.
Amazon is known for its easy-to-navigate website that offers millions of products, including household items, books, clothing, and electronics. Customers who create an Amazon account receive personalized shopping recommendations based on their prior purchase history. The brand also offers regular sales for subscribing members, such as Prime Day. Clients can purchase items using their one-click checkout without reentering their billing or delivery details. Some products are available with same-day or next-day delivery services.
Zappos uses several strategies to improve customer retention. First, the company knows ordering shoes online without trying them on can be tricky. It therefore provides a size assessment for every shoe it sells, which tells clients whether shoes are true to size or not. Zappos also offers free shipping and returns on all purchases.
Dollar Shave Club is famous for its inexpensive razors and blades with custom-fit options. The brand offers one-time purchase or subscription options, including regular razor delivery according to the client’s preferences. Dollar Shave Club’s convenience and subscription offerings result in high customer retention rates.
Incorporate these tips into your marketing strategy to maximize your customer retention efforts.
Client interests and needs form the backbone of the best customer retention strategies. Consider the motivating factors that encourage a client to purchase from you and what they most want from your business. For instance, if you sell clothing online, your customers might be more willing to buy if they know they can exchange or return items that don’t fit properly. Offering a free return and exchange policy might make attracting and retaining clients easier.
Customers won’t stick with you long-term if your brand’s products and services lack value. Focus on providing quality products and services that customers benefit from. To keep them coming back, ask for feedback about their experience and use their comments to refine your offerings. Doing so can help build trust with new and established clients.
Any time you interact with your customers via email or SMS, try to incorporate some personalization so they feel you’re genuinely trying to connect with them. Some elements you might include are their name or location. If they’ve previously purchased from you, include recommendations for products or services they might like or a reminder to schedule their next appointment.
Leveraging technology can seriously boost your retention efforts. Some tech options that can help include:
Constant Contact offers robust solutions to aid customer retention strategies, including email and SMS marketing tools, in addition to a CRM option for managing client interactions.
Developing a comprehensive customer retention strategy early on is vital to building a solid revenue base. Understand what motivates your customers to purchase from you and align your plan to meet their needs. As you implement your strategies, set KPIs to measure your performance. To learn more about customer retention, check out our guide to 5 Effective Ways to Reward Loyal Customers.
Countless worthy causes need support. Maybe you’re passionate about rescuing animals or helping children get school supplies. Or perhaps you’re ready to tackle climate change, poverty, and other significant challenges. No matter your cause, starting a nonprofit is a great way to make a difference.
Launching a nonprofit can be highly rewarding and impactful. These organizations address significant issues and strive to improve the lives of others. They also raise awareness and inspire more people to take up their causes. But it’s normal to feel intimidated if you don’t know how to start a nonprofit organization.
In many ways, founding a nonprofit is like starting a company. You’ll need the right strategy, marketing tools, and team to achieve your goals. This simple guide will help you turn your vision into reality and drive change.
A nonprofit is a tax-exempt organization that benefits the public and improves society. Unlike a business, a nonprofit doesn’t share its earnings with private individuals or shareholders. Instead, it invests all its resources into the organization to support the cause.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) oversees nonprofits in the U.S. Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code outlines the legal requirements for these organizations. According to these rules, nonprofits must:
Nonprofits that qualify as 501(c)(3) organizations don’t have to pay taxes on donations and other income. Donors also receive tax deductions, incentivizing their support.
There are many types of nonprofit organizations, including:
These groups serve diverse causes and communities. They play vital roles in addressing environmental and social issues worldwide.
Launching a nonprofit organization has many financial and social advantages.
Tax-exempt organizations can use the money they save to support their cause. For example, you could buy more supplies or expand your programs to reach more people. Donors can also receive tax deductions for their charitable contributions. This incentive may attract more supporters and help your organization grow.
Your nonprofit organization could also qualify for public and private grants. Grants.gov lists over 2,000 federal grants for various causes. Many private foundations also offer grants for nonprofits. This funding can support programs and projects related to your cause.
Starting a nonprofit organization also boosts your credibility. It proves you’re committed to your cause and willing to invest resources. This process also shows that you care about transparency and accountability. As a result, the public is more likely to view your organization as legitimate and worthy of support.
While starting a nonprofit has many benefits, there are always obstacles to be aware of.
These organizations require significant energy, time, and other resources. You may need to work for many hours before you see an impact. You may find this effort fulfilling if you’re passionate about your cause.
Nonprofits also face fierce competition. Today, the U.S. has over 1.5 million nonprofit organizations. Many groups struggle to stand out in this crowded landscape and earn enough revenue. You can overcome this challenge by developing a unique brand and marketing strategy.
If you’re interested in creating a nonprofit, you probably already have a few great causes in mind. Follow these steps to lay the groundwork for your organization.
Start your nonprofit journey with a needs assessment. This tool helps you identify and measure the needs and goals of your target population. That way, you can fill gaps in existing services and create tailored programs.
A needs assessment involves these steps:
This process can help you determine if there’s an actual need for your nonprofit. For example, say you want to create an organization that trains service dogs for veterans. A needs assessment may reveal that local veterans are in need of mental health counseling instead. You could identify a different target audience that wants service dogs or adapt your plan to meet the veterans’ needs.
Every nonprofit organization needs financial support from donors. Conduct a market analysis to identify potential supporters and funding sources. This process involves gathering data to learn about your target market’s preferences.
For example, you can survey potential donors about their giving habits and charitable interests. You can also research public and private grants that align with your mission.
There are several types of nonprofit organizations with different structures and purposes. Common structures include:
The IRS provides more resources to learn about nonprofit structures and relevant regulations.
Every nonprofit organization needs a strong identity and message. Focus on these three areas to set yourself up for success.
Choosing the right name for your organization is essential. An effective nonprofit name relates to the organization’s mission and goals. It should also be unique and short so potential donors can easily remember it.
For example, Feeding America is a hunger relief organization. Its concise name reflects its central purpose: feeding people in need. The word “America” also shows that the nonprofit operates across the U.S.
A mission statement describes your nonprofit’s purpose and overarching strategy. Effective mission statements answer three questions:
Your mission statement should be clear and concise. Create one to two sentences that sum up your main goal and strategy.
Use mission statements from other nonprofits as inspiration. Here are three examples from well-known organizations:
These examples use dynamic verbs to explain their purpose and inspire readers to join their causes.
A distinct brand identity will help your nonprofit stand out from the crowd. It also boosts your reputation and raises awareness of your cause.
Effective nonprofit branding strategies include:
You won’t earn a profit from your charitable organizations, but you still need a business plan. This document outlines your purpose, goals, and key strategies. It’s a valuable tool to guide decision-making and communicate with stakeholders.
Follow these steps to create a solid business plan.
The executive summary introduces your organization. It should include:
Once you have completed a marketing analysis, it’s time to develop a marketing plan for your business. Your assessment will have help you to identify your audience and determine how to reach them. Use this information to help you develop a strategy and inform the types of marketing content that will work best to encourage engagement, donation, and support.
An impact plan explains how you’ll use your resources and programs to advance your cause. It also describes the outcomes you hope to achieve. This section can persuade donors to support your organization.
People often wonder, “How long does it take to start a nonprofit?” The answer depends on several factors.
Many nonprofits apply for tax-exempt status. The IRS estimates it takes around 100 hours to collect records for and prepare Form 1023. Once you submit this paperwork, you’ll need to wait several months for the IRS to process it.
Some organizations elect a board of directors. These members should include people with different areas of expertise related to your mission. They can create bylaws to govern the organization’s activities. This process can take a few weeks, depending on how many members you elect.
How much does it cost to start a nonprofit? The costs vary significantly but may include:
You may wonder how to start generating funds for your cause and to keep your nonprofit organization at the center of positive change. Consider applying for grants, hosting fundraisers, and asking for donations via social media, email, and in your locality.
You can start a nonprofit by yourself if you want to take on all the responsibilities. But many organizations recruit teams of experts and volunteers to share the workload. This collective effort can help you expand your impact and offer more services.
Aspiring leaders often wonder how to start a collective nonprofit. These strategies can help you build an all-star team:
The right software can help you manage your operations. Constant Contact’s digital marketing tools help you create content and reach supporters. The platform also integrates with fundraising tools to make it easy to collect donations.
Additionally, Constant Contact offers customer relationship management software. Use this tool to manage leads and collect donor information.
You can use many channels to promote your nonprofit and raise awareness of your cause. Here are a few popular marketing strategies:
It helps to create a content calendar to coordinate your marketing efforts across channels.
Starting a nonprofit is an exciting venture. To set yourself up for success, create a detailed road map. This plan helps you shape your organization’s future and achieve sustainable growth.
Once you’ve developed your plan, take the next step by joining fundraising movements. Campaigns like #GivingTuesday can help you connect with donors and promote your organization. You can also network with other nonprofit leaders and share valuable resources. These simple steps will allow you to maximize your impact and make a real difference.
Are you looking for an innovative, low-cost way to attract more customers to your brand? Or, are you a marketer interested in generating a new income stream? Digital affiliate marketing might be the solution you’re looking for.
Digital affiliate marketing connects brands with creators who work to promote a company’s products and services. With more people than ever looking to influencers and other online content creators for recommendations and lifestyle advice, affiliate marketing is a critical tool in any marketer’s kit.
Here’s what you need to know about affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing for digital products isn’t new. It’s been around for several decades, and Amazon is credited with introducing it in 1996 through its Associates Program.
Since then, further developments like cookies, which track an individual’s browsing history and activities, and additional affiliate networks have turned affiliate marketing into a $14.3 billion industry.
But what is affiliate marketing in digital marketing?
Essentially, affiliate marketing is a strategy where bloggers, social media influencers, and other creators work to promote a brand’s products or services to their audiences. They earn a commission from the brand every time a consumer takes a specific action.
The action might be signing up for an email list, downloading an app, visiting a website, or making a purchase. Typically, there is no guarantee of payment from the brand unless the creator delivers quantifiable results.
Affiliate marketing is a great way to get your brand in front of interested consumers without building an audience yourself. For creators, affiliate marketing is an opportunity to earn unlimited passive income.
There are three main types of affiliate marketing. Understanding each can help you decide which is right for you, whether you’re a creator or a brand.
Unattached affiliate marketing occurs when there is no connection between the brand and the creator. The creator isn’t familiar with the brand’s products or services and is simply trying to earn some extra cash.
Typically, unattached affiliate marketers run pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, hoping that consumers will click on a link and convert to customers.
In related affiliate marketing, a creator is an authority in a specific niche or industry. Brands seek to leverage the creator’s audience and authority by asking them to recommend their products or services, even if the creator hasn’t used them before.
Related affiliate marketing typically generates more income for creators, but it does pose a reputational risk if the brand’s products or services aren’t of high quality.
Involved affiliate marketing is a partnership between a brand and an influencer who firmly believes in the company’s products and services. The creator has a loyal following that trusts their recommendations and uses their influence to promote the company’s products and services.
Involved affiliates receive a commission on sales, clicks, or other conversions.
There are four parties involved in affiliate marketing.
Sometimes, affiliates and merchants partner directly with one another without the help of an affiliate network. However, affiliate networks provide a platform for affiliates and merchants to connect without lots of legwork.
There are several different affiliate marketing payment structures, and it’s important to know how each one works before striking up a new partnership.
Brand affiliates can use the earnings per click (EPC) metric to measure the average amount of money they make every time a customer clicks on their promotional links.
Affiliate marketing can offer major benefits to everyone involved.
By leveraging an affiliate’s expertise or influence, brands can save money and time. Plus, they’ll get the opportunity to get their products and services in front of an audience, which may lead to a revenue boost. Affiliate marketers, on the other hand, benefit from passive income generated through their recommendations or CPC strategies.
Whether you’re hoping to integrate affiliate marketing into your brand’s marketing strategy or you’re an online creator looking to get into becoming an affiliate, there are a few key steps you should take to get started.
There’s tremendous competition in affiliate marketing. As a new affiliate, you’ll have much better luck if you specialize in a topic you are passionate or knowledgeable about. Being seen as a reliable voice in your field is important, especially for related and involved affiliate marketing.
As a brand, you’ll want to look for creators whose audiences align with yours. Pet stores, for example, should look for popular accounts that post about their dogs. The more specific the niche, the more likely the affiliate’s followers are to give your business a try.
Once you define your niche and target audience, choose the most relevant e-commerce products to promote.
Affiliates should search for items or services that relate to their niche. For example, if your niche is fitness, you could promote exercise machines, running shoes, or personalized training services.
Brands, on the other hand, should decide which particular products or services to highlight. Giving a clear call-to-action (CTA) and a specific conversion target will often yield better results than general brand awareness.
Joining an affiliate network makes it easier for brands and affiliates to get connected. Several well-known networks include ClickBank, Amazon Associates, and Etsy Affiliates. Most are open to anyone who wants to join but check program requirements to determine your eligibility.
Determine your affiliate marketing strategy based on how you plan to build your audience.
If you or your affiliate already has a large social media following, you can focus your efforts on those existing networks. If you’re starting from scratch, you may want to start with blogs or long-form articles to capture search engine traffic.
Making a website devoted to your niche and writing relevant content for it can give creators plenty of opportunities to link to promotional products. It’s also a great place to share a portfolio of past material, if you have some.
Affiliate marketers rely on content to promote a merchant’s products or services. Content marketing can include blog posts, articles, videos, pictures, emails, and anything else a consumer can view.
Including promotional links within your content is the meat of any affiliate marketing strategy. Make sure that links are clearly visible and include a strong CTA that encourages a reader to click.
As you build your skills as an affiliate marketer, you can incorporate more advanced strategies into your marketing toolbox. Here are a few to consider.
You’ve probably seen celebrities and others recommending products they use on social media or other channels. That’s known as influencer marketing, and it’s a very profitable income stream for people with large followings. To become an influencer, focus on creating content that attracts followers. As your audience grows, your marketing opportunities will too.
Blogging is an effective way to build an audience if you stick with it. Choose a niche to blog in, and regularly create related content that attracts readers. As you build an audience and increase clicks, you can start promoting products for merchants and earn affiliate income.
Email remains a fantastic tool for connecting directly with followers. Use other platforms to promote your email marketing list, then send promotional messages to your subscribers. Be sure to include lots of content related to your audience’s interests so your emails are valuable to them even if they don’t act on your affiliate links.
PPC affiliate marketing aims to generate clicks and conversions from paid ad placements on search engines and other channels. It’s a great way to get a new partnership off the ground and start driving traffic to an affiliate website.
You might consider video affiliate marketing or webinars if you’re a credible authority in a niche and feel comfortable talking on camera. Both channels allow you to pre-record content and share it with followers.
During your video or webinar, you can recommend merchant products or services and include links for your audience to take action.
Few people will turn down the opportunity to save money or score a free product, especially if it’s for something they need or want. Ask merchants if they’ll let you promote their products with a coupon code or deal. If they approve it, you may see higher audience engagement.
Affiliate marketers who use the products or services they’re promoting can craft reviews and share them with their followers. Their honest feedback can encourage consumers to take action and further investigate products.
Affiliate marketing is a numbers game. The larger your audience, the higher your click-throughs and earning potential.
However, even if you’re starting from scratch, you can still make a respectable income from affiliate marketing. You’ll see the best results if you define your niche marketing strategies and work on developing a following. If you’re just getting started and are still building your audience, consider PPC or paid advertising affiliate marketing.
You may run into a few issues as you navigate affiliate marketing. Here are a few common ones and how to address them.
Certain industries and markets have a lot of competition, and you may find it an uphill battle to compete against others with large audiences and followings. Don’t let that discourage you.
Instead, carve out a niche within your chosen market. The more defined your niche, the easier it will be to generate an audience.
Whenever you recommend a product or earn a commission from a link, it’s essential to disclose that in your content. Most social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, require disclosures when sharing affiliate marketing links. You should also include a disclosure on any blogs or articles you write.
Don’t spam your followers with product recommendations and affiliate links. Too much promotion and they’ll stop paying attention and may unfollow you. Focus on delivering valuable content that connects with your audience. By building trust, your audience will take your recommendations seriously.
Affiliate marketers seeking to maximize their income can benefit from software and tools designed to optimize campaigns.
One solution is Constant Contact, which includes email, SMS, and social media tools designed to streamline your marketing processes. Constant Contact also includes a customizable analytics tool to measure performance.
Whether you’re a business owner searching for help promoting your products or an aspiring affiliate marketer, there are plenty of tools to support your efforts. Here are a few to check out:
Affiliate marketing is an amazing way to earn passive income or elevate your brand’s revenues. It has unlimited earning potential, and for growing companies, it’s an easy way to get your products in front of an audience that will appreciate them.
To learn more about freelance digital marketing vs affiliate marketing, check out Constant Contact’s guide to digital marketing. Or, go one step further and join Constant Contact’s business partner program to get access to all the tools you need for successful affiliate marketing.
Picture this: you put all your creative energy into writing a great marketing email. You choose every word carefully and create a beautiful design to appeal to your target audience. Finally, you hit the send button, sit back, and sip your coffee, ready for the responses to pour in. But your inbox stays empty.
Sooner or later, this scenario happens to every business. You might wonder if you made a mistake with your email. (Maybe that pun-filled subject line wasn’t as funny as you thought?) But even the best emails can get overlooked or lost in crowded inboxes. In fact, 80% of customers ignore marketing emails at least half the time.
An automated email follow-up helps you re-engage people who missed your first message. You can also use these messages to gently remind customers about your brand. Read on to learn about the benefits of automated follow-up emails and how to set them up.
An automated follow-up email is a pre-scheduled message sent to a prior contact. Businesses often use these messages to reconnect with people who haven’t responded to their emails.
A typical workflow for follow-up emails might look like:
Automated follow-up emails are essential to business success. They help you build relationships with people who might not be ready to buy when you first contact them. These messages also remind potential customers about your products and services.
An automated email follow-up has many advantages for small and medium businesses, including:
You don’t need to write code or invest in expensive software to automate your follow-up emails. There are many simple and affordable email marketing automation tools available. These platforms help you design, pre-schedule, and manage your messages. That way, you can spend less time sending emails and more time engaging customers.
Here are a few considerations to help you choose the right marketing automation tool:
Follow these steps to add automated follow-up messages to your email marketing campaigns.
Start by establishing clear goals for your follow-up emails. This step will help you decide when and how to reconnect with your audience.
Here are a few common goals for follow-up emails:
Let’s say you want to use follow-up emails to improve CLV. You can send follow-up messages to upsell customers with upgrades and relevant products. You can also send exclusive offers to re-engage inactive clients.
This follow-up email from Airbnb uses the customer’s browsing history to offer personalized recommendations. Source: Airbnb.
Use customer data to personalize your follow-up emails. You can segment your audience based on behavior, demographics, preferences, and other criteria.
Say you notice that 50% of website visitors abandon their carts. Send them follow-up emails to encourage them to complete the sale. You can even offer coupons or discounts for extra motivation.
Designing a professional email from scratch takes time and skill. Streamline this process with email marketing templates that let you add content and customize the design in minutes.
Constant Contact offers hundreds of email templates for every industry and purpose. These layouts are mobile-responsive and easy to personalize.
Add a personal touch to your follow-up emails with customized elements. Here are a few popular ways to personalize messages:
Consider scheduling follow-up emails based on specific events and triggers. For instance, you can send a follow-up message after a customer’s free trial expires. This strategy helps keep customers engaged and moving along the sales journey.
You should also drip emails to avoid overwhelming your audience. Wait a few days for time-sensitive emails and a couple of weeks for longer sales cycles.
Gmail has limited capabilities for sending automated follow-up messages. The platform can suggest emails to follow up on, but this strategy will only work if you have a small mailing list. You can also use templates to create follow-up emails, but you’ll need to send them manually.
Luckily, you can use third-party tools to set up automatic follow-up emails in Gmail. GMass is one of the most popular platforms. It lets you send automatic emails based on your audience’s behavior and responses.
Check out Microsoft Power Automate to automate follow-up emails in Outlook. Additionally, ShopMagic is a popular tool for WooCommerce automated follow-up emails.
You can also integrate third-party automation tools with other services for enhanced functionality. For example, you can combine Gmass and Google Sheets to create personalized messages.
You can also use Constant Contact to send follow-up messages and mass emails across all platforms.
If you want to know how to automate follow-up emails, here’s our how-to strategy section.
Follow-up emails should offer as much value as other marketing messages. Research your target audience to understand their interests and needs.
For example, your leads may want to learn more about your products before buying them. You could send follow-up emails with customer testimonials and demonstration videos.
Read more: Maximize Engagement with Effective Post-Purchase Emails
Being pushy or rude won’t win you any favors with customers. Always keep your tone friendly and polite when sending follow-up emails. Use encouraging language and avoid demanding phrases like “last chance!”
Read more: Best Practices for Email Etiquette: Make a Great Impression
Analytics provide valuable insights into how customers engage with your follow-up messages. This information allows you to improve your follow-up emails over time.
Here are three email marketing metrics you can gather to boost performance:
Email automation is convenient and efficient, but comes with some potential challenges.
One of the biggest pitfalls is the lack of personalization. Avoid spamming your customers with generic or irrelevant emails. Instead, use dynamic content blocks and audience segmentation to tailor your messages.
Another common mistake is not optimizing your emails for mobile devices. You can overcome this obstacle by using responsive templates. These layouts adjust to different screen sizes so customers can read your emails easily on any device.
Use A/B testing to analyze the effectiveness of your follow-up emails. This process involves separating your audience into groups and sending them similar emails with small variations. Compare which version gets a better response to improve future emails.
Here are four advanced features and strategies to take your follow-up emails to the next level.
Here are three personalization methods to impress customers:
Tip: Email list segmentation helps ensure the right content reaches the right audience. Learn tactics and criteria for a successful email list segmentation strategy by reading our article: Email List Segmentation From A (as in Age) to Z (as in Zip Code)
Dynamic content changes based on the recipient’s behavior, interests, and other factors. For example, dynamic subject lines can reference the recipient’s location or pets. Similarly, dynamic images can reflect the customer’s hobbies.
Custom fields are another tool for personalizing follow-up emails. Start by using an email marketing platform to collect relevant customer data. This information can include names, job titles, hobbies, and other information. Insert these custom fields into your emails, such as “Dear [Name]”. The platform will automatically populate the fields for each customer.
Follow email marketing best practices to generate compelling content.
All follow-up emails should have an engaging subject line of four to seven words. For example, this follow-up email from Instinct asks, “Is Your Dog’s Food Tailored for Their Age?” You can also use a pun, appeal to the reader’s curiosity, or evoke a sense of urgency.
Effective follow-ups also use visually appealing templates. Use headings and different background colors to structure your content. You should also choose easy-to-read fonts.
Finally, include a clear and actionable call to action (CTA). This phrase should direct the audience to the next step. Two examples of strong CTAs are “Download your exclusive offer” and “Become a member today.”
Customers may reply to your automated follow-up messages with questions or concerns. A software solution like Constant Contact can help you manage these interactions. The platform sends all replies to your Reply To email. You can also analyze responses with Constant Contact’s reporting tools.
Respond to all emails within 24 hours to keep customers satisfied. You can use pre-written templates to speed up this process.
Respect user privacy by following relevant laws for automated follow-up emails.
The CAN-SPAM Act requires commercial emails to have accurate subject lines and headers. These messages must also clearly explain how to opt out of future communications.
The General Data Protection Regulation regulates emails sent to European Union citizens. Companies must get consent before sending marketing emails and explain how they use customer data.
Create smarter follow-up emails with artificial intelligence and machine learning. This technology can analyze customer data to create personalized content. It can also predict how clients will respond to your emails so you can improve your content.
You can also combine your automated email follow-up software with a customer relationship management tool. This integration lets you sync client data and nurture leads more effectively.
Send two to three follow-up emails to keep customers engaged.
Yes, you can easily personalize your follow-up emails with a marketing platform. Constant Contact lets you add dynamic content blocks, personal subject lines, and more.
These metrics can help you understand and improve your follow-up email performance:
Use an email marketing solution to create an automated email. First, design the message’s content using a responsive template. Next, schedule the email to be sent at a specific time or when activated by a certain trigger.
One of the most common mistakes is not including a clear CTA. Be sure to tell your customers what you want them to do to increase engagement and conversions. You should also avoid sending follow-up emails too frequently, which can result in unsubscribes.
Stay on your customers’ radars with automated follow-up emails. These messages are an effective way to nurture leads and maintain customer loyalty. They also let you keep delivering value after clients interact with your brand.
Keep learning about automated follow-up emails with these additional resources:
I am Batman!
Okay, not really, but May 1st is Batman Day. While not an official May holiday, Batman Day is just one of many fun and zany reasons to celebrate this month. With holidays like Intergalactic Star Wars Day (May 4th), Eat What You Want Day (May 11th), and Frog Jumping Day (May 13th), there’s no reason to feel jumpy about your marketing this month.
May has a plethora of occasions to share with your customers — from public holidays like International Workers’ Day (May 1st), VE Day (May 8th), and Memorial Day (May 27th) to “weird” holidays like National Cellophane Tape Day (the 27th). Yep, that’s a thing.
Seriously though, May is definitely a month to celebrate.
From May Day (May 1st) to National Smile Day (May 31st), May is a month about… well, creation, fresh starts, and new beginnings. The transition from dark to light, from winter to summer, from nothing to something.
As a matter of fact, the month of May is National Creative Beginnings Month and National Inventors Month. So, now is the time to be creative and inventive in your marketing.
Get started by taking a look at some May holidays, newsletter ideas, and subject lines that you can use to share the hope, excitement, and promise of the month of May.
Of course, there are a lot more holidays in May, but let’s move on to some May newsletter ideas.
With all the holidays there are to celebrate in May, it seems that Mother’s Day always seems to dominate. So let’s start there.
Mother’s Day is a time to appreciate all kinds of mothers — from birth mothers to foster mothers, from godmothers to grandmothers, and even mothers whose only children are covered in fur and walk on paws (or fly, or swim…).
To me, Mother’s Day is a celebration of unconditional love, incredible strength and fortitude, and seemingly endless patience.
This Mother’s Day, create an email campaign that makes a positive impact on you and your subscribers with these newsletter ideas:
Remember, any of these ideas are good for both moms of human children and moms with furbabies. So do what’s right for your brand.
Tip: Make your Mother’s Day newsletters really count by segmenting your audience and personalizing your newsletters and offers to fit the segment. Start with segmenting by gender, parental and pet ownership status, and even age. If you haven’t done a demographic survey of your subscribers yet, get a jump on it now.
While they may seem a little niche, holidays like Batman Day, International Harry Potter Day, and Star Wars Day can be a lot of fun while still being effective.
Okay, I know that Wolf Spider is really associated with Batwoman, but unless you’re in the comic business, odds are your subscribers probably won’t know that. And here’s a bonus: If several readers reach out to correct you on one of your themed questions, add them to a new segment for niche targeting fans of that theme.
If you’re feeling creative and bold
And your goal is for more than just gold
Then give it a try
And if you are spry
Your readers’ attention you’ll hold
River Cartie
As always, if you run a contest or challenge where money and/or prizes will change hands, make sure you follow all local and state regulations.
TIP: Whatever holiday you highlight in your newsletter this month, whether you issue a challenge, offer advice, or ask your readers to share, include a branded hashtag and a custom hashtag — along with a corresponding post on social media — so you can easily find and like what they post!
For more May holidays and ideas on what you can do to share them with your customers, download the graphic below. Or, plan out the rest of your year with our Online Marketing Calendar, complete with a free template and a list of holidays you can use to plan a successful year.
Email marketing is one of the most popular marketing channels, and for good reason. Every dollar brands spend on email marketing earns $36 in return. With those numbers, it’s no surprise that more than 90% of marketers say email marketing is key to their company’s success.
Many factors determine the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns, but email deliverability is among the most important. In this guide, we’ll discuss how to improve email deliverability for more successful campaigns and, ultimately, more revenue.
So, what is email delivery vs. email deliverability? Email delivery is the number of messages you successfully send to recipients without them bouncing. In contrast, email deliverability is the number of emails that reach the recipients’ inboxes.
You can have a high email delivery with low email deliverability. Why? In this case, your message is probably getting dumped into spam folders. It’s not bouncing back, so delivery is high, but it isn’t landing in inboxes, so deliverability is low.
Your email deliverability rate comes down to many different factors. Some examples include:
With these factors in mind, which strategies can you use to improve your deliverability performance? Let’s break down some best practices to improve email deliverability in your email marketing.
If you’re not happy with your current email deliverability rates, there are probably some things you can change to see improvements. Try these tips:
Your reputation as a sender has a huge influence on email deliverability rates. Protect your reputation and prevent bad actors from taking control of your email domain through email authentication.
The three most common email authentication methods are enabling Sender Policy Framework (SPF), Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Confidence (DMARC). Use these methods to prove you are who you say you are. Doing so will show internet service providers (ISPs) that you’re more reliable.
But does DKIM improve deliverability? Setting up DKIM, SPF, and DMARC will protect your sending reputation and thus increase your odds of high email deliverability.
Similarly, you need a strong IP reputation for the best email deliverability rates. If you’re sending 25,000 emails per day or more, consider setting up a dedicated email address. You’ll need better email infrastructure to handle this larger-scale email program.
When you set up a new dedicated IP address, you’ll have to warm it up by sending messages to a smaller subset of your email list before sending them to everyone. Doing so will show the ISP that you’re trustworthy and sending wanted messages, not spamming people.
If you damage your IP reputation or end up on email sender blacklists, your email deliverability will plummet. ISPs will suspect spam and prevent your emails from going through to your recipients. Ensure this doesn’t happen by keeping a strong IP reputation.
How you create your email list is key in determining your email deliverability rates. Ideally, your list should only contain people who are engaged and interested in the messages you send. If you send messages to people who aren’t interested, they’re likely to report you as spam. Too many spam reports will jeopardize your sender reputation and possibly keep ISPs from delivering your messages to any recipients.
Keep your email list full of engaged users with a double opt-in process. In a double-opt-in system, users have to provide their email addresses and confirm they’re interested in your messages by clicking a link in your message. This process ensures no one accidentally ends up on your list.
Even with a double-opt-in system, you should still regularly clean up your email list. People who were interested in your messages months or years ago may no longer be engaged. Regularly go in and weed out any people on your list who haven’t interacted with your messages lately. If they never respond to your emails, open them, or click on the included links, consider taking them off your email list.
You can also implement segmentation strategies to improve engagement. For example, sending a special discount code or offer just to people who haven’t interacted with your messages lately can pique their interest again.
Beyond more technical approaches to improving email deliverability, you should also examine your message content and design. Recipients prefer well-designed, well-written emails. If you’re consistently sending emails with great content and design, they’re much less likely to report you for spam.
Focus on crafting non-spammy subject lines. Avoid phrases like:
Instead, create subject lines that engage audiences and honestly reflect the content of your message. Not only will strong subject lines boost your deliverability rates, but they will also improve your email open rates. It’s worth taking your time to write the best possible subject lines.
Spend time getting your email design right, too. Using videos or images can make your emails more engaging and likely to convert. Incorporate headers and lists to break your text into lengthier messages and avoid overwhelming readers. The better your email design is, the better your email deliverability will be.
Even if you incorporate all the best practices in email marketing, no email campaign is perfect. You should always test your emails ahead of time to narrow down what works and what doesn’t. Send small batches of the same email with minor tweaks to see which works better, then send the higher-performing email to your whole list.
When you test emails, focus on the preview text — the snippet of the message that appears after the subject line in recipients’ inboxes. Intriguing preview text helps your message stand out and prove it isn’t spam, improving deliverability rates.
Remember to monitor your email analytics regularly. Changes in key email metrics like open rates, click-through rates (CTR), and spam complaints can dramatically affect your email deliverability rates.
Once you’ve tackled basic email deliverability best practices, there are some more advanced techniques you can use to boost your deliverability even further. Try these techniques:
To protect your deliverability rates, you must monitor complaints and concerns from email recipients. Luckily, feedback loops can help.
Most email service providers offer feedback loops that notify you when your recipients mark your emails as spam. If you use feedback loops, your email provider will send you reports when they receive complaints about your emails. Use the data from these reports to create better emails, avoid future complaints, and improve email deliverability.
Spam traps and filters exist to catch people sending unwanted emails and stop those messages before they reach recipients. You need to avoid these traps to keep your email deliverability high. Ensure you send to engaged users and never purchase email lists to avoid these traps.
Constantly sending messages will frustrate your recipients and ultimately reduce your deliverability rates. Manage your sending frequency to keep readers engaged without overwhelming them. If you’re not sure how often that is, provide a preference center where they can select email frequency.
The schedule of your emails also matters. Avoid sending emails far outside of business hours because this can annoy recipients and make them more likely to flag your message as spam.
You may wonder which strategy will improve email deliverability the most. One possible answer is personalization and behavioral email targeting.
Instead of sending the same email to everyone on your list, segment your audience based on their interests and behavior. For example, send re-engagement emails to people who haven’t interacted with your brand lately, and send thank you messages to people who make a purchase.
Targeting and personalizing your emails makes them more appealing to readers, improving your reputation and email deliverability over time.
Email deliverability is only part of email marketing and marketing as a whole. The strategies you implement to improve email deliverability should align with your broader marketing goals.
For example, companies hoping to increase customer retention should focus on segmentation and behavioral targeting. Sending targeted emails to existing customers will make your messages more relevant — boosting deliverability — and encouraging customers to stick with the company.
If you want to get more out of your email marketing drip campaigns, use strategies for improving deliverability that align with your marketing goals.
Email deliverability tools and software can also help you increase your deliverability rates. Email automation platforms like Constant Contact include a variety of tools to improve your email marketing campaigns, including their deliverability rates.
Constant Contact, for example, uses AI to craft engaging email subject lines and body content with just a few keywords. The improved content keeps readers happy, improving your email deliverability.
Email deliverability tools also help with the following:
This software allows you to track and analyze the performance of your emails to gain insights into what you can improve.
Negative actions taken by recipients are a common problem that lowers deliverability rates. If your recipients consistently report your messages as spam, your reputation will suffer, and your deliverability will, too. Address this by removing uninterested users from your email list and only sending well-designed, relevant messages.
Similarly, to mitigate high bounce rates, test your emails before sending them to see if there’s any issue that could prevent your message from reaching recipients. Something as simple as a poorly-formated image or an attachment could be the culprit.
Finally, it’s crucial to understand and take steps to rectify clone phishing attacks. Clone phishing is a type of scam in which a scammer imitates a legitimate brand and sends fake emails to customers in an attempt to steal sensitive information or send malware. Clone phishing is considered harder to detect than spear phishing because emails generally include similar or the same details as the business’s real communications. If you become aware of a clone phishing attempt that impersonates your business, alert your customers and report the attempt so that your legitimate email deliverability does not suffer.
Monitor your email deliverability and other key email metrics on a regular schedule to check for sudden changes that can indicate a problem. If your email deliverability isn’t as high as you’d like, investigate which of these issues may be the cause.
Regulations exist to prevent companies from spamming people with unwanted emails. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union and the CAN-SPAM Act in the United States both outline how companies can use personal data and send commercial messages.
Violating these email regulations can lead to fines and other actions against your business. Understand your obligations as a commercial email sender to avoid these legal problems.
Purchasing an email list is a quick way to add more email recipients, but you should avoid this practice. When you buy an email list, you have no way to know whether those users will be interested in your messages. Sending them emails is a great way to get mass reported for spam and damage your sender reputation beyond repair.
Your email deliverability rates tell you what percentage of your emails are actually reaching recipients’ inboxes. The higher this rate is, the better your email marketing campaign will perform. Implement best practices like using a double opt-in feature, cleaning up your email list, and setting up feedback loops to improve deliverability.
Keeping your deliverability rates high is an ongoing task. Always look for new ways to improve email deliverability, whether that’s through new email marketing software or new approaches to crafting your emails. Sign up for Constant Contact for free to see how the platform can help you get your messages in more inboxes.
Every day, millions of users log in to social media to connect with family, friends, and businesses they care about. There’s a tremendous opportunity for you to grow your small businesses, nonprofit, or personal brand on social media, but to look professional, you’ll want to make sure you’re familiar with the correct social media image sizes.
But don’t worry about keeping track of every platform’s preferred photo and post sizes! We’ve compiled an updated list of the correct social media image sizes for each platform below. Simply click on the platform you’re interested in or scroll for the full list of preferred image dimensions for Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and more!
Your Facebook cover photo is the banner image that appears at the top of your page. Try to keep this image at 820 x 312 pixels and beware that anything smaller will be stretched to fit.
Stuck on what to choose for your cover photo? Check out these Facebook cover photo ideas.
Your profile picture appears just under your cover photo on your page. It also shows up next to every post and ad you publish, so when it comes to your profile photo, make sure to use an image that represents you or your brand. It should be at least 170 x 170 pixels.
Want to share a post to your brand page that includes an image? Images that are shared in a post have a recommended size of 1080 x 1080 pixels. This square format (also called a 1:1 ratio) will look the best on both the desktop and mobile Facebook feed when you’re trying to primarily showcase a picture.
Pro tip: Use your Facebook Page to really showcase your brand and create a cohesive, identifiable profile. You can do this by using your company logo as your profile picture and a photo that speaks to who you are as a brand for your cover photo.
Read our tips for how you can promote your Facebook page.
Creating a Facebook Event is a great way to generate awareness for your upcoming event, whether it’s in-person or virtual. When creating your event listing on Facebook, you can upload a cover photo to provide context for the event. Cover photos for Facebook Events have a recommended size of 1920 by 1005 pixels.
Instagram is all about images, so it’s important to get things right. For your profile picture, use an image that is 110 x 110 pixels. Keep in mind that this will be cropped as a circle, so be aware of any details that may be lost at the edges.
Uploaded in-feed images on Instagram can be square (1080 x 1080 pixels) or rectangular (4:5 ratio). The thumbnails that preview your uploads on your profile appear as 161 x 161 pixels.
Instagram Stories are one of the best ways to engage with your followers with full-screen content. When posting to Stories, be sure to use the recommended resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels or an aspect ratio of 9:16.
Instagram Reels are a full-screen video experience. That means you’ll want to aim for the same dimensions as Instagram Stories — 1080 x 1920 pixels, or a 9:16 aspect ratio.
Pro tip: Short content is in on Instagram! With more than 300 million daily users, Instagram Stories and Reels are a good place to focus this year when creating short-form content. Check out our tips for how to get started on Instagram.
Your Pinterest profile image helps users recognize your brand. Profile images on Pinterest appear at 165 x 165 pixels on the homepage.
Each individual post on Pinterest is called a Pin. Pins on the main page, or on a board, will appear at 236 pixels wide with a scaled height. Once expanded, Pins have a minimum width of 660 pixels with a scaled height.
When creating a Pin for Pinterest, it is recommended to use a high-quality, vertical image with an aspect ratio of 2:3 (such as 1000 x 1500 pixels).
Pro tip: Pinterest is all about organization. When creating boards for your profile, be sure to keep content relevant. For example, a board on home decor should not include recipes. Be sure to choose a relevant thumbnail photo for each board as well to entice your audience to click.
Next: Read our tips for how to get your Pins seen on Pinterest.
Your YouTube channel profile image shows a user whose channel they are on. Your YouTube channel profile image should be 800 x 800 pixels and should use either your company logo or a photo of yourself so people can easily identify your brand.
YouTube allows you to upload a cover photo for your channel, further building your brand identity. The minimum image size for your cover photo is 2560 x 1440 pixels with an aspect ratio of 16:9.
YouTube cover photos can be tricky, to say the least. Although YouTube requires a very large image for your cover photo, only a sliver of this photo will be visible on desktop and mobile devices. Make sure to check your photo and adjust the crop using YouTube’s channel art tool before publishing to avoid any awkward cropping.
When uploading videos to YouTube, custom thumbnails can be very useful in garnering attention for your content. Custom YouTube thumbnails for your videos should be 1280 x 720 pixels.
Next: Read our tips for how to get started on a YouTube channel.
Uploading your company logo as your business page image ensures that customers, employees, and others can easily identify your profile. Your company logo image should be 300 x 300 pixels.
LinkedIn’s company business background image covers the entire top of the page. It is recommended to upload an image around 1128 x 191 pixels.
Posting to your business page on LinkedIn is a great way to share exciting company news or updates. If you’re going to include an image in your post, use the recommended size of 1200 x 1200 pixels.
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network — so keep it professional. Make sure that your posts, and images, are appropriate for the audience and focus on building relationships with industry leaders or finding new employees rather than driving traffic or prospecting for new customers.
Make sure your personal profile is connected to your company page, is filled out, and represents you well with a nice profile picture. The recommended LinkedIn profile picture size is 400 x 400 pixels.
Next: Learn how to use LinkedIn Groups.
Did you know people can recall 65 percent of the visual content they see almost three days later? This statistic is especially impressive when you compare that to written content, of which only 10 percent is recalled three days after it’s read. Hopefully, you won’t forget this blog post in three days!
It’s clear that you shouldn’t ignore the power of visuals when it comes to social media marketing. However, it’s a challenge to keep up with the ever-changing image size guidelines for social media. The impact of posting visuals goes down when you post one that is awkwardly cropped or can’t be viewed on certain devices, so it’s important to get it right.
That’s why we’ve created this social media image size guide for Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Be sure to bookmark this page so you can refer back to it as you create content throughout the year.
Photography and photo editing not your forté? No worries. Image tools such as Canva, Stencil, Snappa, PicMonkey, Pablo, and Adobe Spark make it easy. They even have customizable social media image templates perfectly sized for each platform!
Constant Contact also makes creating custom images easy. Our image editor allows you to easily crop images and add text, stickers, or overlays to spice up your visuals. You can also add your edited images to your Library and then save them to your computer.
Additionally, our integration with Shutterstock provides access to a stock image gallery with millions of professional quality and royalty-free stock images. Images are available for free, or to purchase, and can be added to the Library to be used in your emails, events, and surveys.
Download and save our handy social media image size guide below so you can quickly reference the correct image dimensions for Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. (Click image to open full-size in a new tab.)
Obtaining a new customer is nearly always good news. After all, you need clients for a functioning business. Without them, you’d lack the necessary cash inflows to support company operations. However, customer acquisition usually requires some monetary outlay in marketing and advertising, which dilutes the initial profit.
Calculating your customer acquisition cost (CAC) tells you exactly how much you spend on marketing and advertising to attract a new client. CAC is an essential metric to evaluate the health and efficiency of your customer acquisition strategies. Maintaining a CAC in line with your budget sustains business profitability.
In digital advertising, calculating customer acquisition cost starts with identifying your total marketing expenses used to attract clients. Typically, customer acquisition expenses fall into several categories:
The general formula for how to calculate likely customer acquisition cost is:
CAC = Money spent on sales and marketing / Number of customers
To calculate it, follow these steps:
The first step of calculating CAC is deciding on the time period for your calculations. The time period can be a month, a quarter, several quarters, a year, or even longer. You can evaluate your CAC over time by calculating several different periods and comparing the results.
For instance, say you want to compare your first quarter CAC to last year’s first quarter CAC. You could pull data from each time period to calculate the CAC and compare the results. If your most recent CAC drops compared to last year, your marketing strategies are becoming more efficient.
There is a general formula for calculating CAC and several others that can be used for a more focused or in-depth evaluation. Here’s what you need to know about how to calculate the cost of customer acquisitions.
The standard customer acquisition cost formula is calculated as:
CAC = Total marketing and sales costs / Number of new customers over a period
So, let’s assume you’re calculating CAC for the quarter. You have $500,000 in marketing and sales costs and have acquired 1,000 new customers. Your CAC is $500, or $500,000 / 1,000.
The fully loaded CAC formula includes additional expenses besides sales and marketing costs, such as:
To calculate fully loaded customer acquisition costs, apply this formula:
Fully loaded CAC = All costs associated with customer acquisition / Number of new customers
The fully loaded CAC formula helps determine the scaling potential of your organization. It’s beneficial for investors and founders seeking to raise capital.
Paid CAC evaluates acquisition costs associated with paid ads and other paid marketing channels. It specifically excludes certain expenses, such as employee salaries and overhead expenses. Total acquired customers are limited to those obtained through paid mediums.
The formula for Paid CAC is:
Paid CAC = Marketing and sales expenses (less salaries and overhead costs) / Number of new customers obtained through paid channels
Let’s take an example. Assume you run a paid Google ad for one month, with a total expense of $5,000. Your paid ad results in 100 new customers. The paid CAC for your ad campaign is $50, or $5,000 / 100.
The CAC calculation can vary across business models. Here are some examples.
SaaS companies run on a subscription model, where customers pay a set fee over various intervals. Subscriptions may be monthly, quarterly, annually, or some other cycle. Here’s how to calculate customer acquisition cost for SaaS B2B customers:
CAC = Total marketing and sales costs for SaaS product / Number of customers who sign up for new SaaS product
Assume your marketing and sales costs for attracting new SaaS customers are $50,000 monthly. Over that timeframe, 200 new B2B customers sign up for your SaaS product, and your CAC is $250. You can apply the same formula for how to calculate customer acquisition cost for tech startups.
Sometimes, companies use events like conferences or webinars to draw in new clients. An event is a great way to showcase your products, establish credibility, and connect with potential customers. Here’s how to calculate customer acquisition cost for events:
CAC = Total marketing and sales costs for the event / Number of clients who attend the event
Let’s say you host a webinar for your service business. You spend $5,000 to promote your webinar, which is available live and via recording for people who plan to watch it at a time convenient to them. The total number of attendees is 1,000. Your CAC is $5 for the webinar, or $5,000 / 1,000.
Manufacturing companies create goods for resale or as components for other products. To calculate the CAC for a manufacturing company, use this formula:
CAC = Total marketing and sales costs for a product / Total new customers
Assume you run a tire manufacturing company. You produce a specific tire for SUVs, which you market to dealerships and car repair shops. Your total marketing expense for the tire is $10,000, and your total new business customers are 500. Your CAC is $20.
Hopefully, the first time a customer purchases with you won’t be the last. Some clients will become repeat customers and return again and again whenever they need something your organization offers. Thus, it’s useful to calculate their projected lifetime revenue with your company and compare it to CAC.
You can determine customer lifetime value (LTV) using a few components:
Once you have data for all four components, you can calculate lifetime value. The formula for LTV is customer value multiplied by the average customer lifetime. The result tells you how much revenue you can expect from each customer you acquire over the time they buy from you.
You can compare LTV to CAC as a ratio. For instance, assume you calculate $300 as your LTV and $150 as your customer acquisition cost. Your LTV to CAC is $300:$150, or 2:1. For every customer you acquire, you can expect an average profit of $150 — double your marketing investment.
Comparing LTV to CAC helps assess whether you’re recouping the cost of your marketing investment and by how much. The higher the ratio, the more efficient your marketing strategies are and the more revenue you generate from your client base. A low ratio like 1:1 indicates that the revenue you’ll earn from each new client just covers your marketing costs, which can lead to future solvency issues.
It’s possible to examine CAC in many ways. You can subdivide it across multiple segments, time periods, and channels. Here are a few ideas for establishing a set of business metrics using CAC:
How do you know if your CAC is satisfactory or needs work? The clearest answer can probably be found by comparing it to your LTV. The higher your LTV compared to your CAC, the more effectively you’re spending your marketing dollars.
You can use industry benchmarks for CAC and LTV and compare them to your own results. First Page Sage has an extensive set of industry CAC and LTV benchmarks, a few of which include the following:
If you find your CAC lags behind your target goals, take action to improve it. Here are a few ways to do so:
You likely use a variety of platforms to advertise to your target audience. Monitor them closely to evaluate CAC on each one. For instance, you might calculate CAC for your PPC ads and again for email marketing messages. If you find one channel performs better than others, determine why. It may be more effective and cost-efficient to invest more in a high-performing CAC channel than a lesser one.
Sometimes, a slight tweak to your marketing message can make a big difference in conversions. Try testing different aspects of your advertisements to see if your changes impact results. For instance, you might switch subject lines on marketing emails or swap pictures in a social media post.
Your customers are your most valuable source of feedback. Ask them about their shopping and product experience whenever possible. Incorporate their comments into your product development and marketing efforts, and see whether that improves your LTV and CAC over time.
Pricing products effectively is key to improving your CAC. If your prices are too low, it will be challenging to increase your CAC. Analyze your industry to determine whether your product pricing is reasonable. If it’s not, try adjusting your prices to raise your CAC.
Several different marketing software platforms include features to calculate CAC, among other metrics. Here are a few to consider for your organization.
A customized Google Analytics dashboard with various marketing metrics. Image Source: Google Analytics
The longer your customers stay with you, the more likely they are to purchase more than once. Lengthier customer retention times generally lead to a higher LTV, which is ideal for profitability. Remember that the higher your LTV to CAC ratio, the more efficiently you’re managing your marketing spend.
Sales costs are a component of CAC, just like marketing costs. In your CAC calculation, consider any sales expenses you incur, such as commissions, travel and entertainment, and networking costs.
Assessing your customer acquisition cost is essential to understanding how much money it takes to land a new customer. With that data, you can determine whether your spending is aligned with your budget and whether your marketing strategies are effective. As you continue your marketing journey, stay informed of the latest trends and practices with Constant Contact. Check out some of our other articles that can help you build a robust marketing campaign, like Using The Customer Journey Map to Personalize Email Marketing or How to Increase Average Order Value.
There’s a lot of competition among e-commerce retailers. Increasingly, getting your products or services noticed means anticipating customer needs and meeting leads where they are — that’s where targeted email marketing excels. When done right, it can increase conversions, encourage repeat sales, and help customers build a more personal relationship with your brand.
Targeted email marketing involves creating email campaigns that send messages to subscribers based on demographics or interests. Rather than sending the same content to every subscriber, a targeted email campaign differentiates its messaging based on customer segmentation.
Customer segmentation is the process of grouping new leads or existing customers based on characteristics like age, location, gender, occupation, and purchasing patterns. Creating these groups involves gathering customer data either by requesting it from customers directly or by analyzing website visits and previous purchases.
These groups can be as broad or as detailed as you want them to be. You can start small by defining two or three different customer segments, then widen your segmentation into additional groups as you gather more data. Gathering more detailed data can take more time and effort, but the more detailed the segmentation is, the more relevant your message will be.
Email marketing revenue is on the rise and is expected to continue increasing in the coming years. Every company can benefit from email marketing, but for e-commerce businesses, it’s an essential tool to keep your brand top of mind.
Here are a few of the perks you can look forward to when you embark on a targeted email marketing campaign.
Your subscribers are more likely to act on messages that relate to their needs. Use segmentation to create target messaging that speaks to their interests. The greater your email’s relevancy, the more likely they are to read it and take action.
Targeted email marketing helps you develop stronger relationships with customers. Rather than sending generic emails to your entire subscriber base, customizing your message for different segments gives your marketing a personal touch, and tells customers that you care about their needs beyond selling a product.
When segmenting based on purchasing patterns, you can appeal to existing customers by sending timely reminders about products you know they’re interested in. By anticipating their purchases and offering products tailored to their tastes, you can dissuade them from switching to the competition.
Customized emails will increase your response rate in the form of more opens and clicks. Higher response rates mean more subscribers moving down the sales funnel, which results in more conversions down the line.
Developing a targeted email campaign strategy starts with identifying your goals.
What are you hoping to achieve with your email marketing? More site visitors? More purchases? More demos? Decide what outcomes are most important to your business strategy, then build your campaign around them by following these steps.
The first step in creating targeted email marketing lists is defining how to segment your audience. Typically, marketers divide their segments into several different categories:
You can create multiple segmentation categories based on the data you have.
To begin your targeted bulk email marketing efforts, you’ll need information about your subscribers. Use any data you’ve accumulated from their interactions with your brand to initiate the process.
One option is to include requests for a few key pieces of demographic information in your email list sign-up form. This helps subscribers self-segment into your targeted email content. You can also ask for customer details when they make a purchase. If you allow your clients to create an account on your website, you can track the pages they interact with to learn more about their interests.
Once you know who your customers are, you can segment them into different groups based on the details you have.
A customer relationship management (CRM) system helps manage all your customer information in one place. You can connect it to all of your different marketing channels, including social media accounts, email messaging platforms, text messaging services, and other tools.
Your CRM can help you in the segmentation process, allowing you to securely and conveniently store customer data and use it to develop your campaign.
A buyer persona outlines the characteristics of your customer base, including their demographics, motivations, pain points, potential objections, and interests. Once you’ve gathered enough data from your customers, you can develop these personas to help you better understand their needs and goals. You can use the insights from buyer personas to create targeted email campaigns that align with your subscribers’ needs.
There are many different targeted email marketing services on the market, so it’s important to choose one that offers the tools you need to craft effective emails. Some helpful features to look for include:
Customizing your content for each client segment helps you develop stronger bonds with your customers. Include messaging that speaks to your client’s specific goals or needs. To understand what those needs are, you’ll need to gather data about your customer’s interests, demographics, and how they engage with your brand.
You might offer product recommendations based on a customer’s browsing history or prior purchases. Recognizing important dates — such as your subscriber’s birthday or anniversary — is another good way to connect with customers. It also helps to personalize your email’s subject line using their name or other personal details.
Automation can significantly streamline your email marketing efforts, enhance your customer relationships, and boost subscriber engagement. You can establish automated email sequences triggered by your subscriber’s actions. For instance, you might send a welcome email when they subscribe to your targeted lists for email marketing and initiate a drip campaign to gently push them toward making a purchase.
Automation tools allow you to schedule emails in advance, and you can use them to personalize your messages. For example, you might set up automated emails for special birthday discounts or anniversary congratulations.
Constant Contact provides a comprehensive email marketing platform that includes automation tools for drip campaigns, email creation, and scheduling. Use it to manage your entire email marketing campaign from start to end.
Developing targeted lists for email marketing starts with understanding who your typical buyers are and what motivates them to buy. These are just a few possible categories you can use to segment your audience.
Geographic segmentation involves categorizing customers according to their location and language. It’s helpful if you have customers in different cities, states, regions, or countries. For instance, if you have customers in Canada and Mexico, you could tailor your content to regional and language preferences.
Example of customer segmentation by categories or tags. Source: Constant Contact
Lifecycle segmentation is the process of targeting subscribers based on where they are in the buying process.
If a subscriber is new to your mailing list, you might send them a welcome email and information about what they can expect from your brand. People who have already purchased from you might receive discount coupons or recommendations for other products.
Behavior segmentation involves classifying customers according to their interactions with your brand.
Example of segmenting by user behavior: setting rules based on contacts who opened prior emails. Source: Constant Contact
Website activity, prior purchases, buying frequency, and recent customer engagement are all tools you can use to separate subscribers into various groups. For example, you might send a reminder email to a customer when their subscription is about to expire or recommend a complementary product for a recent purchase.
Gender-based segmentation is helpful if you have products tailored exclusively for men or women, such as clothing. It can also be useful if your data indicates that your customers are primarily men or women, so you can focus your efforts on the group more likely to make a purchase.
Preference-based segmentation involves classifying clients according to their specific preferences. For instance, you might provide subscribers with the option to select how frequently they hear from you and segment them accordingly.
Purchase frequency segmentation is helpful for clients who purchase at different intervals from you. For example, if you have a SaaS product offering different subscription lengths, you can remind customers of their renewal based on their purchase terms.
Typically, email segmentation falls into two categories: pre-segmentation and post-segmentation. Your pre-segmentation email strategy concerns the content you share before learning about your audience’s interests and demographics. It can include things like welcome emails and general information about your company.
You can incorporate post-segmentation strategies after you learn more about your subscribers and decide on how to categorize them. Your post-segmentation strategy will move away from generalizations to more personalized content.
You won’t know whether your campaign strategies are working unless you evaluate your results. Establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your goals for the campaign can help you analyze results and determine whether they’re meeting your expectations.
Analytics can help you review the results of your campaign. Evaluating your open rates, click-throughs, and conversions will help you understand your performance. You can compare your results against pre-established benchmarks to determine if you’re meeting your expectations.
A/B tests are a great strategy for targeted bulk email marketing. Try changing different aspects of your messages, such as your subject line or images, and send different emails to a small portion of your subscribers. You can send a wider group the email that generates the best response from your A/B test.
Targeted emails require more than just segmentation to be effective. The following methods will help your digital marketing strategy soar.
Consider using tools like a CRM platform to manage your email campaigns and subscriber data. Constant Contact’s lead generation CRM can help you attract more clients — and ultimately, generate more sales — through email digital marketing.
Targeted email marketing is one of the best ways to drive ROI. Since you’re tailoring your content to each subscriber’s interests, buying motivations, demographics, and other factors, they’re more likely to open it, read it, and take action. When your subscribers convert, it results in a higher campaign ROI.
Most customers won’t convert when they first learn of your brand. Instead, you’ll need to warm them up by providing them with informative content and reasons to purchase from you.
Initiating a drip campaign can help you attract their interest and learn more about what motivates them. As you gather more information about their needs, you can take a more sales-oriented approach to your email strategy.
Once you’re familiar with the ins and outs of building a targeted email campaign, consider these more advanced techniques for maximizing its effectiveness.
Your work doesn’t end once you’ve fully implemented your targeted email campaign. Instead, continue to review your results, compare them against your benchmarks, and tweak your strategies and content as needed. Regularly assessing your performance can help you optimize for continued advancement.
Ultimately, open rates and read rates don’t determine the effectiveness of your campaign; a conversion does. Experiment with different tactics and messaging strategies to increase your click-throughs. Time-sensitive offers and valuable collateral can help encourage more subscribers to click through. Track, analyze, and adjust your campaign strategies overtime to achieve positive results.
When developing any email marketing campaign, it’s important to ensure compliance with laws about data collection and use. They vary by state and country, and you should familiarize yourself with them to avoid breaking regulations.
When building your subscriber list, be sure to get your customers’ consent to receive marketing materials from you. Sending a verification email after they opt-in provides additional confirmation that they want to receive your messages.
Focus on growing your list organically through ethical means. While it may take some time and effort to build your subscriber list, you’ll end up with a genuine, attentive audience that wants to hear from you.
Resources:
Targeted email marketing campaigns for e-commerce are some of the best ways to develop strong customer relationships and boost your sales. To run an effective campaign, you’ll have to get to know your audience — who they are, what they want, and how they like to be approached. The effort will pay off in the form of stronger brand loyalty and more conversions.
Constant Contact provides tons of materials that can assist you in your efforts. Check out our comprehensive guide to email marketing for small businesses to hone your skills, our lead gen and CRM product features to manage sales, and download our automation guide to help you run smoother campaigns with less manual effort.
I’m picky when it comes to my email. I only sign up for mailing lists that fit my interests and offer great content. And I’m quick to unsubscribe from emails that seem spammy or I can’t remember signing up for. This approach keeps my inbox squeaky clean and focused on my favorite topics: dogs, books, and hiking.
Opt-in emails are one reason why I have such a tidy inbox. Businesses send these messages to people who have shown interest in their communications. Recipients who “opt-in” permit the companies to send them promotional emails.
Opt-in emailing gives customers more control over their inboxes. It’s also legally required in many countries. Read on to discover everything you need to know to write strong opt-in emails.
An opt-in email is a message sent to people who have consented to receive promotional materials. Businesses only send opt-in emails to people who voluntarily provide their contact information.
The process typically looks like this:
This simple process builds trust by letting customers control the content they receive. It also helps reduce the amount of spam in their inboxes.
Opt-in and opt-out emails sound similar, but there are a few key differences.
Brands send opt-in emails to people who have already expressed interest. This process lets people choose whether to start receiving emails. If the person doesn’t opt-in, they don’t get any messages.
Opt-out emails take the opposite approach. These messages assume consent until the recipient explicitly opts out of future communications. Companies often send opt-out emails to potential customers as cold — or unsolicited — messages.
Opt-in email marketing helps companies create an engaged audience. When your subscribers opt-in, you know that they genuinely care about your content.
By contrast, opt-out emails assume consent until the recipients actively say no. Some people may view these emails as pushy or unwanted, which can hurt your brand reputation.
Many countries have created laws regulating commercial emails. In the U.S., businesses must follow the CAN-SPAM Act. This acronym stands for the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003.
The CAN-SPAM Act defines commercial emails as “any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service.” This definition includes business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) emails.
According to the CAN-SPAM Act, opt-in emails and other commercial messages must:
You must also follow the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) if you have subscribers in the European Union. This law requires companies to get permission to send emails and sets strict rules about data privacy.
Companies that don’t obey these regulations can face hefty penalties. Make sure you fully understand and follow all relevant laws before sending emails.
Opt-in emails are a key part of any digital marketing campaign. They allow you to only contact people who have given their express permission. That way, you can build an email list of eager and willing subscribers.
Opt-in email marketing also helps you personalize your messages. You can use your sign-up form to collect relevant demographic data. Many companies also let customers opt-in to receive certain types of messages. This information allows you to tailor your emails for the most impact.
Building opt-in email lists can sound complicated and scary. You may ask, “How do I know if I have permission to send messages? What if no one wants to sign up? What if customers give permission but change their minds later?”
Don’t worry. By following these best practices, you’ll master opt-in email marketing in no time.
Don’t make customers jump through hoops to join your mailing list. Follow these steps to make your sign-up process fast and easy:
Chewy offers a great model of an effective sign-up form. They include a catchy slogan in bold font to grab the reader’s attention as they scroll down the page. Chewy also summarizes its email content in one sentence for easy skimming. Finally, Chewy only asks customers to share their email addresses so they can sign up in seconds.
You don’t need a computer science degree to create your own registration form. Constant Contact has many tools to help you collect permission-based subscribers, including:
Email sign-up tools increase your reach by letting you offer more than one way to subscribe.
Feedback helps you continuously improve your opt-in emails. There are many ways to ask your subscribers for their opinions, such as:
Say you want to create more relevant content for your subscribers. You could send them a survey about the types of emails they enjoy receiving and ask them to recommend new content you should cover. This approach helps you tailor your content for your audience, meet their expectations, and make them feel part of your community.
Offering an incentive is one of the best ways to get email marketing opt-in. The gift doesn’t need to be fancy or expensive. But it should be something that your target audience finds relevant and valuable.
For example, the publisher Simon & Schuster offers new subscribers a free ebook. This exclusive offer gives potential customers immediate value when they opt into the company’s email marketing.
Here are other incentives you could offer subscribers:
Many subscribers only care about certain types of content. For example, a customer may love educational content but not want to read product updates. Respect these preferences by letting subscribers control the content they receive.
For instance, you could allow subscribers to choose from these options:
Giving options lets customers customize their email preferences based on their interests. They can adjust these settings as their needs change. This strategy increases engagement by allowing customers to receive relevant and meaningful content.
Subscribers can choose to opt out of your emails at any time. If you want to keep them on your mailing list, you’ll need to give them a reason to stay loyal.
Creating compelling, high-quality content will help you maintain permission. Keep your audience engaged with meaningful content tailored to their needs. For example, you can send educational articles, exclusive discounts, and how-to videos. Producing diverse content will allow you to offer value to everyone on your list.
You can also maintain subscribers by offering periodic rewards. These incentives could include free gifts, loyalty points, and access to special content. This technique gives customers a reason to stay engaged after they opt-in for emails.
There are two sign-up methods for opt-in emails: single and double.
The single opt-in method only asks for permission once. The process is simple. The subscriber fills out the sign-up form, clicks the submit button, and gets added to the mailing list.
Single opt-in is the fastest and most accessible way to get new subscribers. Consumers can sign up in a few seconds and receive emails immediately. But this method could lead to spam complaints if consumers give incorrect or fake email addresses.
The double opt-in email requires subscribers to give permission twice. First, they’ll give you their contact information. Next, they’ll receive an email asking them to click a link to confirm their subscription. If they don’t opt-in both times, they won’t get added to the mailing list.
This approach lets you confirm that you’re sending messages to the right inboxes, reducing bounce rates. Subscribers also need to work harder to receive double opt-in emails, which increases engagement. But the higher barrier for entry can lead to fewer subscribers in the long run.
Opt-in emails offer many benefits for companies in all industries. They help businesses comply with the GDPR and other regulations. This method also makes it easier for customers to distinguish legitimate messages from spam.
Looking for inspiration? Study real-world examples of successful opt-in email strategies. For instance, author Elizabeth Spann Craig includes a banner sign-up form at the top of her website. She offers subscribers free ebooks, recipes, and other incentives.
Target is another notable brand that uses opt-in emails. The company offers subscribers exclusive deals and weekly ads.
There are many strategies and tools for creating effective opt-in emails. Follow these tips to get started.
Save time by using templates to create your opt-in emails and sign-up forms. These layouts let you create consistent, professional designs in minutes. Look for a platform that allows you to customize pre-designed templates with your brand logo and colors. Constant Contact offers hundreds.
Catch the attention of potential subscribers by putting your opt-in forms in the right places. Some companies put these forms in their website headers so visitors see them immediately. Other effective locations include the sidebar and pop-up boxes.
Don’t forget to include a link to your sign-up form in your social media bios. This technique will help you attract customers who may discover your brand through Instagram and other platforms.
Popups can be a highly effective way to promote sign-up forms and get new subscribers. But you need to use this tool carefully to avoid disrupting the user experience.
Keep popups simple and small so users can absorb them quickly. You should also include a noticeable “X” so visitors can close the popup and return to your website. Finally, consider creating exit popups that only appear when users try to leave your website. This method gives departing visitors one last opportunity to engage with your brand.
Many marketers struggle to consistently grow their opt-in email lists. These tips can help you achieve success:
Opt-in emails are a core part of permission-based marketing. This strategy asks customers for consent to send them promotional materials.
Permission–based marketing has many benefits. Asking consumers for consent builds trust and makes them feel respected. This approach also increases the quality of leads by letting you focus on prospects who have already expressed interest.
Opt-in emails are essential for ethical marketing. This technique prioritizes consent and demonstrates that you respect your audience’s preferences. It also boosts engagement rates by ensuring you only contact people who are interested in your emails. Get started by creating a sign-up form for your website. As your opt-in email list grows, you can engage your new audience with compelling content. You can also design an email drip campaign to connect with subscribers regularly. With these strategies, you’ll empower your clients and build stronger relationships.
As a marketer, it’s essential to understand what a sender score is and how it impacts your email reputation. A sender score evaluates whether you’re a spammer or are sending legitimate, authentic emails that people want to read. Working toward a high sender score is crucial to keep your marketing emails out of the spam box.
Email providers use two measures to evaluate the sender score, which combine to form your email sender score and impact email deliverability:
Here’s what you need to know about your sender score.
In addition to domain and IP reputation, email service providers determine the sender score based on several factors, including the following:
Domain sender score represents how reputable your email’s domain is. Your domain follows the @ in your email address, such as @company.com. Possessing a high-ranking domain improves your sender score, reducing the likelihood of your emails going to spam.
You can find your domain sender score using tools like senderscore.org. Simply entering your domain will retrieve a numerical assessment between 0 and 100. A sender score between zero and 69 is considered poor, while a score of 70 to 79 is fair. Anything over 80 is good. The higher your score, the more authoritative your domain is in the eyes of email service providers.
Every email address has an assigned IP address. Email service providers evaluate your IP address’s credibility when determining your sender score. The higher your IP reputation, the better your sender score will be.
In the early stages of building your email subscriber list, your IP address will have a low score. Your score will naturally increase as you attract more subscribers, send quality content, and stick to a regular email frequency.
Your sender score determines whether email service providers believe you’re a spammer.
You can use any of these tools for a sender score reputation check:
There are several ways you can improve your sender score.
There are a few proactive measures you can take to build your sender score:
Over time, some of your subscribers may disengage from your email list. If you see that happen, consider implementing a customer winback campaign to reconnect with subscribers before they unsubscribe.
If you receive hard bounce alerts for email subscribers, remove them from your list entirely. A hard bounce indicates the subscriber’s email address is no longer valid.
Once you set up your new email address from which to send your marketing messages, authenticate it to help prevent your emails from going to spam.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), Sender Policy Framework (SPF), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) are all authentication methods designed to prevent spammers from taking over an email address they don’t own.
As your sender score improves, it’s crucial to manage it. Here are a few steps you can take.
Routinely analyze your email statistics to assess your performance. Evaluate your open rates, click-throughs, and conversions and compare them to your target benchmarks. See where you can improve if your email campaigns don’t meet your expectations.
Maintaining a clean email subscriber list means paying attention to engagement and bounce rates. If subscriber engagement drops, analyze your campaign to see where you might tweak it and reattract your audience.
Hard bounce notifications indicate something is wrong with a subscriber’s email address, and it can no longer receive messages. A soft bounce means a temporary message delivery issue.
Removing email addresses that hard bounce helps protect the integrity of your email sender score. A soft bounce generally won’t impact your sender score unless there’s a problem with the recipient’s email address.
When adding new subscribers, ensure you get their consent to receive your messages. Including double opt-ins — where the subscriber provides their email address, then verifies their subscription through an extra step to confirm they want to receive your messages — helps keep your list clean.
It’s important to authenticate your email address before sending messages. Authentication protocols like DKIM, SPF, and DMARC validate your address and prevent spoofers or other nefarious actors from hacking it.
People won’t always read every email you send. They may scroll past messages that don’t relate to their interests or draw their attention.
If you notice a subscriber is inactive for an extended period, you can attempt to bring them back through a winback campaign. However, not every subscriber will respond favorably. If they continue to ignore your messages, consider removing them from your list.
There are no strict rules on when to remove inactive subscribers. Every marketer sets standards based on engagement expectations and other factors, like sending frequency.
For instance, an email marketer who sends only a handful of emails every few months may not remove inactive subscribers for a year or longer. You can set a timeline for removing inactive subscribers that suits your business model.
To remove an inactive subscriber, simply delete their email address from your list. Once removed, the individual will no longer receive your messages.
A spam trap is an email address that service providers use to identify senders who fail to adhere to email best practices. At one time, they may have been valid email addresses, but the recipient has abandoned them.
You can identify potential spam traps by tracking your subscriber’s open rates. If a subscriber hasn’t read your emails in over a year, the address may be a spam trap, and you might want to remove it from your list to protect your list credibility.
A well-designed email marketing strategy has a consistent sending schedule. Sending regularity demonstrates you’re a reliable marketer who wants to interact with your subscribers consistently. Once you set an email-sending schedule — whether it’s communication every few days or weeks — stick with it.
Your email infrastructure consists of the tools used to deliver your messages. It includes email reputation management tools, IP addresses, mail servers, and other components.
When building your email infrastructure, it’s important to choose tools that facilitate seamless interactions and allow you to monitor all aspects of your email reputation, including domain sender score, email sender score, and return path sender score.
It will take time and effort to build your email sender’s reputation. You may encounter a few issues along the way.
Some of the problems to look out for include:
There are a few mistakes you can easily avoid when designing your email marketing campaign.
A few of the most common errors typical among email senders are:
There are various tools you can use to gauge your sender score. An email testing service helps eliminate common email errors, ensuring they deliver properly no matter what email service provider your subscribers use.
Email verification tools — SPF, DKIM, and DMARC — protect your email address from nefarious actors who may try to spoof your email address or intercept your messages.
It’s important to regularly evaluate your email marketing campaigns using a robust analytics tool. Constant Contact provides comprehensive analytics you can use to review your email campaign performance.
There are a few more things to know about sender scores.
If your sender score isn’t what you want it to be, work to improve it:
Your email sender’s reputation may vary across service providers. Use a tool to check your sender score with each client, and work to maintain a positive score to minimize email deliverability issues.
Building a solid sender score is vital to email marketers, especially as you continue to grow your customer base. When you have a high sender score, your emails are less likely to end up as spam. Instead, they’ll go directly to your subscribers, making it easier to connect with your audience. Constant Contact’s email marketing platform provides tools to help you strengthen your sender score, including automation features and analytics. For more resources, make sure to subscribe to our Hints & Tips Newsletter.
When budgets are tight, online marketing might be the first expense you look to cut.
Let me stop you right there.
While traditional advertising methods are costly and hard to measure, there has never been greater access to cost-effective, trackable marketing tools for how to market your small business, like email marketing, for example. The best way to market your business might be a lot more accessible than you think.
While traditional advertising methods are costly and hard to measure, there has never been greater access to cost-effective, trackable marketing tools for how to market your small business, like email marketing, for example. The best way to market your business might be a lot more accessible than you think.
Almost 94% of the U.S. population is online, and that number is growing. By 2028, it will be close to 98%. Whatever you sell, your potential customers are out there on social media sites, checking their email, and Googling your industry.
Small business internet marketing connects you with those audiences. It sets up channels for people to discover your business and to get to know you, all without significant expenses on your part.
It’s something you don’t want to miss out on. Here are the top digital marketing tips for small businesses to get you started.
To get your business off the ground check out these free marketing tools and channels for advice on how to market your small business.
Social media marketing is 100% free for advertising small business. Social media is also a great way to help your business compete and hopefully stand out amongst similar businesses. Create business accounts on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, etc. to foster brand engagement and loyalty through likes, comments, shares, website visits, and purchases. Showcase products and services, keep loyalists engaged, and to give followers a heads up about upcoming events, recaps of previous ones, and access to contests, freebies, valuable content.
If your budget allows, consider investing in a social media tools to help you craft and schedule content. Social scheduling software allows you to schedule content across social media platforms in advance, giving you back time and high-level visibility into your social media campaigns.
Email marketing and social media marketing stand to provide major benefits for your business. Is email better than social media? Is it the reverse? Try out both tactics and see what works for your business.
According to a 2022 consumer survey, people find new brands via search engines versus any other channel or medium. A Google search is even more popular than asking a friend for a recommendation.
The higher you rank on a search results page (SERP), the more clicks you’ll get. Digital marketers call this the click-through rate, or CTR — essentially, how many web searchers click on your link after seeing it on a SERP. As you’ll see in the chart below, you get more traffic as you climb the page:
SEO improves your website’s design, structure, and content to impress search engine algorithms. If search engines like Google see your site as a relevant and high-quality match for a search term, they’ll put your business higher on the SERP.
To improve your SEO, start by working on one of the following key elements:
Make sure to connect your website to your Constant Contact account so you can track your SEO success. SEO often takes time to show results, so be patient!
Like SEO, content marketing is an essential element of any online marketing plan for small businesses. It engages audiences who might not already know about your business — people at the top of the sales funnel, to use a popular marketing term.
Content builds relationships by offering valuable information without pushing a sale. While ads go straight for the pitch, content eases people into the relationship by helping them and providing a good user experience before asking them to buy.
Showcase what your company has to offer by crafting website pages for products and services. Additionally, provide value by way of blogs and gated content, like ebooks and white papers.
Good content marketing will help your business do the following:
Google identifies quality content as “helpful, reliable, [and] people-first.” That means the content does all of the following:
For best results, use the checklist above on every project in your content strategy.
Tip: Make sure to include calls to action throughout your website to encourage visitors to subscribe to your mailing list, check out a blog, and to purchase products and services. Calls to action can be short pieces of directive text like “Learn more,” “Subscribe,” and “Purchase now” placed on buttons, banners, or hyperlinks. Check out this blog on How to Write Content for a Website to help you craft value-driven, engaging content to promote your business.
It is important to make sure people have the ability to easily find information about your business and see how your business compares to businesses in your niche and local area through customer reviews. Add your business to online lists like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Yellowpages, and Angi to group your business among competitor businesses and similar businesses in your area.
Create a Google Business Profile so people can see a quick overview of important information like address, operating hours, images, reviews, menu, identification badges like “LGBTQIA+ owned business”, “woman-owned business”, and “veteran-owned business”. Your Google profile will also allow you to collect reviews for your business. Make sure to respond to reviews, especially negative ones, to build transparency and credibility for you business. You can learn more ways to harness reviews by reading our blog on How to Grow Positive Reviews on Google.
You should be marketing all the time — wherever you are. Therefore, you need a compelling elevator pitch.
Research shows the average attention span of an adult is about six to eight seconds. That’s all the time you have to grab someone’s attention.
If you successfully engage them, then you only have a little over a minute to really sell them on your product or service. Invest the time to craft a killer elevator pitch. The return on your investment will pay huge dividends in terms of creating business opportunities.
You don’t have to think big when it comes to your marketing efforts. Think locally. What’s going on in your community?
Sponsor a Little League team or a 5k charity walk/run. Print bookmarks and leave them at the local library. Get to know your ideal customer and think about how and where they spend their time.
Then search for opportunities to get in front of your customer with your marketing message.
Put together a group of synergistic, non-competitive businesses in your area and agree to cross-promote.
You can use coupons, fliers, reciprocal website links, bundled promotions or social media platforms. By collaborating with each other, you can expand your customer base because you’ll be reaching new people.
I’m a huge fan of networking. I don’t think there is any better way to build a business than to get out there, shake some hands, and get to know people.
Networking requires a time commitment and it doesn’t provide instant gratification, but a strong network is one of the greatest assets any business person can have.
A lot of people hate public speaking. However, there are many organizations looking for qualified, subject-matter experts who can present to their groups.
Take a deep breath and volunteer. You don’t have to be a pro as long as the information you share is helpful to the audience. And the upside — the more you do it the easier it gets. Plus, it positions you as a credible authority in your field.
I started my corporate career in the field of public relations and the business has changed significantly because of technology.
Today, a small business owner can accomplish a lot without hiring a professional firm. Subscribe to Help a Reporter Out. You can respond to reporters’ queries that are looking for story ideas and resources. Some are small media opportunities, but others are major media outlets that use this service too.
Don’t be shy about asking for customer referrals. The majority of people say they are willing to provide a referral if asked, but very few take the initiative to do it on their own.
Referrals make it easier to get in the door with new customers. If you aren’t asking for them, you are missing opportunities.
If you have room in your budget to your boost your marketing efforts through paid means, try these tactics and channels.
While your business might not have a big enough marketing budget to use paid advertising regularly, it is worth it to allot a small portion of your budget to test out paid advertising through social media and search engines. Paid advertising allows you to target and segment your audience based on behaviors, interests, demographics, etc. ensuring that your content is seen by the right people.
Google ads (Formerly Google Adwords): Google ads uses a pay-per-click model which means you only pay for the amount of clicks your ad receives. The cost of your ad will vary depending on the popularity/competitiveness of your keyword. Bidding on a keyword will help place your URL at the top of the search engine results page (SERPs).
Ads manager (Facebook ads and Instagram ads): Similar to Google, Facebook and Instagram use a pay-per-click model for advertising. Create image, video, and carousel ads on Facebook and Instagram to reach your target audience. Use Facebook lead gen ads to generate interest for a particular product or service and to lead users to sign-up for your business’ email list to learn more.
Email marketing is a cost-efficient and highly beneficial marketing channel to help you advertise your business. In fact, “Email is considered one of the most effective channels for marketing, with 79 percent of marketers placing it in their top 3.” (Constant Contact) Begin by collecting email marketing contacts by placing a sign-up form on your website, social media, and through in-store forms (if applicable). Having a healthy list of consenting email subscribers lets you have greater control over your audience, making sure you are not limited by a third party platform – like social media – in order to reach subscribers and to communicate effectively.
Once you have a general list of subscribers, you can segment your lists to better target your audience based on their interactions with your business and information they have provided you in the their email sign-up form. Craft informative, stylized, and personalized marketing emails to send to your subscribers.
Create a welcome email series to introduce your business, products, and services to potential customers. Craft automated email triggers to send warm wishes to subscribers on their birthday or to remind shoppers of their abandoned carts. Send a regular newsletter to keep your audience informed. Not sure what to send? Here’s a list of 30 email marketing ideas.
Consider investing in a top-tier email service provider (ESP), like Constant Contact, to give you greater control and visibility into the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts. View important reporting metrics like open and click-through rates, conversions, attrition rates, heat maps, and bounce rates to give you insight into campaign performance and to make data-driven improvements. In terms of return on investment (ROI), email marketing has an average return of $36 for every $1 spent. That’s major.
Increase credibility and name recognition for your business by joining local or national business associations and applying for local, national, and international business awards.
Joining a business association in your community or on a national/international scale can help you build positive relationships with business owners and the potential for partnerships and collaborations. Business associations can also provide your business with valuable resources and learning opportunities like workshops, lectures, and networking events. Business associations also have a hand in shaping policy, adding your voice to the conversation will help your business interests.
Business awards and recognition will help you stand out from your competition as a source of expertise and excellence in your field.
Coupons are a good way for many businesses to attract new customers. Research shows that people will go out of their way to use a coupon, proving that this method is successful in expanding your customer base.
Coupons can also generate return visits. For example, if you give a customer a coupon for a discount to use on future business, there’s a high probability they’ll be back.
If someone has the opportunity to experience your product or service, chances are they will want to purchase more.
Don’t be afraid to give someone a free trial or a sample. In today’s economy, people are more comfortable purchasing something they have been able to experience first.
These inexpensive marketing strategies will help you engage customers, build relationships, and ultimately keep your brand awareness top-of-mind. It’s not always about the money you have to spend on marketing, it’s about the time and effort you put into it and above all, the relevance it has for your customers.
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Climate change and pollution are often on my mind. I constantly see these topics in my social media feeds and on the news. This content has made me think more deeply about the environmental impact of my actions. I’ve already taken small steps to make a difference, like becoming a vegetarian.
This awareness has also made me more conscious about the brands I support. I want to give my money to companies that help the planet, not harm it. And I’m not the only customer who feels this way. Harris Poll research reports that 82% of shoppers want brands to share their values. Many of these customers will stop buying from companies they view as unethical.
Businesses can use cause marketing to demonstrate their values and make a difference. This technique lets companies and nonprofit organizations unite forces. The business makes a charitable donation to the charity and improves its reputation. In exchange, the nonprofit organization helps promote the partnership. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.
This guide examines the meaning, benefits, and challenges of cause marketing. We also explore tools for developing campaigns and building your contact list.
Cause marketing is a partnership between a business and a nonprofit organization. This collaboration allows both parties to promote themselves and expand their reach. The company improves its image and proves its commitment to social responsibility. Meanwhile, the nonprofit gets exposure to new audiences.
This marketing technique has a long history in the United States. In 1983, American Express created the first formal cause marketing campaign. The company raised $1.7 million in three months to renovate the Statue of Liberty. This campaign also raised national awareness of the American Express credit card.
Cause marketing campaigns have proliferated in the last two decades. In 2004, businesses spent $990 million on cause sponsorship. In 2020, cause sponsorships surged to $10 billion due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This trend will likely continue as companies cater to customers who are passionate about social causes.
Cause-related marketing can significantly impact brand identity. These campaigns strengthen companies’ relationships with their communities and customers. They can also boost a brand’s reputation and attract new customers who care about the cause. Cause marketing is also an effective way to stand out from competitors.
You may feel tempted to partner with the first exciting nonprofit you find. But the most effective cause marketing campaigns take careful planning and consideration. Every aspect of your campaign must align with your values if you want to succeed.
You can start by identifying a single cause that fits your brand identity and mission.
Consider these questions:
Your campaign will feel more genuine if you pick a cause that gets you and your audience fired up. Promoting a cause with an obvious connection to your brand or products is also easier.
For example, suppose your company sells athletic equipment and wants to increase accessibility to sports. You could partner with a charity that helps people with disabilities play soccer. Or you could choose a nonprofit that supports young athletes from disadvantaged groups.
Your cause marketing campaign should go beyond surface-level engagement with a nonprofit. Consider how you can align your values and products with your chosen cause.
If your company partners with a nonprofit for athletes with disabilities, build on this campaign by making accessibility and inclusivity central to your mission. For example, you could include people with disabilities in your marketing materials. You can also design accessible sports equipment for athletes with disabilities. These efforts will create a culture of inclusivity far beyond your marketing campaign.
Many companies donate money to their partner organizations. But you don’t need to drain the company’s bank account to give support. Here are three ways you can give back:
Inspire your audience to engage with your cause marketing campaign. You can encourage them to follow your nonprofit partner on social media and donate. You could also invite them to participate in charity events.
Once you’ve picked your cause, it’s time to implement your marketing campaign. These three strategies will help you achieve your goals and make an impact.
Start by researching successful cause marketing examples. This step lets you learn about effective strategies and incorporate them into your own campaign.
For example, the shoe brand TOMS donates ⅓ of its profits to community organizations. The company partners with nonprofits that reflect its values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. TOMS markets this campaign through website pages, annual impact reports, and videos.
Two Blind Brothers is another helpful case study. As the name suggests, this clothing company was founded by two brothers with visual impairments. The business donates 100% of its profits to charities and researchers supporting the blind community. Two Blind Brothers promotes their cause through an animated film, blog posts, and social media.
These case studies show the importance of choosing a cause aligned with your company’s values. They also highlight some of the strategies marketers use to advertise their causes.
Your nonprofit partner is your greatest ally for your campaign. Together, you can develop strategies to co-market the cause to your audiences.
These techniques could include:
Track your campaign’s performance to see how audiences respond to your content. Your goals can help you determine which metrics to use.
If you want to raise awareness of your nonprofit partner, measure donations and social media engagement. If you want to boost your brand’s reputation, track brand sentiment and customer satisfaction.
Other valuable metrics include:
Cause marketing has many advantages for businesses of all sizes. Many consumers expect brands to address environmental and social issues. Supporting a cause helps you meet this demand and builds customer loyalty.
This strategy can also improve your brand’s public perception. Your audience will view your company as ethical and socially responsible. This view may persuade them to choose you over competitors. Media outlets may also spotlight your campaign, leading to more positive exposure.
There are also many cause marketing benefits for your nonprofit partner. Nonprofits often have limited financial and human resources. Your company can provide valuable marketing support to help them reach new audiences. Your campaign may also inspire consumers to donate to your partner.
Cause-related marketing has many benefits but can come with unique challenges.
Some brands struggle to find the right cause. Overcome this obstacle by defining your values and mission. Look for nonprofit organizations that align with these principles. You can also research your audience’s interests to identify relevant causes.
A poorly planned campaign can also put your brand reputation at risk. Some businesses choose controversial causes that offend their target audience. Companies may also face backlash if they use insensitive messaging.
For example, Pepsi drew controversy in 2017 after it released a commercial featuring the white model Kendall Jenner. The ad shows Jenner defusing a protest by handing a police officer a can of Pepsi. Time called the commercial “a glaring misstep” that trivializes real protests like the Black Lives Matter movement. Pepsi quickly withdrew the ad and issued an apology.
Avoid this risk by choosing partners and causes that have positive public perceptions. Hiring a sensitivity reader can also help create tactful and respectful messaging.
Expand your campaign’s reach with digital marketing. This approach involves sharing your message through digital channels. Many brands use social media and blog posts to promote their causes. Email marketing also lets you share messages about your campaign with subscribers.
Content marketing can also help you engage audiences. This strategy lets you tell persuasive stories about your cause and nonprofit partner.
For example, you could create videos and infographics about your partner’s impact. You can also share campaign updates on your blog and website.
Combine cause marketing with other business areas to amplify your impact.
Your sales department can create promotions related to your cause. Customers could get exclusive discounts if they donate to your partner.
You could also develop co-branded products. For example, BrewDog created a limited-edition beer called “Street Dog.” Each can features an adoptable dog. The brewery donated the sale proceeds from this beer to animal charities.
Cause marketing businesses should also integrate this strategy into their website operations. Create a landing page that shares information about your collaboration. You should also include calls to action to encourage visitors to donate or learn more.
Cause marketing raises more ethical and legal dilemmas than other practices. Marketers must focus on accountability and transparency to maintain customer trust. Always explain how your partner uses donations and ensure they follow through on their commitments.
Businesses must also follow relevant regulations for cause marketing. These requirements vary by state but may include:
Finally, businesses should avoid “causewashing.” Companies that engage in this unethical practice support causes to make money, not to make a genuine difference. Causewashing often occurs when businesses try to take advantage of a popular cause.
Create authentic campaigns by focusing on causes that fit your mission. You should also commit to your cause for an extended period instead of jumping on the latest fad.
There are many resources to help cause marketing agencies create effective campaigns.
Customer relationship management (CRM) software is an essential tool. Constant Contact’s CRM helps you promote your campaign to your ideal audience.
You can build custom landing pages and email campaigns to reach potential supporters. The platform’s simple contact management features also make it easy to create a shared mailing list for you and your partners.
Constant Contact’s marketing automation tool also streamlines messaging. The platform automatically sends emails, social media posts, and other content. This feature saves time and helps you reach supporters at the right time. You can also watch your campaign performance with built-in data analytics tools.
Raise awareness about environmental and social issues with cause-related marketing. This strategy lets you support important causes while improving your brand reputation. It’s one of the best ways to build trust with young customers and other audiences. Plus, you’ll get to help exciting nonprofits make a bigger impact.
Start your cause marketing journey by clarifying your values. Next, look for a nonprofit that resonates with your mission. Get in touch to see if they’re interested in collaborating and start building a relationship.
With a little effort, you can work together to drive social change.
Companies have used marketing newsletters to keep in touch with customers for decades. My parents used to get snail mail newsletters from the local comic shop and other companies. These pamphlets often had coupons, product features, and invitations to events. (I always looked for the dates for the comic book trivia nights.) They were an excellent way for businesses to keep in touch with clients and market their brands.
Newsletters remain as popular as ever, but most modern companies send them digitally. In 2023, 69% of B2B marketers used email newsletters to share content. It’s easy to see the appeal of this approach. Marketing newsletters are an affordable and simple way to connect with your audience. They let you deliver valuable content and build long-term relationships with your subscribers.
Of course, creating effective marketing newsletters is easier said than done. You’ll need the right content, a stylish layout, and personal touches. Marketing automation tools and other technology can streamline this process.
This guide explores strategies and tools for creating engaging marketing newsletters. We also cover best practices and common mistakes to avoid.
A marketing newsletter is a collection of updates about a brand. Consider it a highlight reel of essential or exciting content. Companies typically send this type of email every month or quarter.
Marketing newsletters contain a broad range of content, such as:
Obviously, you wouldn’t include all this information at once — it’s a newsletter, not a novel! Aim to include two to five different types of content per newsletter. Your January edition could feature a case study and an invitation to a webinar, then in February, you could announce a new product launch and share industry trends. Mixing up your content will keep your newsletter fresh and offer the most value for clients.
Digital marketing newsletters have many benefits over traditional newsletters. They’re cost-effective and let you reach subscribers much faster than snail mail. Plus, you won’t have to make a trip to the post office and worry about your newsletters getting lost.
Most email platforms also have built-in analytics tools. This technology lets you watch every newsletter’s performance and make adjustments. Say you notice that only 20% of subscribers open your newsletter. You could create catchy subject lines and see if they boost open rates.
Newsletter marketing is one of the best ways to engage customers. Every newsletter is a friendly reminder about your brand and the value it provides. This approach builds relationships by keeping clients informed and connected. Newsletters also invite readers to engage by clicking links, sharing content, and more.
Businesses also use marketing newsletters to deliver personalized content. You can curate content for each client based on their behaviors, interests, and needs. Say a customer buys a software package from your brand. Send them a newsletter with software tutorials and user testimonials about accessory products. New subscribers could get a special offer and a video introduction to your brand. This personalization ensures customers receive timely and relevant content.
All effective marketing newsletters have three essential elements. Focus on nailing this formula every time to engage your subscribers.
Customers see your subject line first when your newsletter lands in their inbox. A catchy heading may entice them to click on your message to see more. But a confusing or uninteresting subject line could leave your email unread — or dismissed to the spam folder.
Personalization is one of the best ways to create intriguing subject lines. Choose an email platform that lets you add dynamic fields. For example, your subject lines could include the recipient’s name or a product they bought recently.
You should also make your subject lines brief yet captivating. Many people check their inboxes on their phones, so stick to 40 characters or less. You’ll also want to include enticing language or timely references. These small details can increase the chances that recipients will open your newsletters.
Here are a few examples of strong subject lines for digital newsletters:
Your newsletter’s visual design matters as much as the content. According to Statista, readers spend an average of 10 seconds reading brand emails. An accessible layout helps readers find relevant content as they skim your email.
These tips will help you design the most appealing newsletter:
Save time using an email template instead of designing your newsletter from scratch. Constant Contact has hundreds of eye-catching templates you can customize for your brand.
A call to action (CTA) invites the reader to complete a task after they read your newsletter. Businesses typically hyperlink CTAs to their websites or social media. This approach can boost engagement and drive conversions.
Like subject headlines, calls to action should be concise and intriguing. It’s also best to use active verbs and direct language to convey a sense of urgency. Aim to inspire the reader to act before they close the newsletter and stop thinking about your brand.
Effective calls to action include:
Content creation is an essential part of every B2B email marketing campaign. Here are three ways to produce valuable content your subscribers want to read.
Storytelling humanizes your brand and strengthens your connection with readers. For example, you can include client success stories and testimonials. You could also share your company’s origin story and interview industry leaders. Focus on telling authentic stories that subscribers find relatable or inspiring.
According to McKinsey & Company, 71% of customers want brands to provide customized experiences. Meet this demand by adding personalized content to your newsletters.
Start by segmenting your mailing list based on company size, goals, or other factors. Then, tailor your content to each group’s interests and pain points. Suppose your business sells plastic packaging to food manufacturers. You could spotlight your recyclable products for customers who have bought sustainable packing.
This may seem counterintuitive, but your marketing newsletters should focus on educational content. That’s because most subscribers join mailing lists to learn about important topics.
Help them gain knowledge by providing informative and relevant content. For example, you can share best practices and industry news. You can sprinkle in some promotional content, but it shouldn’t take over the newsletter.
There are many ways to reach new audiences and grow your subscriber base. Start by including a subscription form on your website. This form should entice readers by describing the benefits of joining your newsletter. You can also allow users to sign up for certain types of newsletter content.
Additionally, many companies offer incentives for joining their mailing list. These perks can include coupons, free e-books, and early access to new products.
You can also integrate social media with your website to capture new subscribers. Promote your newsletter on social media platforms and link to the signup webpage.
A newsletter platform lets you design the layout, add content, and send the newsletter. Many companies offer free services, but they often have basic features. You may also only be able to send your newsletter to a limited number of subscribers.
Paid platforms offer more advanced features and scalable solutions. Constant Contact is one of the top digital newsletter platforms. This provider offers hundreds of email templates, simplifying the design process. It also has email analytics so you can measure your newsletter’s success.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation tools can also improve the newsletter process. Generative AI makes it easy to create tailored content. You can also use automated drip campaigns to send pre-written newsletters to subscribers at scheduled times.
Follow these best practices to optimize your marketing newsletters:
Businesses often struggle to use digital marketing newsletters effectively. Many companies send newsletters too often and annoy subscribers. Others publish their newsletters at random times, which can confuse readers. Avoid this mistake by sending newsletters on a consistent but not overwhelming basis.
Not testing emails is another common pitfall that can lead to embarrassing mistakes. For example, you may realize your newsletter has a glaring typo or an upside-down image. Catch these errors by sending test emails and having a trusted colleague check your work.
Research the laws governing email marketing before you send out your first newsletter. This knowledge will help you ensure you follow all relevant rules.
The most prominent laws include:
Emerging trends will transform newsletter marketing and the broader sphere of email marketing.
Some companies have started including user-generated content in their emails. Future newsletters may include client social media posts, surveys, reviews, and more.
Businesses can also leverage data and advanced segmentation for tailored content. For example, you could analyze customers’ behavior to send them hyper-personalized product recommendations.
Spend time researching the top email marketing newsletter examples. These newsletters can help you identify the best strategies and brainstorm content.
The Hustle is one of the most famous marketing newsletters. This daily newsletter shares the latest news from the business and tech industries. It includes three to five articles with infographics, data, and other educational content.
Increase engagement by adding interactive features and multimedia to your newsletters. These elements can include:
These features make your newsletters more fun and unique. They also encourage readers to engage with your brand in new ways and share your content.
Many websites have resources to help you take your marketing campaigns to the next level.
Coursera and edX have free courses on data analytics, social media marketing, and other concepts. These classes can expand your knowledge and teach you new marketing strategies.
Online communities let you network with other newsletter marketers and share tips. One of the most popular groups is Newsletter Creators on Facebook.
Companies in business, tech, and other industries use marketing newsletters to reach subscribers. Aspiring newsletter creators can invite existing clients to join their mailing lists. Once you have a small audience, publish a monthly newsletter with two or three types of content. You can bump up your production schedule as your audience grows and you get the hang of the process. Remember that the most effective newsletters focus on engaging and educational content.
Email newsletters for a new raw dog food brand started appearing in my inbox a few months ago. At first, I paid them little attention — I didn’t even remember signing up for the mailing list. Then, Instagram ads for the brand showed up in my feed, and my favorite TikTok pet influencer reviewed it. All of this content presented the food as healthy, high quality, and backed by science.
I ordered a bag.
Like many customers, I had been persuaded by an integrated marketing campaign. These campaigns share a consistent message across many marketing channels. This strategy helps businesses make a strong impression on target audiences. It also allows companies to develop a cohesive brand image.
Integrated marketing campaigns combine different types of traditional and digital marketing. Read on to discover how you can make this strategy work for your small to mid-sized business. Our simple tips and tricks will help you reach new customers and boost sales.
Let’s start with the basics: What is an integrated marketing campaign?
An integrated marketing campaign communicates a unified message across many platforms. This method creates a coherent brand voice in different contexts and channels. That way, the audience can identify and connect with the brand no matter where they see its marketing.
This approach comes from the integrated marketing communications (IMC) theory. Northwestern University professor Don Schultz developed this theory in the early 1990s. He described IMC as a way to look “at the whole of marketing communications, rather than concentrating on each of the parts separately.”
In the 1990s, companies relied on traditional marketing methods for IMC. They reached customers through direct mail, television commercials, press releases, and other channels. But, this marketing was mostly one-way and didn’t allow customers to interact with brands. Businesses also couldn’t easily track how people engaged with their marketing.
Modern marketers have expanded the integrated marketing campaign definition. They combine email and SMS, social media, content marketing, and other digital channels that allow companies and customers to interact in real time. They also let marketers gather data to track how their campaigns perform.
Integrated marketing is the future of effective branding. This method enables companies to speak with one voice across all their channels. That means many customers will encounter the same brand identity in many forms. This consistency helps the audience understand the brand’s message, personality, and products. It also builds familiarity and trust over time.
Many companies publish similar content through blogs, social media, and email. But an integrated marketing communications campaign goes beyond adapting content for different platforms. This approach is a coordinated strategy to share a message across many channels.
Start developing your strategy by making a campaign plan. This process involves these basic steps:
An integrated marketing campaign combines two or more channels. Here are the five types of marketing channels that you can combine to expand your reach.
Advertising is paid media that shares persuasive messages about a brand. Companies use these channels to promote their products and services to broad audiences.
Traditional advertising includes billboards, print ads, and radio and TV commercials. Marketers also use digital channels, such as pay-per-click and video ads. Digital advertising often targets more specific audiences than traditional methods like billboards.
Digital marketing uses online channels to engage audiences and raise brand awareness. Businesses often combine paid and free methods to achieve their digital marketing goals. Popular digital marketing channels include email, social media, search engines, and content marketing.
Direct marketing is one-on-one communication to share messages with consumers. This category often overlaps with digital marketing. It includes emails, phone calls, text messages, and direct mail. Direct marketing allows you to deliver personalized content tailored to your customers’ interests.
Public relations uses communication and medical channels to manage a brand’s image. It focuses on creating positive perceptions of a company in the eyes of the public. There are many ways marketers can use public relations in integrated marketing, such as sponsoring community events and collaborating with social media influencers.
Businesses use sales promotion to increase demand for their products or services. Promotions are typically temporary incentives that give customers a sense of urgency. These activities include discounts, free trials, and rebates.
Choose two or three broad channels to begin your integrated marketing strategy. Next, pick specific methods to reach your target audience. Creating buyer personas will help you determine which content resonates with potential clients.
A buyer persona is a character who represents a segment of your audience. You can develop these characters by collecting data on your existing clients. This information should include behavioral data, demographics, and details about their interests. Use the data to create personas and determine how these groups engage with content.
Let’s be honest: Sharing a consistent message across many platforms is not always easy. But these best practices can help you master omnichannel marketing:
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Content is the cornerstone of every integrated marketing campaign. It’s the vehicle that you use to carry your message to your audience. Without it, you won’t have a way to engage with potential customers.
Focus on creating adaptable content and messaging for your campaign. This content should have a core story about your brand that you can tell in many ways. For example, you could highlight how your product helps customers overcome challenges. You can tell this story through case studies, paid video ads, and client testimonials.
You can also study integrated marketing campaign examples for inspiration. Sony Pictures’ promotion of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is one excellent case study. The company released movie trailers and posted about the film on social media. They also created a 3D billboard in Times Square. This cross-channel marketing raised brand awareness and got fans excited about the film.
The Spider-Man campaign highlights the importance of brand consistency across channels. Sony used the same characters, font, and visual style in all its marketing. Your small business may not have the budget for a 3D billboard, but you can still use similar techniques to build brand identity.
Ideally, your campaign should launch across all your channels at once. You may find it helpful to create enough content for a few weeks or months before you start your campaign. That way, you’ll have plenty of material ready to go.
Integrated marketing campaign management will help you share this content efficiently. Create a content calendar to organize your campaign across channels. You can use cross-channel marketing software to schedule when this content appears. You should also hold regular team meetings to address issues and promote collaboration.
After your campaign starts, measure your success with key performance indicators (KPIs). These metrics will help you track how your target audience engages with your content. Relevant KPIs may include:
Nike is one company that has used integrated marketing with great success. The company’s “Just Do It” campaign uses many channels to inspire its audience and encourage physical activity.
For instance, Nike released a commercial called “What the Football?” before the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. The commercial ended with the slogan “Just Do It.” Nike also markets its brand with social media posts and sponsored athlete endorsements.
This case study reveals some of the elements of successful integrated campaigns. These components include:
Keep close tabs on your campaign’s performance, even if you’ve met your goals. That way, you can keep improving and catch problems early.
Say you notice that your recent Instagram posts have half as much engagement as ones from last year. This drop could mean that your audience’s preferences have changed. Or maybe you haven’t maintained a consistent brand. You can investigate the cause and take action to improve future content.
A/B testing can also provide valuable insights into your content’s performance. This process involves sharing two versions of content with segments of your audience. For example, you could use an A/B test to learn which email subject lines get the best response. Use software to track which version gets the most engagement and adjust your content strategy.
Many integrated marketers have adopted emerging technologies. Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the trendiest innovations right now. You can use AI tools to create and adapt content for different channels.
Businesses can also boost engagement with personalization and automation. Marketing software can automatically customize content based on the user’s data. For instance, you can include a client’s name in the email subject line.
Cross-channel marketing often produces an overwhelming amount of data. You can solve this issue by focusing on KPIs related to your goals. Data visualization tools can also help you spot patterns in data quickly.
While this strategy can be time-consuming, it can help you market across many channels. Use marketing automation tools to streamline repetitive tasks and save time.
Changes in consumer behavior will likely drive future trends in integrated marketing. Customers increasingly care about brands’ environmental and social policies. Marketers can respond to this change by creating ethical and transparent campaigns. Innovations like AI can also help companies stay ahead of the competition.
Constant Contact’s digital marketing tools can help you create effective integrated campaigns. Communicate across channels with our email, SMS, and social media marketing solutions. These tools let you schedule content, automate workflows, collect data, and more. They also integrate to streamline campaign management.
A customer relationship management tool lets you track customer data and personalize content. Constant Contact offers a CRM and lead generation solution.
An integrated digital marketing campaign lets you share a consistent message across channels. It’s one of the best ways to build your brand and engage customers.
You can jumpstart your integrated marketing campaign by researching your target audience. Find out which channels they engage with most and tailor your content to appeal to them. As you gain experience, you can branch out into more channels until you’re an integrated marketing master.
Let’s face it: Customers can be a fickle bunch. Competition for customer loyalty is tough, and there’s always something new and shiny to distract them.
So, how do you keep your customers faithful? You stay faithful — with a regular email marketing newsletter.
A monthly newsletter is just what it sounds like — an email that informs subscribers of news about your organization or shared interests. It’s a great way to generate a devoted following with your audience. Sending a monthly newsletter helps develop stronger connections with your subscribers, increase sales, and drive more traffic to your website.
Publishing a monthly newsletter is among the best tools for increasing subscriber engagement. If your time allows — and you have enough relevant information to share — you can write a weekly newsletter. You can also consider a quarterly newsletter if it’s more appropriate for your business model.
To make the most of your newsletter emails, consider these factors.
There are several key aspects that your monthly newsletter should include.
Creating compelling content starts with defining your newsletter’s purpose. What do you want to accomplish with it? Do you want to build anticipation in your company’s products and services, or are you sharing information that fits your audience’s interests?
Once you know your newsletter’s purpose, you can create content that aligns with it. Some examples of content you might include are news about your company, upcoming industry events, new product features and reviews, educational information, and other relevant details.
Your newsletter interface should be easy to interact with, meaning its format is clear and straightforward to follow. Include your company’s logo, clear images, and headings to separate different sections of your newsletter. Your CTA should grab the reader’s eye and include specific directions so they can act on it if they want to.
The subject line is the first thing readers judge in your newsletter, so create one that grabs their attention. Some of the best subject lines encourage a sense of urgency and curiosity among readers. For instance, you might inspire subscribers to open your newsletter using terms like “important” or “act now.”
Personalizing your newsletter’s subject line is also an excellent way to inspire the recipient to open the email. You might personalize your newsletter by including the recipient’s name or other identifying details.
It’s a good idea to draft several subject lines. You can test them among a small segment of your subscriber base to see which ones generate the highest open rates, then use the leading performer as your final subject line.
Your newsletter’s design is one of its most essential components. Select a design with a simplistic interface that’s easy to follow no matter what device you view it on — a smartphone, tablet, or computer. If your newsletter contains multiple sections, use headers and body text to separate each segment.
The content you include in your newsletter should reflect its purpose. If you aim to keep subscribers informed of organizational updates, include them in your content. If your newsletter is product or service-oriented, share clips of your newest items or feature offers. Educational or interest-related newsletters may incorporate blogs or articles relevant to subscribers’ needs.
Wireframes form the basic structure of your newsletter. They include a header section, logo, menu, and body content. Design elements help distinguish each part of the newsletter, such as its layout, navigation bars, and interactive buttons or links.
You can design a wireframe or use a pre-designed monthly newsletter template. Constant Contact’s email marketing tools include a variety of wireframe designs you can choose from to create your newsletter.
Sending your newsletter at an optimal time — when subscribers are most likely to check their inbox and open your email — can improve open and read rates. You can determine the best time to send with the help of your email analytics tools, which will indicate when people are most likely to read your communications. Some email marketing tools will recommend optimal sending times based on prior sent messages.
To create an effective newsletter, adopt a thorough planning process:
Schedule time to develop the content strategy for each newsletter you produce. Use the time to identify what you want to share with your subscribers and what you hope to gain from your message. Outline each topic you’ll cover in your newsletter. Your email will likely include a range of topics, from product descriptions to blog snippets to company happenings. Think about the most important updates to keep subscribers informed. After, define your CTA — whether that’s promoting customer loyalty, directing subscribers to visit your website, or making a purchase.
A comprehensive newsletter planning strategy goes beyond idea generation and sets the stage for your short and long-term email marketing newsletter goals. It assesses how often you’ll send subscribers a newsletter, your objectives, and how to measure the results.
Once you understand the goals and purpose of your newsletter, you can establish a production routine. Your newsletter’s production includes the templates or wireframes you’ll use for your emails, sending consistency, and how you’ll create your content. Other aspects of production include any consistent graphics or images you’ll use — like your company’s logo — and user interface/user experience (UI/UX) design.
Before sending your newsletter en masse, it’s good practice to do some initial testing among a small portion of your subscribers. You can change various elements of your newsletter, like your subject lines, CTAs, and images, to see which combination generates the best results among your testing base.
Aside from A/B testing, thoroughly reviewing your content is a good idea. Check for spelling and grammatical errors and make sure all links and other user elements function correctly.
Creating a steady flow of content for your monthly newsletter can be time-consuming, especially if you have many other tasks. If you’re creating content yourself, schedule a time to devote to content curation.
There are a couple of ways you can cut down on your work while still achieving results:
You’ll want to use analytics and metrics to evaluate your newsletter’s performance. Analytics and metrics will show your newsletter’s success over time and help you understand where your campaign is succeeding and where improvements may be necessary.
A few metrics to monitor include the following:
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While these are some of the most common newsletter performance metrics, you can establish other benchmarks to monitor newsletter performance.
As you embark on your newsletter campaign, store your analytics to compare performance over time. Regular campaign evaluation can help you baseline your newsletter expectations and identify areas where improvements may be necessary.
There are a few typical pitfalls to consider when developing your newsletter. They include:
Be sure to follow proper newsletter development protocols to avoid errors.
Looking for monthly newsletter ideas? Take a look at these monthly newsletter examples from top brands.
A well-crafted newsletter requires practical tools. While you can certainly craft a newsletter within your email service provider’s messaging system, you’ll get professional results from a dedicated email marketing service like Constant Contact.
Through Constant Contact, you can design well-crafted newsletters with pre-designed templates. We offer many email marketing services, including subscriber management, automatic delivery pathways, robust analytics, and a mobile app so you can work on your newsletter from mobile devices.
Keep in mind that tracking your newsletter campaign’s performance is crucial. Monitor your analytics and set benchmarks to evaluate the success of your campaign.
Here are a few additional tips to consider as you develop your newsletter strategy.
Your email list contains all the addresses of people who subscribe to your newsletter. Regularly assess it for hard and soft bounces and inactive subscribers, and remove them — especially hard bounces — when necessary. Keeping your bounce rates low will help you maintain a strong sender score.
The sending frequency of your newsletter can be weekly, monthly, quarterly, or any other timeframe. Once you determine the right frequency for your organization, it’s essential to stick with it. Choose a frequency that allows you to provide quality content without being overbearing.
Building a subscriber base of people who want to read your emails is vital. Avoid purchasing bulk email lists or sending unsolicited newsletters. Instead, grow your email list organically and receive recipient consent before sending your newsletter.
Captivating monthly newsletter subject lines makes the difference between an opened and unopened newsletter. Consider recipients’ needs when designing your subject line if your newsletter is sales-focused. Choose a subject line you think will attract them. For instance, you might highlight your brand-new product or a one-time deal in the email’s subject line.
Your monthly newsletter can help strengthen customer relationships, boost sales, and increase website traffic. Start by determining your newsletter’s purpose and planning your content strategy. Use practical email marketing tools — like Constant Contact — to manage your subscriber list and create professional newsletters that are appealing to read.
To learn more about email marketing newsletters, check out some of our additional resources:
When it comes to communications, many companies focus primarily on crafting their messages to customers. However, internal communications are equally important to your business success. The company newsletter, in particular, is a valuable tool for keeping your employees informed, engaged, and on the same page.
Drafting a successful company newsletter isn’t as tricky as it sounds, especially when you have the right tools. Discover company newsletter examples to learn what works best in these communications and how to craft your own.
Most employees have probably received a company or nonprofit newsletter at one point, but they may not even realize that’s what it was. So, what is a newsletter and what are some examples?
A company newsletter is a type of communication typically shared by email that relays relevant information with the business’s internal team. These newsletters go out to everyone in your organization rather than specific departments or individuals. Communicating the same message to every member of your organization allows you to break down information silos and ensure everyone is informed.
This could include things like a company update, helpful tips for the workplace, or even internal opportunities.
Companies have several reasons for sharing newsletter content with their employees. Some of the objectives of company newsletters include:
Your reasons for sending a newsletter can vary. You may want to establish or reinforce your brand with consistent internal messaging. Or, perhaps you’re interested in opening up important dialogue with your employees. Whatever your objective is for sending company newsletters, you need to ensure it’s both informative and engaging for the best results.
A “good” newsletter is hard to define since different styles and types of newsletters are well suited for different objectives. Still, the best company newsletter examples have some qualities in common. These are some of the elements of effective employee newsletters:
Also, make sure to maintain proper email etiquette in your newsletters. Proofread each message to avoid mistakes, stick to your brand voice, and format your newsletter to appear clearly on desktop and mobile devices.
Ensuring consistency between your newsletters will further strengthen your internal brand. You can use the same general newsletter email template whenever you send the newsletter and update the message with the most current information.
What do you write in a company newsletter? Here are some newsletter content ideas to keep your employees engaged.
When a new employee joins your team, consider announcing their hiring in the next company newsletter. Making the announcement this way will provide a warm welcome to the new employee and allow the rest of the team to learn a little bit more about them.
Announce work anniversaries to celebrate employees who have been with the company for many years. If someone reaches 10 years with the company, for example, mention this in the newsletter to highlight their commitment.
If you have any recommendations that would interest your team members, a list of those must-see items would make a great addition to any company newsletter. Include books, videos, or articles related to your business or professional development.
When special days like the winter holidays and Employee Appreciation Day come around, announce them in the newsletter. These announcements help employees know what events are on the horizon.
Contests and competitions foster engagement and company spirit among your employees. Announce them in the newsletter or, in the case of puzzles and other digital contests, run them entirely through the newsletter.
Get employee feedback on any topic with surveys in your company newsletter. This allows for quick, actionable insights on a variety of topics you may want to gather more data about.
If you have an open job position and would like to hire internally, a great way to share that information is in the company newsletter. Share some basic details about the position and include the next steps interested candidates should take.
Companies often offer training opportunities for employees to strengthen their skills. Share these opportunities in your newsletter so everyone knows they’re available.
You can also use your newsletter to share resources and tips to help employees with their work. This provides value and keeps team members interested in new content.
Corporate charitable efforts are important to employees and customers. Share how your company is doing good and giving back in your newsletter.
Make sure your employees are all up-to-date on any industry and company updates with a newsletter. This is a great place to share any product and service development updates, departmental shifts, and legislative or fiscal changes.
You can send messages from your company board or CEO in separate emails, but why not include them directly in your newsletter? This ensures the information goes to all employees and keeps everyone on the same page.
Newer employees may not be familiar with all of your company history. Include fun facts and important details so they can get to know your brand better.
If company leadership changes, alert your staff in the newsletter.
Strong customer reviews and feedback are encouraging for the whole company. Highlight some top reviews in the newsletter to boost morale and emphasize success.
The newsletter doesn’t need to be all serious business communications. Share some fun activity recommendations or opportunities to keep employees entertained.
As employees hit important milestones or accomplishments, highlight them in the newsletter. This is also a great opportunity to showcase team and group achievements.
It’s not a plaque on the wall, but getting an employee of the month shoutout in the newsletter will still help motivate and reward employees.
Take the opportunity to know your employees on a more personal level and share their stories. This may include their hobbies, interests, and accomplishments outside of work.
Don’t hesitate to highlight your executives, especially when they’re making headlines or gaining positive attention outside the company.
Infographics are a great way to make data accessible and engaging, so include some in your newsletters when possible.
People love pets. Sharing some pictures of employees’ furry friends in the newsletter can be a great way to cheer everyone up. This is a great bonus if you have a pet-friendly office or employees work from home and their companions join them at work!
Invite participation from your employees with an “Ask the CEO” section where they can ask any questions they may have.
In many company email newsletter examples, you’ll see health and wellness tips for employees. Including these tips shows you care about your employees and want them to be well.
Be proud of your company’s sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. Share them in the newsletter, so your team members know how you’re contributing to your community.
What should be included in a business newsletter? To write your own company newsletter, follow these steps:
1. Define your goals and audience: What are the employees at your company like? How formal is your work culture? What do you want your team members to know?
2. Choose an email marketing platform: Platforms like Constant Contact make sending emails a breeze.
3. Create a visually appealing template: Choose a template that includes your company colors and a variety of photo and text options to create a visually engaging design.
4. Craft compelling subject lines: Boring email subjects will get lost in your employees’ inboxes. Grab their attention with a snappy headline.
5. Write engaging and informative content: Employees won’t want to read content if it’s uninteresting or irrelevant. Make sure it provides value and keeps them coming back each time you send new content!
6. Incorporate a clear call-to-action so readers know what to do next: Whether it’s filling out a survey or signing up for volunteer opportunities, make sure team members have clear instructions when they finish reading!
7. Proofread and test your email to be sure it appears without errors in recipients’ inboxes: You don’t want to distract from your content with typos. Clean, error-free content allows teams to enjoy the message!
8. Send the newsletter and track performance: Make sure it goes to everyone at the company. Then, see what works well and where you can improve.
9. Continuously improve your newsletter: Over time, you’ll learn what kinds of content engages employees the most. You can use this information to write more interactive content!
While sending a newsletter has many benefits, especially if you follow company email newsletter examples, you may still encounter some problems. Here are some of the most common issues with newsletters and ways to address them:
A fun idea to help your newsletter stand out is to give it a catchy and memorable title. You can customize this title to be a play on your company name or another recognizable detail about your business. Or, use a more general but still clever name like one of these employee newsletter ideas:
Having a newsletter name will also help your employees identify the newsletter in their inboxes so they don’t miss it.
While newsletters generally cover all relevant company news, some businesses send an internal newsletter specifically related to HR topics. Some internal company newsletter examples dealing with HR topics include:
You can manually draft and send out your company newsletter, but that isn’t the most efficient or effective way to do things. Instead, use software to enhance your newsletter’s effectiveness. Email marketing software like Constant Contact can help you improve many aspects of your newsletters.
This software includes drag-and-drop HTML email builders, so you don’t have to create your newsletter from scratch — just customize an existing template. You can also use merge tags within the software so each subject line is customized to the recipient. Other valuable features of Constant Contact’s email software include:
Using Constant Contact can be the difference between a mediocre newsletter and a newsletter that truly makes a positive impact on your business.
It’s easy to make mistakes when writing company newsletters, especially if you’re new to it. Try these pointers to make your newsletter writing as strong as possible:
An internal newsletter is a must-have for keeping your employees informed and engaged in your company. Use company monthly newsletter examples for inspiration as you draft your own and focus on creating content that speaks to your employees. And don’t forget to take advantage of email templates from Constant Contact for an even more successful company newsletter.
There are many ways to spread the word about your business, but SMS marketing ranks among the best. When you incorporate SMS into your marketing strategy, you can reach customers through their mobile devices. And there’s an extremely good chance that subscribers will read your message. In fact, SMS open rates average a hefty 98% — increasing the likelihood that clients will see your content.
SMS marketing ranks among the most valuable advertising strategies simply because it lets you connect with subscribers one-on-one. You can use it to share product updates, solicit client feedback, and provide real-time shipping notifications, among other uses. While email marketing offers a similar connection, there’s a lot of competition among your subscribers’ inboxes, and open rates tend to be lower.
You can incorporate SMS marketing into a multichannel strategy that complements your other techniques. For instance, you might use social media to showcase your products and SMS to provide shipping updates when a client orders one. You could use email to request a customer’s evaluation after they receive your product.
There are lots of laws concerning marketing text messages, including the TCPA and the CAN-SPAM Act. The regulations aim to protect consumers from unsolicited text messages and spam. They require that organizations receive a customer’s written consent before sending marketing texts and that brands don’t take advantage of subscribers by sending messages at odd times or selling their personal data.
Before you embark on an email and SMS marketing strategy, it’s crucial to understand these regulations and how they apply to your campaign. Speaking with a qualified legal advisor can help you learn what your business is responsible for to help you stay in compliance.
Engaging in SMS marketing provides numerous advantages that can benefit your brand. Here are a few reasons why text message marketing is so advantageous.
Sending an SMS message is one of the most inexpensive ways to reach your audience compared to other marketing channels. A single text typically costs just a few pennies to send. Other marketing strategies — like online ads, commercials, and curated social media posts — can run into the thousands of dollars to create. Since SMS marketing is so economical, it is a useful tool for nearly any organization, regardless of its budget.
SMS marketing is one of the best ways to connect directly with your audience. Since messages go straight to your subscribers’ cellphones, they receive individual communications from your brand — something that other channels, like social media and online ads — can’t offer. You can personalize your SMS texts directly to individual clients or send targeted messages to specific audience segments.
SMS messages boast significantly higher open rates than email. An SMS marketing text has a 98% chance of being read, while email open rates hover around 24.7%. Since people typically keep their cell phones on hand, they’re more likely to see messages when they’re immediately delivered. Brands can use SMS messages to give subscribers real-time updates, like appointment confirmations and package delivery notifications.
SMS marketing messages are an excellent way to boost revenue and client engagement. You can use them to notify customers of flash sales or recommend complementary products based on their prior purchases. They’re also an easy way to request customer feedback or solicit opinions via surveys and polls.
Before you can send SMS marketing texts, you need a base of willing subscribers who want to receive your messages. Here are a few techniques that can help you build and support your audience.
Sometimes, customers need a little motivation to subscribe to SMS texts. After all, they’re providing you with their personal phone number and trusting that you won’t take advantage of it. You can prompt them to sign up with an incentive. For instance, you might describe the value of subscribing, such as access to exclusive deals or promotions.
Once a subscriber signs up to receive SMS texts, it’s good practice to welcome them to your list. Consider setting up an automated process that sends them an immediate text when they join. You might also ask them to verify their subscription by quickly replying to your message. You can describe what they can look forward to in your future SMS texts and allow them to set preferences, such as how often you want them to hear from you and what type of content they’d like to receive.
Your subscriber list will gain momentum over time, especially if you use every opportunity to promote it. One of the best ways to gain text message subscribers is during the sales checkout process. Once someone buys from you, they’re already familiar with what you have to offer. Whether they buy online or at your physical storefront, you can encourage them to sign up for your SMS texts when they purchase.
If you already have an email subscriber base, use it to promote your SMS list. You can send an email to your audience telling people what to expect if they sign up for your SMS texts and how it differentiates from your other marketing channels. You can also include a simple and clear CTA so your customers can quickly sign up if they want to.
As your SMS marketing gains steam, you must decide on strategies that compel your subscribers to engage with your content and continually attract new audiences.
Designing an SMS marketing campaign requires some planning. You don’t want to start sending SMS texts without addressing a few key elements first, including the following:
Understanding the best practices of successful SMS campaigns can help you avoid faux pas that hurt your results. Here are a few to be aware of:
When you first begin SMS marketing, you’ll put new skills to the test. You’ll learn how to build a subscriber list, develop an effective SMS marketing automation strategy, and evaluate results. As you become more confident in your abilities, you can try out some advanced techniques to enhance campaign performance.
Not all of your SMS texts have to be one-directional. Instead, work on developing relationships with your clients through two-way SMS texts. For instance, you might send an SMS text asking clients to rate a recent product they bought and provide a short review. Their feedback can help you learn more about how they feel about your brand.
As you would with your email messages, develop a segmentation strategy for your SMS texts. Categorize your subscribers based on their buying motivations, demographics, location, and other factors. Instead of sending text blasts with the same content, vary your messaging to cater to each segmented group.
A tailored SMS messaging strategy can enhance customer trust and loyalty. Consider offering clients something they’ll appreciate when subscribing to your texts. For instance, you might recognize a subscriber’s birthday with a special message and one-time offer or reward them with loyalty points they can use toward future purchases.
After customers buy from your brand, use SMS to learn about their experience and solicit feedback. For instance, you might send them a customer service survey to find out what they thought about their purchase. Or, you could use SMS to recommend other products they might like.
An effective SMS marketing campaign requires software with supportive features. You can choose from several different solutions, including Twilio, Omnisend, Klaviyo, and Constant Contact. Here’s a breakdown of how they compare.
Twilio | Omnisend | Klaviyo | Constant Contact | |
Channels | SMS, MMS, WhatsApp | SMS, MMS | SMS | SMS |
Special features | One-way and conversational texts; customizable API | Pre-built automation workflows; list-building tools | Automation, segmentation, data tracking, and templates | AI content generator, built-in link shortener, A/B testing, list-building tools |
Reach | Over 180 countries | All countries | U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland | U.S. only |
Pricing | Pay as you go; $0.0079 for inbound and outbound SMS texts | $0.015 per SMS credit; Pro subscribers receive free SMS credits | Depends on the plan and the number of credits chosen | Starts at $10 per month; Premium plan includes 500 free SMS messages |
Analytics | Track links and performance for an additional $0.015 per text (First 1,000 SMS texts are free) | The pro plan includes advanced reporting tools | Built-in and customizable reports | Includes reach and engagement reporting tools |
Free trial | Yes | Free trial on Free and Standard plans; Pro plan offers a demo | Offers free plan with 150 SMS and MMS credits; demos available for more robust plans | Yes |
Constant Contact’s SMS marketing plan includes built-in features designed to support all marketers. Unlike some other platforms, you don’t need to be a software expert to get started. You can begin developing SMS texts immediately after subscribing and use an AI content generator if you need a little messaging inspiration.
Think of digital marketing cohesively. It’s not simply email marketing or SMS texting; it includes other strategies like social media and ecommerce advertising. When combining your SMS texts with other marketing strategies, find ways to complement them so you’re not simply repeating the same information in every channel.
For instance, you might use email to provide news updates on your business and social media to display your newest products. You can use SMS messages to follow up with clients after they order a product or to provide shipping status updates.
There’s no doubt that SMS marketing can bring tremendous value to your business. It provides an opportunity to form stronger client relationships and is extremely cost-effective compared to other marketing strategies. To get started on your SMS marketing campaign, define its purpose and your goals, and start building an organic subscriber list. Remember to integrate SMS best practices, including personalization, automated workflows, and integration with your other marketing channels. As you become more comfortable with SMS marketing, you can try more advanced techniques, like two-way SMS and segmented texts. To learn more about SMS text marketing, check out our guides to SMS for Retail and SMS Text Message Marketing for Small Businesses.
Email marketing is an essential part of any digital marketing strategy. With it, you can reach your target audience, share impactful promotional content, and drive conversions.
Implementing direct email marketing will help you get ahead of your competitors who overlook this powerful marketing method. Learn what direct email marketing is and how to leverage it to grow your business.
What is direct email marketing? Direct email marketing is the practice of sending promotional emails directly to your customers and potential customers. The message goes straight from the business to the target audience, making it a “direct” marketing channel.
The content of these marketing emails varies. Some may provide educational content related to the brand’s products or services. Others may introduce new product developments or special deals. Any promotional content businesses send via email to targeted groups of customers is a direct marketing email.
Before investing in this marketing strategy, you may ask yourself, “Are direct email marketing campaigns effective?” The simple answer is: Yes, email marketing is incredibly effective.
According to a Litmus report, more than 90% of marketers believe email marketing is important in their company’s success. Email marketing provides an excellent return on investment (ROI), averaging $36 for every $1 spent. That’s a 3,600% return. Very few other marketing channels are as cost-effective as email marketing.
Direct email marketing is not without its drawbacks, however. For example, companies using direct email marketing may run into issues with spam filters that prevent their emails from reaching customers. Designing and writing effective marketing emails is also challenging, especially for brands venturing into email marketing for the first time.
Luckily, none of these challenges are insurmountable. With the right strategy and direct email marketing solution, you can make this channel work wonders for your business.
Getting started is the hardest part of email marketing. Step one is to develop your strategy. To create a successful direct email marketing strategy:
Your strategy depends on the type of email marketing you plan to use. What are the four types of email marketing? They cover several key areas:
Tracking and evaluating metrics is a key part of any marketing strategy. These metrics will tell you what’s working and what you can improve in your campaigns. Here’s how to measure direct email marketing success with key metrics:
If you’re not careful, it’s easy to make costly mistakes in your promotional emails. Keep these do’s and don’ts of effective email marketing in mind:
Email is a marketing channel that allows you to personalize your messages easily. Try to incorporate a personalized greeting for each customer, make personalized recommendations for each customer, and reference previous interactions they’ve had with your brand when possible. Direct email marketing services like Constant Contact include convenient tools to help with this personalization.
You should have a clear goal of what customers should do after reading each email you send. Take that desired behavior and create a corresponding call to action that prompts the reader to take the next step. The CTA should be large, distinct, and easy to click so the readers don’t miss it.
It’s tricky to get your email design right when you do it manually, but an email builder can help you create stunning messages with ease. Direct email marketing companies like Constant Contact offer tools like pre-designed email templates for simpler email creation. You can drag and drop email components like text, images, and buttons in Constant Contact’s email editor to have a professional email ready in moments.
There’s nothing more unprofessional and offputting to customers than a brand email with errors. Proofread each email until you’re sure there are no typos or other mistakes in your message. Run the message through an online grammar checker to be safe.
When an email arrives in a customer’s inbox, they use two main pieces of information to decide whether to open it: the email sender and the subject line. The stronger your subject line is, the better the odds are your recipients will open and engage with it. Think about the best subject lines that would entice your target customers to open your message.
Avoid “click-bait” phrases that mislead the audience and focus on catching their attention honestly.
Follow-throughs ensure you don’t leave any leads hanging and keep customer interest over time.
You also want to ensure consistency — in the timing and delivery, style, voice, and all other areas of your email. This way, readers know what to expect and won’t be confused by varying styles.
Part of any great direct email marketing strategy is a focus on audience segmentation and targeting. Audience segmenting is all about breaking down your customers into smaller groups based on common attributes. For example, you may segment your audience by location if customers in different areas have distinct needs and preferences. Segmenting by age and gender is very common.
Segmenting allows you to create email messages that are more tailored to the recipients rather than sending the same message to everyone. Another example of segmenting in email marketing is separating your email list into prospective and existing customers. That way, you can create specific messages for returning customers and different messages to entice new customers.
Segmenting and targeting work best when you have a large audience. Follow these creative ways to grow your email list so you have plenty of people to email. As your list grows and you have more interested customers to contact, you increase your odds of making conversions.
Don’t expect the first version of every strategy and message to be perfect. Email marketing requires testing and monitoring for continuous improvement. For instance, run A/B tests and send out two similar but distinct versions of the same email in small batches. Comparing the performance of these two emails will help you determine what works best with your audience, and you can proceed with the better email.
Brands use email marketing to accomplish many different goals. What is the direct mail method of marketing? Some of the main goals of direct email marketing include:
Develop an email marketing strategy tailored to your business goals. For example, if you want to create cross-sell opportunities, segment your customers by their previous purchases and send emails recommending complementary products. Send special offers to individuals to drive sales and engagement.
You don’t have to choose just one goal to focus on, but understanding your goals can help you focus your efforts.
The best email marketing campaigns don’t just deliver a strong open rate or click-through rate — they deliver tangible results that help your business grow. Design your emails to drive conversions and sales.
You may be wondering: What is a direct email with an example? Use these case studies of the best direct email marketing examples for inspiration.
To reengage customers and get them interested in new products, Beardbrand sent an email with the latest best sellers. The call-to-action in this message, “check out what I’ve missed,” is especially strong since it plays on the reader’s fear of missing out on something great. Bright, clear product images help to engage the audience further.
Starbucks shared this promotional email exclusively with members to alert them to a special deal available that week. It’s simple but effective, with colorful graphics and a straightforward call to action.
Some additional considerations to consider while implementing email marketing include:
Email marketing goes hand-in-hand with customer relationship management. With that in mind, you may want to integrate your email marketing efforts with your CRM. Combining the two will strengthen both. For example, you can use data like customer purchase history from your CRM to better customize your email messages. Direct email marketing tools can make this process a breeze.
You’ll also want to use an omnichannel strategy and ensure consistent messaging across all channels so consumers see you as a cohesive brand.
The better your email delivery, the more effective your email marketing campaigns will be. So, what is email deliverability? Email deliverability is the percentage of your messages reaching your intended recipients. This goes down significantly if you get caught in spam traps. Follow email best practices to avoid getting caught in honeypots — decoy email addresses meant to catch spammers — and other spam traps.
Direct email marketing is a powerful tool for any business, especially with the help of the right email direct marketing tool. Use email marketing to connect with your target audience, segment your customers into groups, and send personalized promotional messages that convert. Learn more about generating email leads and upholding legal and ethical standards in your marketing campaigns before you get started. And keep in mind that email marketing, like digital marketing overall, is constantly evolving. In the future, brands will likely emphasize artificial intelligence (AI) and direct email marketing software even more to help them with their campaigns. To stay competitive, you’ll need to combine email marketing best practices with the strongest tools and resources available. Get started today with a free trial of Constant Contact.
Crafting a great email subject line is an important part of building a successful email marketing campaign. The subject line is subscriber’s first encounter with your email campaign, and it’s what gets them to open it.
Without a good email subject line, your email marketing campaign could get lost in inbox! No need to worry — you’ve come to the right place to learn how to write subject lines that get your email noticed.
In this article, you’ll learn what a subject line is and why it’s important. Then, we’ll dive into how to create the best email subject lines (that get people to actually open your emails!), plus we’ll see some great email subject line examples.
The subject in an email is the main purpose and goal of the content. The subject line of an email supports the intention and goal of your email in the inbox. This one line of text can often determine whether an email is opened or sent straight to the trash, so ensure it’s optimized for your audience.
Spending a little extra time on your email subject lines will help you get more customers to open your emails, get your message in front of the right people, and help you avoid the spam folder. Plus, good email subject lines help lead subscribers to take the action that generates the most value for your business: click-through rate.
A catchy subject line is what will pique your subscribers’ interest and entice them to open your email. As you sit down to write your next email marketing campaign, you’ll likely ask yourself: what makes for a catchy subject line? A couple of factors influence that 40-character advertisement.
Content: With limited real estate in subscribers’ inboxes, your subject line needs to be informative and personal without giving everything away — sometimes teasing your email’s content is what will get people to open it. Whether it’s a regular newsletter, an update about a product, a confirmation, or a request for a survey, let your subscribers know what kind of value they will gain from reading your email.
Tone: Tone helps you to inject emotion into your content. Think about what sort of emotions are going to help your subscribers take action and what tone will trigger those emotions. Emails about sales might have subject lines with an urgent tone. On the flip side, emails about an upcoming product launch might be informative yet coy enough to tease the email’s content to the subscriber.
Style: Like tone, the styling of your subject line is going to inform your subscriber’s response. Credible subject lines are styled to match your brand voice and avoid spam filters. Youthful brands might lean into using emojis in their subject lines while brands geared toward a male-dominated audience might opt for fewer exclamation points.
From expert tips to peer updates, craft email subject lines that inform subscribers about the value they stand to gain for their careers and professional advancement.
As the classic “Singin’ in the Rain” said: Make ‘em laugh. Use witty and humorous subject lines to get people excited to open up your email.
Cold subject lines give the information to the reader directly, no fills.
Similar to introduction email subject lines, welcome email subject lines invite subscribers into contact with your business. Welcome email subject lines should help solidify a bond between subscriber and business.
Newsletter subject lines serve to intrigue readers with interesting news/valuable information.
Remind your subscribers when they “accidentally” forget an item in their cart. Craft subject lines that generate a fear of missing out or even a playful guilt trip.
Sales subject lines are upfront and direct, they let the reader know the email is product/service focused.
Black Friday is one of the busiest holidays of the year for most businesses. Prepare subject lines that will get your subscribers excited about upcoming sales.
Survey email subject lines ask recipients to provide their feedback. Make sure your audience knows you value their opinion of your business.
Thank you email subject lines show gratitude, they remind your subscribers that their time, attention, and loyalty are important to a business.
Introduction email subject lines should invite the recipient into conversation with your business. Let them know what value your business is going to provide the reader.
Fundraising email subject lines ask the subscriber to donate their time or money to an organization or cause. Use emotions and ethics to craft subject lines aimed at generating charitable donations.
Fear of Missing Out, aka FOMO, is a common phenomenon — you can harness its power to help you generate opens for your email marketing campaigns.
Event email subject lines let your audience know that your business is hosting an event and encourage them to RSVP.
The following are best practices to help you craft compelling email subject lines for your business’ marketing emails.
Your email subject line should act as a mini advertisement for your content. In order to stand out in the inbox you want to instantly grab the attention of your audience — this could be through using a catchy piece of copy, including the name of the recipient in the subject line, and using pictorial additions like emojis to help separate your business’ subject line from the rest of the inbox.
Email subject lines should offer information that is relevant to the recipient and give them a hint as to what content they can expect to find if they open your email. Emails meant to drive customers to a product should use subject lines that speak to the value or relevance of the product, like the importance of scheduling a check-up or a sale on shorts in the summer.
As previously stated, you want to grab the attention of your audience, but you also want to make them curious. Email subject lines are short by design, you want to give the reader a taste and make them decide whether they want to invest their time in reading further.
Think about the main goal and call to action of your email campaign. What action do you want your audience to take once they have finished reading what you have provided them? Do you want your audience to buy a product or service? Do you want them to sign up for an event? Make sure your subject line is clear about the desired action of your business.
People respond best when they feel that communication is personal and they are likely to take pause when they notice something familiar, like their own name, in the inbox. Use dynamic fields to auto-populate your subject lines with the name of the recipient.
Deep dive: Why you should personalize your marketing (and 7 ways to do it)
Make sure you remember to keep your subject line concise to avoid it getting cut off in the inbox. Your subject line should be able to convey urgency, excitement, intrigue, feelings of welcomeness, or whatever the goal of your email message is in a few short words.
In the same vein as why people pause when they see their own name, your audience is likely to open emails that have a sender name that is familiar to them. Selecting a regularly occurring sender name to represent your business will help build trust with your audience, increasing their likelihood of opening.
Generate urgency in your subject line to capture the attention of your audience and encourage them not to wait to open your business’s email. Craft an exclusive air in your subject line to promote feelings of specialty.
All caps can trigger readers’ instinct that the email they are looking at could be spam. Avoid using all caps when possible, and if you do decide to use all caps in your subject line keep it to one or two words.
In order to figure out what your audience responds to positively, consider A/B testing your subject lines. Perhaps you will write subject line A to stress urgency and subject line B to express exclusivity. Send each email test to a small group of your audience (10-20% of your total audience for each group is a good rule of thumb), determine a timeframe and analyze your results once the timeframe has passed. Whichever subject group has the highest open rate will determine which subject line you will use for the rest of your audience.
As you work on email marketing ideas for your business, remember that you’re playing a long game. Besides A/B testing your subject lines, remember to try new styles to see what works and what can be improved.
Crafting good email subject lines serves to increase value metrics and help your business achieve marketing goals. Open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates are all influenced by the quality of your email subject lines.
Email open rate: Measurement of how many times an email has been opened by subscribers versus how many times the email has been sent.
Email click-through rate: The measurement of how many people have click a link located within an email versus the number of opens. Clicks can be counted through hyperlinked content, linked images/graphics, or linked buttons. Using a call to action (CTA), which is a line of text that directs the reader to take the business’ desired action, will help improve click-through rate.
Bounce rate: The measurement of the number of emails sent versus the number of emails delivered.
Want to know how your business’ emails measure against industry averages? See the full list on our KnowledgeBase.
With these tips in mind, you’re ready to write good email subject lines that will get your emails the attention they deserve.
But don’t rely on our advice alone.
Take a look at your own inbox and see which emails you’ve been opening. Putting yourself in your contacts’ shoes is one of the best ways to write a subject line that will get you noticed and boost your business.
To see which subject lines grab your audience’s attention, try A/B testing.
Text messages are a part of everyday life. We use them throughout our day, every day, to communicate with one another while we’re apart.
And while we all use text messages in our private lives, most of us also receive SMS marketing messages from companies and organizations that we do business with.
SMS stands for “short message service.” SMS marketing helps your business send text messages to customers or clients who’ve opted in to receive timely communications from your business or nonprofit.
Businesses use SMS to send marketing messages to subscribers about limited-time offers, sign-up confirmations, event announcements, appointment reminders, and more.
SMS marketing is legal when you obtain consent from your subscribers and your business upholds the following guidelines set forth by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The FCC’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) requires that businesses gain consent before sending SMS marketing text messages. The act also requires SMS marketing text messages to include the following:
The FTC’s CAN-Spam Act helps to protect consumers from misleading information and poor business practices. The CAN-Spam Act instructs businesses to avoid the following bad business practices:
Comply with the TCPA and CAN-Spam Act to ensure your SMS marketing practices remain legal.
Use SMS to quickly get in touch with customers, answer questions, and direct them to take action.
To create and send successful SMS text messages for your business, make sure to follow these guidelines:
While you want to be conversational, make every character count when you begin sending SMS marketing messages for your business. 160 characters (including spaces) is the standard for SMS marketing messages (70 when you include an emoji).
Be friendly and informative with your messaging, reinforcing your brand voice in the process. Have a business geared at younger clientele? You might sacrifice 160 characters for an emoji that says it all.
No one wants to be bothered by marketing text messages at 2 a.m. Make sure to respect sending times — this means only sending SMS marketing messages between the hours of 8 a.m. and 9 p.m.
Just like respecting quiet hours, you do not want to bombard your subscribers with too many messages. Send SMS marketing messages when it matters to keep subscribers informed without overwhelming them with updates.
SMS marketing messages should provide your subscribers with value. From promo codes to confirmation information, clarify what subscribers will gain from your business.
From abandoned cart messages to appointment reminders, SMS text message marketing is no longer just for large retail businesses.
Here are some common types of SMS marketing:
SMS text message marketing helps your business get up close and personal with subscribers — driving your message right into the palm of their hand. Here are some of the major benefits of introducing SMS text messages into your business’s marketing strategy.
As a small business owner, your greatest advantage is the relationships you build with your customers. By combining SMS marketing with your other marketing channels, you can boost your company’s average user lifetime by 76% all while communicating timely information to your audience when and where they want to receive it.
The success of SMS marketing hinges on its ability to get important messages into the hands of your subscribers. It’s direct and immediate. With no spam folder and 80.5% of consumers checking their text notifications within five minutes, your marketing messages always get seen.
SMS marketing allows businesses to reach a wide audience at a low cost, making it an attractive option for businesses with limited marketing budgets. Because of its newness in the digital marketing sphere, you’ll often find digital marketing software platforms offering SMS marketing services as an add-on feature.
Connect your brand messaging to your subscribers instantly by building a conversation through SMS text messages. Send information about product launches, flash sales, and reminders to give value and reinforce your brand.
With 91% of consumers interested in signing up for texts and open rates as high as 98%, SMS marketing is an impactful tool to get your message out to subscribers and encourage them to take action.
What can’t you use it for? From abandoned cart messages to appointment reminders, reservation confirmations, donation drives and flash sales, SMS is not just for large retail businesses anymore.
As a small business owner, your greatest advantage is the relationships you can build with your customers.
SMS text message marketing offers an additional way to build those relationships by communicating timely information to your audience when and where they want to receive it.
That’s why every business or nonprofit can benefit from using text message marketing as part of their marketing strategy, no matter how large or small.
Still wondering how you can use text message marketing for your small business? Take a look at these examples:
Retail and e-commerce businesses can use text message marketing to share promotional or sales notifications, send abandoned cart reminders, build anticipation for new and seasonal products, welcome and nurture new customers, and even ask for reviews after a purchase.
In real estate, you can use SMS to grow your client base and deepen connections. Use SMS marketing to welcome and nurture new leads, share information on new area listings, provide invitations and reminders for open houses, alert clients to price and status changes, and even ask your client to leave a review online.
Plus, you could send a text invitation and reminders when you’re running a client appreciation event.
SMS is a great way to keep your community informed, active, and growing. Your nonprofit can send messages around your fundraising events, such as save-the-dates, registration updates, and even a thank you message after your event is complete.
SMS is a great opportunity to alert members when you’ve sent an important email or newsletter update that requires a timely response. Plus, you can send alerts and notifications about your cause, welcome new subscribers, raise emergency funds, and share updates on your progress.
A few other ideas include sharing inspirational messages around your cause and even reminders for healthy habits like drinking water, working out, and meditating.
SMS is practically made for the service industry. Use text marketing to confirm appointments and cancellations, send appointment reminders, notify customers of last-minute openings and missed appointments, announce product sales or service discounts, or send reminders to check email for service contracts or receipts.
If you’re in the business-to-business (B2B) world, you can use SMS too.
Consider sending event invitation reminders, appointment reminders, alerts on new downloads and helpful content, company announcements, order management, or product and service updates.
There are plenty of platforms on the market to consider. Your needs will of course vary depending on your industry but make sure that you’re getting these features from the platform you decide to use.
Will the platform ensure that you will be in compliance without you having to think about it?
Make sure that the SMS text marketing platform you’re looking at does the following:
Text message marketing is desirable because it’s fast. If you’re having trouble figuring out the editor, you’re losing time writing texts that resonate with your audience. Your editor should give you the options to personalize messages and easily create an opt-out phrase.
If you’re planning to send bulk messages to multiple customers at once, find a platform that makes it easy to manage your customer database. It should give you the option to create lists and market segments.
A good editor will have a dashboard that’s easy to navigate with clear headings for each section. Use a program that offers templates for various message types so that you can write your texts quickly with language that’s more likely to convert. These templates are also great for writing automated responses.
Dedicated keywords or shortcodes like “YES” to opt-in and “STOP” to opt-out are examples of mobile keywords that can trigger automated actions like customer opt-ins and follow-up messages.
You want your business’ marketing messages to feel safe and trustworthy to the individual receiving them. Personalization options, like including a dynamic field to feature the name of the recipient, will help make your subscribers feel comfortable and special to your business.
Investing in a platform that includes a text-to-join feature will help business’ to easily opt-in subscribers to their marketing text messages. Provide potential subscribers with a phone number to text in order to be added to your business’ SMS marketing list. Invite customers who are subscribed to your business’ text message marketing to join your email list by sending a link to a lead generation landing page.
To save time and money, you may be tempted to use your personal or business cell phone number to send and receive SMS messages. But this makes it harder to manage once you start sending out messages in bulk.
Look for a text message marketing service that provides dedicated toll-free and local phone numbers. With these services, you can manage your messages in one spot — the same dashboard you use to compose your texts.
A contact management tool makes it easier for you to send bulk messages, segment your contacts, and personalize your messages. For example, if you want to send an automated happy birthday coupon to members of your loyalty program through SMS messages, you can program each member’s birthday into the system and generate an automated message.
If you’ve segmented your list, a contact management tool offers reports that can help you see your most valuable segments. When you’ve identified your MVPs, you can engage them with special offers. Or you can switch up your messages to underperforming segments and see what gets them to engage.
Speaking of automated messages, any good text messaging service will let you create and send automated messages.
At the very least, set up an automated welcome series of messages thanking customers for subscribing to your text messages. These messages would be triggered by anyone who opts in to receive texts from you.
Add value to your list immediately by including a one-time discount or offer to people who sign up for your texts.
Other automated text messages include personalized promotions that send around birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays.
Use the automated message feature to create abandoned cart texts to notify customers who have been shopping on your site without completing their purchase. If you’re managing a restaurant, you can also use the abandon cart principle when a customer doesn’t finish booking a reservation or making a takeout order.
Depending on your business, your SMS marketing platform will offer different integrations. If you’re running a nonprofit, you may integrate your SMS with your donation software, so people can click a link or text a code to make a simple donation.
SMS platforms can integrate with scheduling and conferencing apps, updating your calendar in real-time whenever someone texts you to make an appointment. This keeps you from accidentally double-booking and makes it easy for your clients to choose a time that works for them.
Find a tool that integrates with your preferred customer relationship management (CRM) software to track different interactions with each customer.
Measure the analytics of each communication channel to gauge its effectiveness. Look for a tool that generates reports on how many people opened your text and for how long they engaged with your landing page if they clicked on the link.
You can also look at other reports like how many people opted out after each campaign, how many new customers signed up in a given period, and how your subscribers found you. Some platforms let you measure a campaign’s success in dollars, tracking revenue attributed to promotional offers using a specific landing page.
You want your list to text message marketing subscriber list to grow over time, make sure the platform you select can grow with your business. Take note of platforms subscriber thresholds and reliability. You do not want to invest in a platform your business will outgrow to quickly or one that cannot successfully deliver messages to your subscribers.
Using SMS doesn’t mean you should drop the use of other marketing channels such as email marketing and social media. In fact, customers prefer it when their favorite brands use more than one marketing channel to engage them.
In particular, SMS and email marketing are more effective when combined because they’re both permission-based marketing channels.
When people sign up to receive your messages, they’re not just giving permission for you to send them marketing messages; they’re asking you to send them. They’re showing that they’re interested in your business, and they want to receive more information from you.
Whether it’s the latest news on industry trends or a flash sale on cat toys, it’s up to you to send timely, targeted messages on the channels your subscribers prefer.
Doing so will ensure you get the best results possible. And, because not everyone likes to receive the same messages the same way, it’s important to use your marketing channels both separately (omnichannel marketing) and together (cross-channel marketing).
The trick is to know the unique aspects of each channel and how to use them.
Email marketing gives you ownership of your list and your ability to connect with your audience. It allows you to send personalized, targeted messages on your terms. It’s perfect for regular newsletters and messages with enticing images and intriguing snippets that lead back to your website, blog, or online store. However, you also have to compete for your reader’s attention in the inbox.
Social media allows you to reach new people and share beyond your existing email list. But, algorithms can limit your reach, and the social media channel can control how, when, and if you can communicate with your subscribers. And, because social media success relies on your action and interaction, it can be time-consuming. However, social media is perfect for building brand awareness and growing your list.
SMS marketing is much like email marketing; it also gives you ownership of your list and your ability to connect with your audience, as well as allowing you to send personalized, target messages on your terms. However, these messages are more immediate than email and require clear and succinct messaging. This makes text message marketing perfect for sending exclusive messages that require a timely response.
Just remember, no one wants to have their phone pinging all day long, so be careful not to abuse this connection, or you’ll turn people off.
When planning your marketing strategy, keep in mind that even though you should be using these channels together, you don’t want to repeat the same message on every channel.
While we recommend occasionally mentioning what’s going on in other channels or with your campaign, you’ve got to have a reason to be there, and you must pay attention to how you’re using each channel — individually and together.
Growing your SMS marketing list is just as important as growing your email list and social media connections. After all, the power of your digital marketing efforts lies in reaching your customers and customizing your message to their wants and needs.
Start by announcing the new communication channel to your email recipients and include a call to action (CTA) with a link that directs them to your landing page or sign-up form, where they can enter their mobile phone number. Be sure to tell them what they’ll get out of it — from a special discount code for joining to early or exclusive access to sales or industry information.
As with all marketing efforts, without setting a goal for your text message marketing, your messaging will lack focus, and you won’t know if your actions are working. So, always set a goal for every campaign. Whether that’s to get 100 opens or to increase sales on a specific item by 10%.
This goes along with setting goals. Once you know what your goal for a campaign is, set KPIs (key performance indicators) to check your reports against.
If you start out your first campaign to get 100 recipients to read your message, check your report to see the open rates. If the report says that you had 100 opens, then you reached your goal. If it’s less than 100, see if you can figure out why.
While you want to keep your subscribers informed, respect sending times as per federal guidelines and test frequency to prevent future dropoff from your SMS contact list.
Use SMS marketing messages to send real-time updates to your subscribers. Having a flash sale or a inclinement weather for an event? Quickly send a text to keep your contacts in-the-know.
If you don’t get the results you’re looking for in a campaign, don’t chuck it. Take a hard look at your campaign and your reports and see where the weak link is.
Were your open rates low? Maybe you need to try writing a better headline.
Were open rates high but click-through rates low? Double-check the link in your message. Was it working properly? Was it clear what they needed to do to get the offer?
Did sales underperform? Was the offer clear to your subscribers? Was your offer something your recipients would really be interested in?
When you use your reports to find the weakness in your campaign, you can work to improve that part of your campaign and then try again.
Just like with email marketing, using a trusted platform can help take the guesswork out of regulatory requirements — and even some best practices.
With the SMS marketing feature within Constant Contact, many of the best practices outlined above are taken care of automatically, so you don’t have to worry about them, including:
Using a trusted platform also has the advantage of using proven tools — like landing pages and sign-up forms – to help you build your SMS subscriber list.
By managing your SMS and email marketing within the same tool, you have the ability to superpower your new SMS marketing campaigns with the information you already have about your loyal customers and your interested prospects.
Finally, once you have launched your first SMS marketing campaign, you can see the outcomes alongside your other marketing reporting for a full picture of when, how and why your customers are engaging with your messaging.
Armed with this information, you will be ready to refine, relaunch, and continue to improve your marketing messages for the best results.
Getting started with SMS marketing is easy as long as you know three key things: your brand, your message, and your audience.
With any marketing effort, knowing your brand and your brand voice is critical to creating on-brand, authentic, and meaningful communications with your customers.
Whether your business aims to be a serious thought leader or a fun and friendly community member, sticking to your brand when starting SMS text campaigns will help the rest fall into place. Stay true to what your customers already know and love about you when you start creating your first text campaign, and you’ll be well on your way to success.
So what to send first? As outlined above, text marketing works best for particular types of messages: ones that are timely, succinct and exclusive to SMS. Sales, event reminders, and product sneak peeks are all good examples of the types of messages that work well over text. Consider what you already know about your customers and what motivates them, and start from there.
This is where knowing your audience comes into play — and can make a significant difference between a text campaign that is “wow!” and one that is “meh.”
Just as you would with an email campaign, customizing your SMS marketing messages to your audience is key. Whether sending a text wishing a customer a happy birthday or reminding them a product they frequently purchase is back in stock, a customized message can show your customers how much you value their support.
Armed with a good grasp of your brand, your message and your audience, you’ll be ready to start growing your SMS list and sending messages in no time. Text message marketing doesn’t have to be hard — it’s just one more way to ensure you’re communicating authentically with your customers in the ways and places they prefer the most!
Knowing what platform you want to use can help tie it all together. A trusted platform like Constant Contact helps you stay on top of regulations, follow best practices, and manage your online marketing efforts all in one place. If you are a current customer, follow this tutorial on setting up SMS in your Constant Contact account. If you’re new to Constant Contact, check out our package offerings to choose the plan that’s right for you.
*This content is not meant to replace legal advice or full regulatory guidelines around text message marketing.
You’ve just had a potential customer express interest in your product or service. They’ve filled out a form on your website, downloaded some content, or asked for more information. But they’re not quite ready to make a purchase yet.
So, what do you do? Do you push for a sale right away, potentially scaring them off? Or do you ignore them, hoping they’ll come back when they’re ready?
Neither of these approaches is ideal. The key to converting this potential buyer into a loyal customer lies in the art of lead nurturing.
Lead nurturing is a critical component of the sales process, centered around building relationships with prospective customers. It can revolutionize your sales process and should be standard in your sales and marketing strategy.
Here’s how to develop your lead nurturing program.
Lead nurturing plays an integral role in successful sales, but it’s easy to overlook because its returns are often indirect.
Lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with potential customers who aren’t ready to buy yet. Rather than converting today’s buyer, lead nurturing sets up a future sale.
It aims to understand the customer’s needs, provide valuable information, and maintain regular communication until they’re ready to make a purchase decision.
The nurturing stage of a lead begins after a potential customer first expresses interest in your product or service, and it continues until they are ready to buy.
During this stage, your job is to answer potential questions and develop a connection.
In B2B sales, lead nurturing takes center stage. Unlike B2C sales, where decisions are often made quickly, the B2B buying process typically involves longer sales cycles with multiple stakeholders.
Through consistent and personalized communication, businesses can stay top-of-mind throughout this process, gradually moving prospects through the sales funnel.
Lead nurturing best practices allow your sales team to identify the prospects with the highest potential and focus their efforts accordingly.
Moreover, providing leads with relevant and valuable content throughout their journey can speed up the sales cycle and inspire larger purchases.
Turning leads into loyal customers is a bit like gardening. You can’t just plant a seed and expect it to grow into a full-fledged tree overnight. It requires consistent care, nourishment, and time.
An effective lead nurturing strategy requires careful planning and execution. You’ll need to understand your buyer’s journey and provide what they need at each stage.
The first step is understanding your buyer’s journey. Create a customer journey map that charts the typical path your leads take from the moment they first encounter your brand to the point of purchase.
Identify key touchpoints along the path. Where are your best opportunities to engage with your prospects and provide them valuable content and support?
The next step is to create targeted content for each stage and touchpoint. Consider the best type of content as well as the best channel. Each piece should have a clear goal.
For example, your brand could produce educational blog posts for people in the awareness stage, case studies and webinars for those in the consideration stage, or product demos for those in the decision stage.
In one Statista study, 29% of businesses report that more than half of their customers expect some degree of personalization. An additional 11% report that more than 90% of their customers want content specifically geared toward them. Provide your leads with content that caters to their needs and interests.
To nurture leads toward a sale, it helps to segment your email list based on various criteria such as industry, role, or behavior. For example, a B2B business might want to create both a detailed report for their main contact at a company and a digest for other stakeholders.
The best strategies leverage multiple channels to engage with leads, such as email, social media, and website content. Meet your leads where they are to increase your touchpoints and opportunities for engagement.
Sales and marketing should always be close partners rather than independent silos. Aligning their efforts allows these teams to ensure a coherent approach to lead generation and nurturing.
Consistent messaging and seamless movement between sales and marketing touchpoints improve the overall customer experience.
Employ these best practices when communicating with prospective customers for better nurturing and higher conversion rates.
Effective communication doesn’t mean bombarding your leads with sales pitches. Instead:
If a lead has expressed interest in your product or service, don’t let them slip away. Keep the conversation going and remind them of the value you can offer.
Take advantage of marketing automation for lead generation and nurturing. Automated email campaigns, for example, ensure that your leads receive timely and relevant content that responds to their interactions with your brand.
How important is a speedy reply to customers? Extremely important. Over half of the customers in one survey hired the first business to respond to their request, even if it was more expensive.
Not all leads are created equal. Differentiating qualified vs. unqualified leads lets you identify the people with the appropriate interest and the power to make a decision.
You can further score and segment your leads so you can devote more time to people closer to purchasing and tailor your communications to address groups at different stages.
What is the best way to nurture leads? Provide them with relevant, valuable content that speaks to their present needs.
There are many benefits to multi-channel marketing, so don’t limit yourself. Using multiple channels helps you respect different preferences and diversifies the type of experience you provide each lead.
Direct mail, social media, and retargeting are three effective channels for nurturing.
Suppose a lead downloads an ebook from your website. A dedicated nurturing strategy might involve sending them a series of follow-up emails with additional resources related to the ebook topic, inviting them to a related webinar, or offering a free consultation.
Continuous testing and optimization of nurturing campaigns
Lead nurturing requires testing and optimization. Monitor your campaigns, measure their performance, and adjust your strategies. This approach will ensure that your efforts remain effective and yield the best possible results.
It’s time to focus on some proven lead nurturing techniques and the different styles available.
Once you understand your customer’s journey and develop an overarching strategy, you can create the campaigns that execute your vision.
First, position your campaign within the lead nurturing process and set clear, related objectives. Then, plan and develop associated content.
After you execute your campaign, monitor your reports, test different approaches, and refine your lead nurturing strategy.
Knowledge is power, and lead intelligence is crucial to sales outreach.
The term refers to the information collected about potential customers, which guides sales representatives in their interactions. In addition to verified contact information, this could include their:
With this information, sales reps can personalize their outreach, predict potential issues a lead may face, and propose solutions proactively.
There are two main approaches to lead nurturing: high-touch and low-touch.
These days, 75% of B2B buyers prefer buying experiences that don’t include sales reps, underscoring the importance of including low-touch interactions in your strategy.
Sometimes, leads go cold, or opportunities end in a no-decision. But that doesn’t mean they’re lost forever. With the right techniques, you can re-engage these leads and revive these opportunities.
To start, understand why the lead went cold. Was it a matter of timing? Budget? A change in priorities? Use this insight to tailor your re-engagement strategy.
Next, reach out with lead nurturing emails. Acknowledge the previous interaction, provide new value, and invite them to re-engage.
From marketing automation platforms to AI-powered intelligence tools, there are impressive options available to help you guide your leads through their buying journey.
A marketing automation platform automates repetitive tasks such as sending emails, posting on social media, and tracking user behavior, freeing up time for more strategic activities.
When choosing a platform, consider factors like:
Constant Contact’s marketing automations improve lead nurturing initiatives by allowing you to set up emails to send contacts after they engage your contact. You can even set up email series spread out over time or integrate SMS and email communications for multichannel nurturing.
Customer relationship management (CRM) integration is another crucial aspect of lead nurturing. You either need to choose an all-in-one solution that provides marketing, communication, and CRM functionality or integrate your marketing automation platform with your CRM software.
This combination provides a complete picture of your leads’ behaviors and preferences and improves your ability to personalize your interactions.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the world of lead nurturing. AI-powered tools can analyze vast amounts of data to identify patterns and trends, providing valuable intelligence about your leads. For example, AI can predict which leads are most likely to convert based on their behavior, allowing you to focus your efforts on these high-potential leads.
It’s important to evaluate your lead nurturing success at each stage of the buying journey. Regularly look at your email marketing metrics and lead-related KPIs.
KPIs evaluate the success of a strategy or activity. For lead nurturing, these might include:
Monitoring these KPIs reveals possible areas for improvement.
One crucial KPI is the return on investment (ROI), the profit generated by an activity relative to its cost. In the context of lead nurturing, to calculate ROI, you can compare the revenue generated by converted leads to the cost of your nurturing program.
Improving your lead nurturing process (and thereby increasing your ROI) can drive greater business growth. For instance, optimizing your content strategy might help you attract more qualified leads, and refining your lead scoring model could help you focus your efforts on the most promising leads.
Lead nurturing is an ongoing process that evolves with your business. It requires a balance of strategic thinking, creative content creation, and data-driven decision-making.
The essential elements of lead nurturing revolve around providing value through tailored content and maintaining consistent and timely engagement.
But it all begins with understanding your customer’s journey. Try diagramming its steps and listing associated actions and common questions. Then, you can tailor your lead nurturing program to their needs.
If you’re like most small business owners, reaching new customers is an ever-present challenge. You want to grow, but finding that broader audience can take time, especially when you’re working with a limited budget.
That’s where online marketing for small business comes in. With the right tools, you can reach almost anyone, and with a good strategy, you can reach your target audience.
Almost 94% of the U.S. population is online, and that number is growing. By 2028, it will be an close to 98%. Whatever you sell, your potential customers are out there on social media sites, checking their email, and Googling your industry.
Small business internet marketing connects you with those audiences. It sets up channels for people to discover your business and to get to know you, all without significant expenses on your part.
It’s something you don’t want to miss out on. Here are the top digital marketing tips for small businesses to get you started.
Getting started with online marketing for small business can seem like a lot. The good news is that it consists of multiple smaller, more approachable strategies that any business owner can implement in their business model. Here are some of the most important ones.
According to a 2022 consumer survey, people find new brands via search engines versus any other channel or medium. A Google search is even more popular than asking a friend for a recommendation.
The higher you rank on a search results page (SERP), the more clicks you’ll get. Digital marketers call this the click-through rate, or CTR — essentially, how many web searchers click on your link after seeing it on a SERP. As you’ll see in the chart below, you get more traffic as you climb the page:
According to Backlinko, moving up one position in search engine ranking increases your CTR by more than 32%. You make that happen by optimizing your site for search engines — or doing SEO, as digital marketers say.
SEO improves your website’s design, structure, and content to impress search engine algorithms. If search engines like Google see your site as a relevant and high-quality match for a search term, they’ll put your business higher on the SERP.
To improve your SEO, start by working on one of the following key elements:
Make sure to connect your website to your Constant Contact account so you can track your SEO success. SEO often takes time to show results, so be patient!
Like SEO, content marketing is an essential element of online marketing for small business. It engages audiences who might not already know about your business — people at the top of the sales funnel, to use a popular marketing term.
Content builds relationships by offering valuable information without pushing a sale. While ads go straight for the pitch, content eases people into the relationship by helping them and providing a good user experience before asking them to buy.
Google identifies quality content as “helpful, reliable, [and] people-first.” That means the content does all of the following:
For best results, use this checklist on every project in your content strategy.
Social media is an essential component of online marketing for small businesses. More than 80% of the U.S. population have accounts on at least one platform, and the average user visits 6.7 different social platforms per month.
Social media marketing gives you two effective ways to reach those audiences. One is to create an account on your chosen social media channel and post for free. Marketers call this organic social to distinguish it from paid advertising.
The second is paid social media advertising, which lets you promote your business to broader audiences. You create an ad and specify the user groups you want to target. For example, if you have a child care center in Cleveland, you might tell Facebook to show your ad to parents of children ages 0 to 5 in that area.
Whether you choose organic social or paid advertising, you can follow the same social media marketing tips for small businesses. For example:
The last thing to consider before you start is how often to post on social media. Consistency is vital, so don’t spread yourself too thin. Start with one social media channel and establish a regular schedule. Then, expand when you can.
When it comes to keeping in touch with existing audiences, you can’t beat email marketing for small businesses. It lets you create personalized content for different segments of your audience so each person feels a genuine connection with your business.
With tools such as Constant Contact, it’s easy to divide your audience into groups based on their needs and preferences. From there, you can develop customized campaigns that feel personal to every recipient.
Relevant, personalized emails keep your business top-of-mind with your audiences and reinforce your business as an industry expert. They’re also an effective channel for publicizing promotions and sales, sharing company news, and increasing demand for your products.
You don’t need any experience to get started with email marketing. All you need is a list of contacts, an engaging message template, and something to say. As with social media, analytics will help you improve your messages over time.
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, also known as search marketing, is a cost-efficient way for small businesses to advertise. Instead of paying a large lump sum upfront as you would for TV or billboard advertising, you pay a small amount every time someone clicks on your ad.
Let’s focus on Google, where most search advertising happens. Google displays ads at the top of a SERP so users see those results before the organic listings.
When advertising on Google, you choose the keywords you want to bid on. If someone searches using those keywords, Google compares your ad with others bidding on the same terms. Relevant ads with high-quality landing pages have the best chance of “winning” the bid and appearing on the SERP.
Keyword selection is also crucial when you’re doing PPC for small business. Relevant keywords help you get more clicks and improve your conversion rates.
Influencer marketing is one of the most overlooked strategies in digital marketing for small businesses. It’s easy to think of them as too expensive or out of reach, but there are influencers out there for any size business.
Micro-influencers — those with between 1,000 and 100,000 followers — are often the best fit for small businesses. They reach enough people to be worth the effort, but not so many that your message will get lost in the noise.
Micro-influencers tend to have niche followings, which is excellent for smaller businesses. They’ll promote your brand to people who already trust them. Plus, if you choose the right influencer, their following will closely match what you offer.
The right match is critical to a successful influencer strategy. If you’re on social media, look for posts that promote products or services. Someone you follow might be an influencer without you even knowing! Here’s one example:
If you find an influencer that could be a good match, reach out. Ask how they do brand partnerships. Some expect payment, while others do product or service exchanges.
Online listings are an essential part of local marketing for small businesses. People use them to search for a nearby business or browse customer reviews for a place they’ve heard about.
One popular example is Google Business Profile, which integrates into SERPs. If you Google something related to a local business, such as “coffee shops near me,” the first results you’ll see will be listings like these:
Google is the best place to start building a profile. According to BrightLocal, 87% of consumers go there to check out local businesses. Once that’s complete, you can move on to other popular sites, such as Yelp or Yellowpages.com.
Finally, set aside time for online listing management. That includes keeping your information up-to-date and responding to reviews. BrightLocal also pointed out that 88% of consumers are likelier to choose a business if they respond to all reviews.
Internet marketing for a local business can feel expensive. When that’s the case, consider these budget-friendly ways to do online marketing for small business.
Chances are, you’re not the only local business that wants to market on a budget. An exciting solution is finding a non-competing but related company and launching a joint campaign.
For example, a roofing company might create an arrangement with a general contractor or gutter cleaning company. A hair salon might partner with a wedding planner or dress shop.
Once you have your partnership, discuss how you want to promote each other. You might set up a referral arrangement, mention each other in your email newsletters, or link to each other in blog posts.
Running a workshop, seminar, or other special event lets you offer value and build face-to-face relationships at a low cost.
If you have a brick-and-mortar presence, on-site events are the perfect way to meet your community and get people in the door. If not, online events serve the same purpose and offer a wide reach.
Think about topics that interest your target audience. Consider how you could teach that topic in a way that generates interest in your services without being overly promotional.
Combining promotions with no- or low-cost digital marketing, such as organic social and SEO, is a fantastic way to get more from your online business marketing. The key is to offer discounts related to your goals so the business you earn will far outweigh any minor cuts to your profit margins.
For example, if your goal is to attract new business, create a coupon code for 10% off first-time orders. Or, if you’re trying to grow your audience, send the code when people sign up to receive messages. You can promote the code online, including your website and social media accounts.
By now, you’ve heard about 10 different ways to do online marketing for small business. You’ve learned about SEO, social media, content marketing, and more. You’ve even collected some strategies for keeping your budget under control.
Now comes the exciting part: getting it off the ground.
First, ensure you have the five online marketing tools you need to run campaigns. That includes a website, primary social account, up-to-date listings, and a way to send email.
Next, get your guide to online marketing essentials. This guide offers a more detailed description of the elements you’ve learned about, plus actionable tips to help you get started.
You don’t have to do it all at once! Start with one strategy — perhaps a blog to boost your SEO or your first PPC campaign. Launch it and see how it performs, then tweak it to see if you can do even better.
Before long, you’ll be ready to move on to the next type of small business online marketing.
You may have heard that it’s much more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing one — and numbers don’t lie. It costs between five to 10 times more to bring in a new customer than to sell to a current customer. Because of this, companies are highly incentivized to foster brand loyalty. Retaining existing customers is much more cost-effective and offers an excellent return on investment.
One of the most popular methods to generate brand loyalty is offering a loyalty program to your customers. Implementing or enhancing a loyalty program will help boost your customer retention and business growth.
So, what are customer loyalty programs? A loyalty program is when businesses offer their existing customers incentives like discounts and free products to encourage them to make another purchase. There are many different forms of loyalty programs, but points-based programs are the most common.
Whatever form they take, the main goal of customer loyalty programs is to enhance customer retention as part of lifecycle marketing. These programs make it more appealing to shop with your business and less beneficial to buy from your competitors to improve customer retention.
If a customer can buy the same exact product for the same price from Companies A and B, but Company B also offers a free gift with purchase through its loyalty program, the customer will naturally buy from Company B.
Loyalty programs tap into the psychology of customers to help companies retain their business. For one thing, they offer positive reinforcement in the form of a reward for customers who purchase from your business. Over time, this positive reinforcement creates a habit of buying from your brand over competitors.
Loyalty programs also emphasize loss aversion — people’s inclination to avoid loss or FOMO (fear of missing out). If a customer buys from another company, they won’t get the benefits of the loyalty program. Loss aversion convinces them to shop with your business to avoid missing out.
Keep these psychological factors in mind when building your own loyalty program, and don’t forget the three R’s. What are the 3 R’s of loyalty programs? They are rewards, relevance, and recognition.
Fostering brand loyalty benefits both brands and their customers. With a strong loyalty program in place, customers get rewards for their shopping, and brands get more return business. So, what are the three benefits of loyalty?
One of the best things you can do for your business is improve your customer retention. Loyalty programs help accomplish that goal.
Offering rewards through a loyalty program encourages customers to keep choosing your business over competitors. Rewards make shopping from your brand more appealing because customers get additional value beyond the products or services they buy.
With a strong program, your customers are more likely to prioritize your brand, thus improving customer retention and reducing churn (the percentage of customers who stop shopping from your business after a given period).
Improving customer retention boosts your average customer lifetime value (CLV) and total revenue. Customer lifetime value is the total amount a given customer spends on purchases from your business over the life of the relationship.
Loyalty programs entice customers to keep making purchases at your company, boosting CLV. As CLV increases, so does revenue.
Loyalty programs focus on customer retention, but they can help you generate leads and acquire new customers as well. An excellent loyalty program excites customers and makes them more likely to talk positively about your brand to their friends and family. When you pair a loyalty program with referral bonuses, customers are even more inclined to act as brand advocates and help bring in new customers for your brand.
Offering rewards gives customers more motivation to do specific actions, like:
This is boosted when you offer exclusive access, perks, and personalized experiences that otherwise would not be available. With the right rewards, you can shape customer behavior in your brand’s favor.
When you create your own loyalty program, there are many different structures you can use. Here are some of the top types of loyalty rewards programs:
Points-based loyalty programs are the most common form of enterprise loyalty programs. In these programs, customers earn reward points for repeat purchases or otherwise being loyal customers of your brand. The customers can then redeem their points for rewards like:
These programs are so popular because they are inherently flexible. They include multiple ways to earn and spend points and allow customers to personalize their own rewards.
Tiered loyalty programs rank customers into different groups and provide them with rewards based on those tiers. Typically, companies using these programs rank customers according to the total amount spent at the business, years as a customer, engagement level, or other key metrics. As customers rise through the tiers, they obtain more exclusive, valuable rewards.
Some loyalty program examples that fit the tiered model include American Express’s loyalty program, Elf’s Beauty Squad program, and the Hyatt Hotels loyalty program.
Sometimes, the rewards from a loyalty program don’t automatically come free with a repeat customer’s purchase. In paid loyalty programs, customers pay a participation fee to access the program’s benefits.
Amazon Prime is one of the most popular loyalty programs and has been hugely successful for the company, with over 200 million members.
Instead of tangible rewards like freebies, some loyalty programs offer customers rewards in line with their values. Value-based loyalty programs persuade customers to buy from your business because you’ll donate to a charity that aligns with their values with each purchase. These may also be known as mission-based and community programs.
The shoe company TOMS has gained company loyalty over the last nearly 20 years since they
began their One for One model. In this program, for each pair of shoes a customer buys, they give away another pair. Customers like knowing their dollars go to more than just the company — and they go back into a community or a larger mission.
Points-based programs also combine well with value-based loyalty programs. You can give customers points with each purchase and then allow them to cash out those points to a charity of their choice. These programs don’t directly benefit the customer making the purchase, but they do benefit society in a way that’s meaningful to the consumer.
Many brands employ programs that not only reward customers for making additional purchases but also for recommending the brand to their friends and family. In a refer-a-friend program, the customer receives some reward — typically a discount or cashback — every time they refer someone to the business.
Airbnb, for example, offers customers a travel credit every time they refer a new member to the site. For an added incentive, the new member also gets a free credit upon signup.
Many businesses have loyalty programs in place, but they aren’t all equally successful. So, what is the best example of a loyalty program? Here are some examples you use for inspiration:
The coffee giant has an incredibly effective loyalty program that keeps customers coming back for more. With every Starbucks purchase made on the app, customers earn loyalty stars to redeem for free products like food, drinks, and merchandise. The app makes accumulating points easy and accessible for customers, two features of any successful loyalty program.
Sephora also has a points-based program, but it’s a hybrid-tiered one. The more customers spend at Sephora, the more points they earn and the higher tier they reach. At the highest rewards tier, customers get bigger discounts and gain invites to exclusive events. Customers can cash out their points for beauty product samples or other merchandise.
Part of what makes Sephora’s program special is that program members become part of Sephora’s Beauty Insider Community. Customers share advice and tips within this community and talk about their favorite products. The community helps foster an emotional connection to the brand, which is one powerful strategy to improve customer retention.
Understanding the different loyalty programs is just step one to creating your own. Consider these factors when developing your loyalty program for small business or large enterprise:
It’s essential to measure the success of your loyalty program to ensure it works as intended. Track the following metrics to understand the success of your program:
In addition to monitoring these KPIs, you should also track the:
If the cost gets too high relative to your returns, you may need to change some details about your program.
You may encounter some pitfalls when implementing or improving your loyalty program. For example, some customers may have unrealistic expectations of the kinds of rewards they’ll receive through the program.
To counter this issue, make sure you clearly communicate the program terms and what’s available to participating customers. You don’t want to mislead the customers about your loyalty program — that will backfire and drive customers to your competition.
Another issue some brands have with loyalty programs is a lack of clarity about the program’s performance. Even if you have access to data about the program, you still need to analyze that data and find actionable insights.
Loyalty program software can eliminate this issue. These software programs often include a dashboard that clearly shows the data about how effectively your program works and if anything needs improvement.
Today, the right software makes it easy to implement and run a successful loyalty program. This software tracks customer purchase data and automatically issues customers rewards according to the program details. Some of the software options also track other customer data to better offer personalized offers and rewards in the programs, making them more effective.
Examples of this software include Loyalzoo, a points loyalty program ideal for restaurants, and Loyalty Gator, which is geared toward businesses with physical locations.
You can also use other marketing software to increase the success of your loyalty rewards program. Email marketing software like Constant Contact, for example, includes tools that help you promote your loyalty program through effective, easy-to-create emails. Constant Contact even allows you to automate email messages, such as when a customer is eligible for a new reward! Reach out to Constant Contact to learn more about improving your email marketing efforts.
Loyalty programs have changed over the years, but they remain one of the best strategies to boost customer engagement and retention. In the future, expect brands to put even more emphasis on customer data and personalization to make their programs stand out. And don’t miss out on the growth opportunities you can gain with your own brand loyalty program.