Email is nothing new, in fact it’s probably one of the oldest forms of digital communication out there. And thanks to email, we can reach people on the other side of the world in a matter of seconds.  When it comes to marketing, email plays a huge role in creating lasting, rewarding relationships between small businesses and their customers and continues to rank as one of the most effective marketing channels out there.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a direct marketing tool that uses email to educate potential and current customers about products, services, and promotions. It can also be used to encourage customers to make a purchase, book an appointment, sign up for a trial or register for an event. It is highly effective at converting potential buyers into customers and turns those one-time customers into repeat and loyal fans.

How does email marketing work?

Email marketing involves sending promotional messages to a large number of people at one time. It is typically done to generate sales or leads and may advertise current promotions or events. Email marketing can be done on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis and can be used as a way to keep your brand at the forefront of your customer’s mind.

When should I use email marketing?

Email marketing can be used many ways and for many different reasons. Some of the most common are:

– To build connections and relationships with potential and current customers
– To boost brand awareness
– To promote content on your website including blogs
– To generate potential leads by providing a discount or free resource in exchange for their email address
– To promote your products and/or services
– To nurture leads with purchase reminders, discount codes and similar product suggestions

What are the benefits of email marketing for my small business?

While there are several benefits to creating an email marketing strategy for your business, we’ve narrowed it down to the top 8:

1. It allows you to reach the right audience

One of the biggest benefits of email marketing for small businesses is the ability to target your audience with customized campaigns, targeted content, and personalization with the recipient’s first name in the subject line. Personalization can also come from creating individualized content based on segmenting your audience so you can send the right emails to the right customers. For example, you may send a different email campaign to returning customers than you would to new or potential customers.

2. It creates brand awareness

Staying at the forefront of your customers mind is one of the biggest benefits of email marketing. It gives you a direct line to the email inboxes of your customers or potential customers. Consistently using email marketing allows you to keep in touch with your customers and encourages them to think about your business when they need your services. The key to creating brand awareness, like with most marketing strategies, is to stay consistent. Focusing on regular communication with content that is interesting and engaging will position you as an expert and will show your audience that you are about more than just promotions.

3. It’s affordable and has a high return on investment

When it comes to owning a small business, it’s important to save money where you can. Email marketing is one of the most affordable marketing options and one that has been shown to provide a high return on investment. Your emails can reach hundreds or even thousands of people for a minimal cost, with the potential of creating new or returning customers with each email sent.

4. It generates traffic to your site

With email marketing campaigns, you can send traffic directly to your site through action buttons and website links. This not only promotes your products and services; it also helps to improve your SEO. Every email that you send should have a call-to-action button so that readers can click through to your website.

5. You own your media and contact lists

With social media platforms, your media, content, and contacts are all at the mercy of the platform itself. Your account (along with your followers and posts) could be suspended, deleted, or hacked at any time for any reason, leaving you with no way to reach your audience. With email marketing, you own your list, your media and the content included in your emails. The leads that you generate through email marketing are yours.

6. It allows you get feedback from customers

Knowing what your customers love about your products or services is the key to keeping them engaged and wanting to continue interacting with your brand. Email marketing is a great way to keep up with the wants and needs of your customers. You can easily send customer satisfaction surveys to obtain feedback on your products/services.

7. It increases your potential leads

Email marketing not only increases your sales, it can also increase your potential leads. People who opt-in to your email list on your website share their name, email address and other contact information with you. Once you have these leads, you can use email marketing to generate interest, build trust and turn the leads into potential customers.

8. It creates stronger relationships with your customers

A consistent email marketing strategy that involves useful, relevant content is valuable to your consumers. Once someone joins your email list, you have an opportunity to send them information about your business as well as information that you think they might find helpful. This could be in the form of blog post, tips and tricks or links to video. Every email you send shouldn’t involve selling a product/service or promotion. Customers will continue to read your emails if they have information they see as valuable.

How to get started with email marketing

1. Define your audience

Think about who you’re sending your email to, and what they may want. Try to tailor your email content to your ideal buyer, and keep in mind demographic attributes like age, gender, location, and interests.

2. Determine your goals

Before you start building your email marketing campaign, think about what you want out of it. Is it lead generation? Link clicks? Event sign-ups? You’ll also want to know the average stats for your industry to use as a benchmark for your goals.

3. Build your list 

This might seem like an obvious one, but before you start your campaign, you need to have a list of people to email. To build your list, you need to provide potential and current customers a way to opt-in to receive your emails. This could be in the form of an opt-in form on your website or a sign-up via social media.

4. Choose your campaign type

Decide what kind of email campaign you are going to do and how often you are going to send it. Are you going to do a weekly newsletter? A monthly email tied to your monthly blog posts? It’s also important to set up different types of emails for different groups of customers (i.e. current vs. potential customers).

5. Don’t forget the analytics!

As with everything in marketing, it’s important to measure your results from each campaign. Not only does this help you see how your campaign did, it can also help you learn what to change and how to improve with your next campaign.

And remember, when it comes to email marketing, keep it real and keep it simple! Treat your subscribers like humans, and word your emails accordingly. They want to hear from you and hear what you have to say. They don’t want to be constantly bombarded with sales pitch after sales pitch (although it’s ok to throw one in once in awhile). Deliver value, share compelling content, and treat your subscribers like gold.

The bottom line? Communicating with your customers is never a bad idea and creating an email marketing strategy is a perfect way to start. Think you’re ready to get your email marketing strategy off the ground? We can help! The digital marketing team at Trilogy Solutions can create and run your email marketing campaign to help you reach your marketing goals.

The Basics of Digital Marketing

Marketing opportunities for small businesses have come a long way in recent years, with a huge shift in towards digital marketing, almost exclusively, as a way to connect with consumers. Because consumers are spending more and more time online, businesses are now shifting their marketing efforts to include various forms of digital marketing in the core of their marketing strategies.

Think about the last time you went to research a product or a service; where did you look first? A safe bet would be that you used an online search engine or looked up the product on your most-used social media accounts. Consumers now expect and rely on digital marketing to learn about brands and their products. To increase your brand awareness, you’ll want to look at your website, your social media presence, and your digital ad strategy to make sure that your marketing efforts are meeting your current goals as a small business.

What are the main types of digital marketing?

Digital marketing is constantly changing and has endless possibilities. Here are a few of the key initiatives to consider that will have the biggest impact on your small business:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

As you build your online presence with a website or blog, you’ll want to focus on your company’s SEO to increase the amount of traffic your website receives organically. SEO is a powerful marketing strategy because it allows your website to rank higher in search engine results, which directly impacts how many people are accessing your website when looking up a product or service. Look up SEO services in Vancouver, like Trilogy Solutions, to find out how our specialists can help level up your SEO.

2. Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social media marketing allows your business to share what you’re all about, while simultaneously building your brand awareness, connecting with customers and driving traffic to your website. Social media platforms are a great way to promote your brand and create leads for your small business.

Don’t know where to start to build a strong social media presence for your business? Trilogy Solutions has Social Media Management Packages with pricing options that you can check out to make the most of your digital marketing budget. Our social media experts work with you to build a strong social media presence and maintain full transparency so you can see how our efforts are directly improving your online revenue.

3. Sponsored Content

Consumers are spending increasing amounts of time on social media channels, such as Instagram. One of the most popular methods of sponsored content right now is sponsoring an influencer to promote your product using posts and videos on their social media accounts. This method can have a huge impact on influencing a buyer to make a purchase.

4. Affiliate Marketing

In this form of digital marketing, you can work together with another brand to promote products. One of the recent trends and examples of this is influencer marketing campaigns on Instagram or Facebook. Sharing products through various similar accounts can have a huge impact in reaching consumers.

5. Pay Per Click (PPC)

This is a method of driving traffic to your website through ads. This can be done through Google, Facebook, Twitter and other channels where you pay a publisher every time your ad is clicked.

6. Email Marketing

Email marketing is a well-known way of communicating with your customers. Companies often use email to promote content, events and notify their customers of upcoming discounts. Email can be a great way to reach a ton of customers at once, however, you want to make sure that the quality of your emails stands out. These days, customers are bombarded with so many emails in a day that they are likely to delete or unsubscribe if your emails are too frequent or seem impersonal.

Where should I start for my business?

We know that digital marketing can be overwhelming with the endless possibilities and fast-changing world online. Digital marketing allows your small business to compete with the bigger brands in your industry and it is important to look at your marketing budget and choose the methods that will have the biggest impact.

Another positive aspect of digital marketing is that it can be fairly cost-effective over time. Digital marketing can help you reach a larger audience than you would have through the traditional methods of marketing. With many different options available, you can focus your marketing budget on the methods that will directly impact your specific business.

If you know you want to make changes to your digital marketing but still don’t know where to start, look into companies who can discuss social media management cost and services to support you with this, like Trilogy Solutions (we can help!). Because digital marketing is measurable by using analytics, we can help you set up a plan specialized to your business. Our team uses analytics to show a clear picture of how your digital marketing efforts are supporting your goals as a company and help you make changes to your strategy as we go to ensure that it is successful.

Increasing your Social Media Impact: 8 Tips for Small Businesses

Growing your business online through social media platforms can lead to success, especially for small businesses looking to reach a significant customer base. Start by reflecting on the impact social media is currently having on your company: Are you achieving your goals? Are there areas where you feel stuck? Do you wish you had some guidance on what would make the most impact, with the limited time you have available?

Social media marketing can be an amazing tool to connect with others and grow your small business. Here are some tips to create a successful and lasting presence on social media.

1. Start with a plan and clear goals

What do you want your social media presence to achieve? What does “success” look like for your business? Social media can have a huge impact in areas like building brand awareness, engaging with customers, and growing relationships and sales within your social media platforms. It can be overwhelming at first, so do some research and get inspired by the success of other businesses. Decide what your top three marketing objectives are and evaluate which social media platforms will help you achieve them.

2. Know your audience

Identify who your target audience is and where they are spending their time – show up there. Build relationships through consistent posts and interaction, while attracting the followers you want. Connect with your local community by following other local businesses online and actively engage with them; start with people you know personally and grow from there. 

3. Quality over quantity

Social media can seem overwhelming, especially when you don’t have the time to do it all. More isn’t always better when it comes to the number of platforms you join. Choose a couple of key channels to have a strong presence on and make sure that your posts offer value to your audience. 

4. Relationships

Social media is about building relationships, so be yourself, engage with your audience, and post great content. It’s as easy as that! Using live video, such as Instagram Stories, can be a great way to build a connection with your audience. Ask questions that will inspire others and show that their input is valued; the more engaged your audience is, the more likely they are to share your posts. By showing up authentically (not who you think they want you to be) and consistently, you will organically build your relationships.

5. Contests and giveaways

Everyone loves a contest or giveaway that offers something they are interested in – for free! Brainstorm what that is and include something of value to your followers. These can be your most popular products or services, a bundle or partnership, or a new one that you’re promoting. Contests are exciting and act as a simple ice breaker to engage your audience and increase your online visibility. 

6. Consistency

Develop and maintain a monthly content calendar that clearly lays out all of your posts for the month. Focus on posting content regularly to achieve more consistent results and remove the daily uncertainty of how you will show up online. By planning it out in a visual way (we find grid-style or list works best!), it helps you prepare to show up consistently with a plan in hand. 

7. Analytics

In order to evaluate your efforts, you’ll need to employ analytics tools to report on what is working well for your business. Review these as often as needed to see how your efforts are trending, and re-evaluate your focus areas to help you achieve your goals as needed.

8. Delegate

Running a small business means you have a lot on your plate, and your time to spend on social media may be limited. If a consistent and goal-oriented social media presence isn’t something you can add to your already-busy schedule, delegate this task to a capable member of your team or hire a company specializing in social media marketing Vancouver with established social media management packages (like Trilogy Solutions!) to help.

Social media platforms offer your small business limitless opportunities to reach global audiences. By planning the work and then working the plan, your business can grow and thrive in an increasingly active social media landscape.