To sell your offerings, email marketing solutions are incredibly handy and cost-effective. They’re particularly useful marketing tools for tiny enterprises that lack technological expertise. Every year, though, email’s effectiveness as a marketing tool is called into doubt. Despite this, the stats demonstrate that it is more powerful than ever. Here’s a collection of noteworthy email marketing data that demonstrate the importance of email marketing.

• Email’s Widespread Adoption
  • In 2019, there were 3.9 billion email subscribers worldwide (Statista, 2020). In 2023, this number is expected to rise to 4.3 billion active users (Statista, 2020).
• Every day, billions of emails are being sent.
  • Every day in 2019, 293.6 billion emails are being sent and read (Statista, 2020). However, by 2022, this quantity is predicted to have risen to over 347.3 billion daily emails (Statista, 2020).
• An email has a good return on investment.
  • You may anticipate a $42 return on investment for every $1 spent on email marketing (DMA, 2019).
• Email is used to distribute content.
  • According to the most recent data, 87% of marketers utilize email marketing to distribute their product information (Content Marketing Institute, 2019).
• Email Marketing Aids in Company Success.
  • As per the study, 81% of SMBs use email as their major client acquisition channel, and 80% use it for retaining customers (Emarsys, 2018).
• The open rate of welcome emails is indeed high.
  • A welcome email’s highest engagement rate is 82 percent (GetResponse, 2017).
• When it comes to email, customization is a game-changer.
  • The open rate of emails with customized subject lines is 50 percent greater (Yes Lifecycle Marketing, 2019).
• Emails from Abandoned Carts Have a Lot of Power.
  • When 3 abandoned cart emails are sent instead of one, 69 percent more purchases are generated (Omnisend, 2018).
• Emails that are engaging are the way to go.
  • According to Martech Advisor’s 2017 statistics, using multimedia in your email may raise click rates by 300%.
• Customers are interested in hearing from you.
  • Consumers claimed they would want to get email newsletters from their preferred firms frequently, according to Statista (2017).

How Do You Pick the Best Email Marketing Service?

Companies are utilizing the potential of automation to increase the effectiveness of their email marketing tactics and to improve it by working smarter. If you want to get the most out of your marketing approach, you’ll need a competent email marketing tool.

Now that you’ve decided that you need a powerful email marketing platform for your company, it’s time to choose one. We’ve identified important features, benefits, cost, usability, and level of each tool so you can evaluate them side by side and discover the one that’s right for you.

1. Campaigner

Campaigner is a full-featured email marketing system that offers low pricing (beginning at $19.95 for up to 1,000 contacts), a wide variety of advanced features, a large number of third-party connectors, and online chat support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It also sticks out because of a well-designed and straightforward UI with a large number of layouts, both of which make it particularly appealing to small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs).

Pricing:

• $19.95 for 1,000 contacts
• $40.95 for 5,000 contacts
• $119.95 for up to 25,000 contacts
• $449.95 for up to 100k contacts, with extra features and capabilities like Purchase Behavior and Automation Workflows.

2. HubSpot

HubSpot can do a terrific job providing pre-made and configurable email templates that will help you get through the development and distribution process after you work them out if you concentrate on email marketing. HubSpot’s sales and CRM features featured impressive contact management and social media integration. It also has its support desk platform and is readily connected with HubSpot CRM. Through HubSpot’s integration with Google Lighthouse, you’ll also have access to some useful SEO tools. Overall, HubSpot has developed the Marketing Hub into a very well-rounded solution that can compete with Salesforce.

Pricing:

• Free – $0 includes email marketing, autoresponders, email broadcast, sequences, lead grabbers, landing pages, CRM, helpdesk, live chat
• Basic – $10.79 per user per month includes email templates, web pop-ups, landing page builder, lead scoring, SMS marketing, 3rd party integrations, social suite, tag manager.
• Growth – $35.99 per user per month includes marketing automation, push notifications, site messages, broadcast a/b testing, landing page A/B testing, custom domain, call records, service automation, products, proposals.
• Pro – $57.59 per user per month includes marketing automation, role management, proposal analytics, web analytics, custom reporting, SSO, goals, uptime SLA, dedicated account manager, & phone support

3. MailChimp

Mailchimp has long dominated the email marketing industry, and it hopes to keep that trend going by expanding into e-commerce, allowing merchants to develop online storefronts, and transforming the platform into an interactive marketing center.

Pricing:

• In the free package, all of the multichannel solutions you’ll need to expand your audience and create your brand. You’ll gain access to 7 marketing channels, one-click automation, basic templates, a CRM, surveys, websites, and custom domains.
• The Essentials Package is designed for frequent email users and starts at $9.99 per month. It can handle up to 50,000 contacts and A/B testing.
• Custom-coded templates and automation are included in the Standard Package. It costs $14.99 monthly and can handle up to 100,000 contacts for enterprises.
• The Premium plan is $299.99 monthly. Multimodal testing, bespoke domains, and extensive audience segmentation are all part of this strategy. It also includes direct phone assistance and handles more than 200,000 contacts.

4. Salesforce Pardot

Salesforce Pardot, even though it isn’t cheap, is the gold standard in martech automation and email marketing, owing to its straightforward design and extensive feature set, which includes several integration possibilities and AI-powered insights.

Pricing:

• When invoiced yearly, the regular Growth Pardot subscription prices $1,250 per month for up to 10,000 contacts. Email marketing,  lead scoring, prospect tracking, 50 landing pages, 50 forms, live chats, and regular Salesforce CRM connection are all included in this package.
• When invoiced yearly, the Plus plan would cost $2,500 monthly for up to 10,000 contacts. Multivariate and A/B testing, Google AdWords integration, email analytics, application programming interface (API) access, and an integrated marketing calendar are all included in this middle-tier package.
• When invoiced yearly, the Advanced plan costs $4,000 monthly for up to 10,000 contacts. This subscription provides access to Einstein AI technology as well as bespoke user roles and permissions, custom object integration, a dedicated IP address, predicted lead score, and behavior scoring.

. Brevo formerly Sendinblue

Sendinblue has progressed beyond email marketing to a more holistic marketing center with enhanced automated processes, enhanced template design, and a built-in CRM robust enough to meet the needs of most small firms.

Pricing:

• Its free subscription allows you to send 300 emails a day and has an unlimited number of contacts.
• The Lite package costs $25 monthly for 10,000 emails and can go up to $99 monthly for 100,000 emails.
• A premium version, which offers all of the capabilities as well as limitless automation, costs $65 monthly for 20,000 emails and can go up to $599 monthly for 1,000,000 emails.
• If your company needs to send more than 1,000,000 emails, you’ll need to upgrade to an Enterprise plan with unique pricing.

6. GetResponse

GetResponse is flexible, user-friendly, and now has a greater emphasis on e-commerce. It has a feature-rich UI and a lot of clever connectors to address most firms’ omnichannel promotional demands.

Pricing:

• The Basic plan, which costs $15 monthly allows you to contact up to 1,000 customers. This does not, however, include access to the new Autofunnel function, which is valuable enough to appeal to small companies.
• The Plus plan costs $49 monthly with a maximum contact list of 1,000 people. This plan includes all of the features of the Base version, but added features are the Autofunnel tool, the automation builder, and basic webinars of up to 100 attendees.
• The Max tier, for which a special quote is required to establish the cost. This includes a comprehensive range of integrations, transactional emails, a dedicated support representative, and much more.

7. InfusionSoft

Infusionsoft by Keap is the launchpad and command hub for numerous email marketing and CRM operations, making it perfect for smaller companies where administrators wear several hats.

Pricing:

• The price starts at $199 monthly for 500 contacts and one user with 50% off for the first 3 months on all plans. Your monthly charge will rise in tandem with the number of contacts you have. CRM, Unlimited emails, marketing automation, sales automation, and e-commerce are now included in all packages. This covers functions like instantly qualifying leads, setting reminders, sending automated emails, tracking marketing team activities, and seeing forecasts and results. Invoicing and payment processing are also included in the package.

8. Zoho Campaigns

Zoho Campaigns has an extensive variety of connectors with Zoho’s other SMB technology solutions, allowing you to customize your toolkit precisely as you want it. It also specializes in automation and tracking, albeit some may find the pricing a little high.

Pricing:

• Email-based pricing
  • 500 emails (250 Contacts) per month: $3.00/mo
  • 1000 emails (500 Contacts) per month: $5.00/mo
  • …and so on.  You can find a price calculator here.
• Subscriber-based pricing.
  • 500 subscribers: $4.50/mo
  • 1000 subscribers: $9.00/mo
  • 5000: $39/mo
  • 10,000: $60.75/mo
  • 50,000: $172.50/mo
  • …and so on.
• Email Credit-based pricing
  • 250 credits: $7/mo
  • 500 credits: $14/mo
  • 1000 credits: $25/mo
  • 10,000 credits: $173/mo
  • 50,000 credits: $450/mo
  • …and so on.

9. Campaign Monitor

Even inexperienced email marketers can use Campaign Monitor’s easy interface, which includes rich templates and strong statistics. In terms of direct online help, however, it lags behind the competitors.

Pricing:

• Basic Plan is $9 per month with the following features:

• Up to 2,500 emails can be sent.
  • Email-based customer service
  • All of the essential email marketing elements
  • The analytics suite Insights
  • Review of a link
  • Image gallery for free
  • To your mailing list, marketing automation

• Unlimited Pan is $29 per month with the following features:

• You may send unlimited emails to your mailing list.
  • Customer service through email is given top priority.
  • All of the essential email marketing elements
  • The analytics suite Insights
  • Review of a link
  • Image gallery for free
  • To your list, there is no limit to the amount of marketing automation you may use.
  • Previews of your inbox are unlimited.
  • Sending time zones
  • Spam testing is available at no cost.
  • Timer with a countdown

• Premier Plan is $149 per month with the following features:

• You may send unlimited emails to your mailing list.
  • Support via phone and email is exceptional.
  • All of the essential email marketing elements
  • The analytics suite Insights
  • Review of a link
  • Image gallery for free
  • To your list, there is no limit to the amount of marketing automation you may use.
  • Previews of your inbox are unlimited.
  • Sending time zones
  • Spam testing is available at no cost.
  • Timer with a countdown
  • Engagement parts that have already been created
  • Time-to-send optimization
  • Sections of the email builder are locked.

10. Constant Contact

Constant Contact is one of those brands that appear to be recognized by practically everyone in the eCommerce and online marketing industries. The firm has made a reputation for itself through promoting its goods broadly and remains to do so, particularly in the area of email marketing.

Pricing:

• The Email pricing plan, which costs at least $20 a month based on the number of contacts.
• The Email Plus pricing plan, which costs at least $45 a month based on the number of contacts.

11. Twilio SendGrid

The Twilio SendGrid solution can help you increase transactional email delivery while also allowing you to simply grow to suit business demands. Twilio SendGrid can simply connect with any cloud-based email system thanks to its versatile Web and SMTP APIs. Your transactional email will be fully operational in minutes thanks to our robust cloud-based email infrastructure.

Pricing:

• Marketing Campaigns Essentials costs $14.95 monthly and enables you to send up to 40,000 emails each month, which is a fantastic basic foundation for small businesses.
• The Pro Plan, which costs $89.95 monthly and it can handle 100,000 emails monthly.  It includes all of the features of Essentials plus dynamic templates with testing capabilities, up to 2,500 email verifications, a dedicated IP address, and subscription monitoring.
• Twilio’s Premier Plan is the Pro Plan, however, it involves extensive discussion with the company’s business services professionals since its set of features is customized for each customer. Because this tier’s price is also customized, you’ll need to speak with a Twilio sales professional to have access to it.

12. SalesHandy

SalesHandy is a user-friendly email marketing software for sending tailored cold email marketing campaigns. SalesHandy allows your emails to be sent to your recipients’ principal inbox, which is one of the most crucial aspects of a successful cold email.

Pricing:

• Regular Plan: $9/user/month (billed yearly)
• Plus Plan: $22/user/month (billed yearly)
• Enterprise Plan: $49/user/month (billed yearly)

Choosing the perfect email marketing platform is crucial to successfully reaching your target market. Before investing in any program, a marketer must examine the various solutions and evaluate each to their demands wherever feasible.

Use the free versions to evaluate if the tools fit your productivity, and test as many as you can before committing to a paid subscription.

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On the contrary, it has been found to be one of the most effective marketing tools that are now available for businesses and at a cost that is so much lower, too, compared to other marketing collaterals and plans. Targeted communication is very much possible and analysis of the return of investment can be done.

Since businesses nowadays must keep up with the changing times, especially after the pandemic brought about drastic changes the way business is being done nowadays. Business owners have found SMS marketing to be one of the most accessible ways to reach their target markets and offer their business’s products and services to a wider array of people.

Especially for small businesses and when correctly and efficiently used, SMS marketing, mixed with other traditional marketing strategies, has been found to be cost effective and has been seen to be more personalized in terms of reaching their target markets. People carry their mobile phones anywhere and everywhere they go. And within a few seconds of sending out an SMS, these messages can be read almost right away. Because SMS marketing is a direct and immediate channel, market analysis has shown that mobile texts sent have the fastest read rate of 90% within fifteen minutes of delivery and a final open rate of 97%. Meaning, only three out of ten people do not read their text messages right away when they see it came from a company offering their products or services.

HOW SMS MARKETING INTEGRATES WITH OTHER MARKETING CHANNELS

With the use of social media platforms available in the market, SMS marketing can be integrated using artificial intelligence technology and the enhanced and improved features of customer relationship management software available for business owners. It is easier now to let your customers know of your promotions and introduce new products or services without having to send them mailers or flyers. And because people have such a big reliance on social media platforms, receiving SMS marketing information about your business is within reach and will cost the business so much less in terms of investment.

Businesses used to send surveys via phone calls, letters, and nowadays, email. Phone calls are relatively costly because of your provider’s call charges and it takes quite some time for surveys to be done over the phone and this is not welcomed by most people due to the time needed to speak over the phone. Letters had to be mailed and will also cost significantly against your postage and marketing expenses. Emails, on the other hand, may just be sent to the recipients’ junk folders, causing it to be unread by your customers. Studies have shown that surveys done with SMS marketing are responded to at a rate of 31% within five minutes of receiving it. This means that you get the results you want over a short period of time so the business can go ahead and strategize their operations based on the results of the survey sent for a particular aspect of the product, service, or business brand.

While SMS marketing can be effective in reaching out to your customers about developments relating to your brand and other news about your business, some information could be carried out through email where you can create longer and more creative messages that cannot really be sent through SMS. Your business’s SMS marketing strategy should be catchy, short, and relevant. More businesses are using SMS marketing to send vouchers and discount coupons that may be presented upon availing of the product or service. This is the kind of engagement that a business would need in order to increase sales and expand their customer base.

HOW WILL SMS GROW YOUR SMALL BUSINESS?

SMS marketing has also proven to be effective in building brand loyalty. Since SMS sent to customers may be personalized, this gives your customers a feeling of importance in the growth of your business. Your business can offer services or products that are tailored fit to the needs and wants of your customers. Sure, you can send out all the content you want through SMS, but this would seem irrelevant and ineffective if you are trying to build your brand to your target market without looking at their demographics.

What is good about SMS marketing is that business owners can personalize these messages and send them out to their specific customers with specific needs and wants. Knowing who your customers are is important in building brand loyalty. SMS marketing may be used to appreciate a customer’s loyalty by sending them specific vouchers or discounts on their birthdays or special occasions. This helps build brand loyalty by ensuring that the business has programs catered to their customers and the customers would, in return, feel that their patronage is important and valued by the business. Customers love being treated as very important people, so receiving specialized or targeted messages make them more loyal to your brand and patronize you for as long as they can. These types of customers would definitely share their positive experiences with friends and family that could in turn be your potential loyal customers in the not-so-distant future.

SMS marketing increases customer awareness about your business. Especially for the new ones, this helps in the brand or business exposure to help gain new customers at a much lower cost. SMS marketing for new businesses should always be targeted and focused to increase customer base and to help make your business known to potential clients. As SMS marketing is used together with the automated features of social media platforms available, this helps increase exposure by word of mouth, and access to your products or services are within reach. Businesses should make use of the fact that people are always on their phones and SMS is one of the easiest ways by which potential customers inquire about your products or services. Customers also keep tabs about the latest in your business offerings through SMS news blasts and updates you send. They are likely and inclined to forward your messages to friends and family whom they feel could also benefit from your offerings at the cost of just one text message sent. This is a sure-fire way of increasing sales especially during peak seasons within the year.

The returns and results of SMS marketing are easier tracked and monitored via the click-through rate method. Google Analytics is a very helpful tool, especially for small businesses, that may be used to track this. Often, a business SMS sent will contain a certain code or link to the website or marketing campaign so the business can easily track the data from those who used the SMS sent to them to avail of products or services of the business. Aside from the ease of tracking and monitoring website and sales activities from the text messages sent, the targeted results may easily be reviewed, and the data analytics from the activities may be used to further improve the service rendered by the business via SMS marketing.

TIPS FOR SUCCESSFUL SMS MARKETING

Marketing campaigns are time-based, so it is very important to send out text messages that are timely and relevant to the campaign of the business. SMS is immediate so it is vital for your business to be able to send those messages in a timely manner to ensure the success of your campaign. For example, you have a tea shop, and you will be sending out your promotional messages with discounts and vouchers at three in the afternoon. This can be a good time because people would be having tea at this time of the day, and they can readily avail of the discount or voucher offered in the SMS received.

Another example may be that of an upcoming pay day or holiday weekend sales where for sure there would be a lot of customers who would like to avail of the special discount vouchers and promotions being offered by the shop. Current and potential customers would save those messages to be presented during the sale period. Since customers would likely be able to open their text messages within five seconds of receiving them, you are assured that these will be noted and kept and come the day of the sale, you will see these customers present their vouchers received via SMS.

With SMS marketing, the business should be able to keep the sent messages short and sweet. In twenty words or even less, send a message that your customers will be able to know everything at the onset and upfront because customers do not want to read through a wall of text in the first place. Be creative. Send text messages that are informative and catchy so as to pique the interest of your customers and increase customer engagement.

While it is great practice to send a short but relevant text message to your customers, it will be futile effort for them to receive those without knowing what to do with it. Your text messages should have calls to action like a link to a website or your campaign page to receive and use vouchers or promotional codes that they can use to avail of your products or services. Always make sure that your text messages will contain calls to action so as not to put into waste the goal of your current SMS marketing campaign.

WHY CHOOSE SMS MARKETING?

Mobile marketing platforms have soared through its activities to an all-time high this year. Even though there are impediments such as ad-blocking and anti-spam services that are used by choice of a number of mobile users, it still does not change the fact that mobile and SMS marketing has improved over time that it has helped cut down on the cost of marketing, while these SMS marketing campaigns are able to reach more customers than ever before.

SMS marketing is a direct marketing method, and its effectiveness is dependent on how direct it can be towards its target clientele. Comparing it to email marketing, studies have shown that one in every five marketing emails sent from commercial or business addresses end up in the customer’s junk or spam folder due to anti-spamming software integrated in email applications. SMS reaches its target recipients faster and these messages get opened almost right away. Messaging applications such as WhatsApp or Facebook’s Messenger almost have the same results when it comes to delivery. However, not everyone has these applications installed on their mobile phones and there are even countries that restrict the use of these messaging applications. SMS is more accessible and reliable, making it a more effective form of direct marketing when properly used.

Despite the growing rate and popularity of SMS marketing being used by businesses as part of their marketing strategy plans, SMS marketing remains to be the most underutilized form of digital marketing platforms available. Small businesses still rely on traditional marketing plans and are being slow to diversify into the digital marketing platforms available to them because of some fears about not being able to fully reach the target goals of their marketing plans. Some have doubts about the effectiveness of this type of marketing strategy. Some are worried about the costs. In the end, there is a need to diversify and find ways to minimize cost while taking into consideration current trends and platforms that have been found to be truly helpful in promoting one’s business and its brands. There is always the risk of changing platforms and strategies but with the right planning, goal setting, and mindset, these changes can bring about better yields for the business in terms of branding and put more value into the business operations.

Currently, when everything is now going digital and there have been imposed limits on the proximity to people because of the still ongoing pandemic in the world, businesses would have to find a way to maximize all available online resources that could benefit the operations of their business. All businesses nowadays aim to stay afloat and thrive despite the challenging times. Businesses see the need to cut costs in a lot of the aspects of the business, but this should mean having to also cut on the possible ways and means to promote the business. We all know that going online is now the way to go. A business’s online presence now transcends and translates into physical success in the long run when the business is properly marketed and when the business uses all the available tools necessary to obtain the same result as when a traditional marketing plan is in place. Business owners may hesitate to go this route but with the proper mindset, learning, and education about all these digital platforms available for businesses, the long-term benefits would outweigh the other considerations and concerns in the implementation of such kinds of marketing plans within the business. In the end, the shift from or the mix with traditional and digital marketing strategies would end up more cost-beneficial to the company. In return and when properly used, the business will be able to: (1) cope with the changing times, (2) continue to thrive despite adversities and challenges brought about by the pandemic, (3) be able to achieve its sales goals and targets on time, (4) diversify the way of doing business through maximizing online efforts to reach out to more people, (5) introduce the brand of your business and have people remember it, and (6) have a loyal customer database that is constantly growing in numbers every single day. Ultimately, the goal of SMS marketing should be to have it integrated as a basic component of your business’s strategic marketing plans and for your marketing team to ensure the timely delivery of information to your current and prospective customers will translate to increased sales numbers for the business.

With all these being said about how SMS marketing can work for your business, we now know that SMS marketing can go a long way and would be beneficial to the business in the long run. There are premium SMS marketing software providers who can also help set this service up for your business to make things more automated and easier for the business to use. Despite SMS marketing having to face issues with regard to the use of ad-blocking software by communications providers, it still cannot hide the fact that SMS marketing is already making its mark in the world of marketing and is now being considered to be one of the most effective and low-cost marketing strategies a business could ever have.

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LinkedIn does not encourage, nor does it want you to blatantly spam every LinkedIn member there is on the platform whom you would like to reach out to just to introduce your business. LinkedIn members and marketing strategists have devised a number of ways by which Linked In marketing would just look like you are just branching out to digital marketing for your business.

LinkedIn has more than thirty million companies listed and have joined the platform since its inception. It does not just post photos, videos, or presentations just haphazardly. Every post on LinkedIn seems like it is an article from a broadsheet or a blog. Yet studies have shown that this strategy is indeed effective in getting the word out there about a certain business or brand.

Since LinkedIn is now widely used to promote businesses and to help create and build your business’s brand awareness to the market, here are some tips on how to grow your business using LinkedIn marketing.

1. Work on your LinkedIn Profile

The best way to start using LinkedIn is to create a solid LinkedIn profile.

Your LinkedIn profile is technically the key to making you stand out among the rest. LinkedIn is not just about branding and reaching out to potential clients, LinkedIn, just like any other social media platform, people would like to see the face behind the name or the business.

Complete your company page profile so that you can start getting the word out about your business. Make sure that your profile is close to 100% complete and you continuously update your profile with your business’s latest achievements. Your business profile should show more than enough opportunities for your potential customers to learn more about your business, the people who work for you, and interact and engage with the relevant content that you put up on your page.

2. Define your goals and your audience

One of the effective LinkedIn marketing strategies known would be to create your target market.

You went on LinkedIn because you want to get leads, meet new people who can possibly be your potential clients – whatever your goal is being on LinkedIn, make sure that your profile would already say exactly why you are there in the first place. It is important for the business owner to know who to reach out to and what do you really want to happen when leads start pouring in and you have already established your market from within LinkedIn.

3. Create an engaging “About Us” section

While this portion of LinkedIn has a 2,000-character limit, you can optimize this number of characters by coming up with an About Us portion that is engaging and already friendly at the onset. LinkedIn marketing strategists suggest that you must carefully choose the words you are going to write on this section because this is one of the deal breakers when trying to establish your target audience on LinkedIn. You need not use complicated words. Write something about your business – what your business does, what the company goals are, your mission and vision – make people know who you are with those 2,000 characters allotted for you to create your mark and niche from within LinkedIn.

4. Post content that is of high quality and relevance

It has always been a challenge for anyone to stay relevant and ensure that the content you put out there about your business is of high quality and something worth one’s time to read and engage with. One of the LinkedIn marketing strategies that is found to be highly effective would be to utilize the blog portion of LinkedIn and post content that is relevant and relatable to everyone, especially to those who are in the same industry as you are.

You can also talk about commonly familiar stuff that anyone can relate to across all industries. It could be a topic on salaries, benefits, or work-life balance. Whichever it is that you will choose to post content about, always remember that it is reflective of you as a business owner and reflective of your business.

5. Share posts with very rich content and media

LinkedIn is a social media platform, but it is so much different from Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter in the sense that it really tackles almost anything and everything about business and its aspects. It is more like a specialized online messaging board of the olden times made more interesting.

Photos and videos are highly recommended to be uploaded with your articles if you decide to post them on LinkedIn. LinkedIn marketing strategists have noted that LinkedIn posts with non-stock images receive replies or comments at 98% more than if you are using stock photos /images (meaning photos coming from sites such as Shutterstock or Gettys Images). People are more enticed to look at images on photos and as for videos, it has been proven to have five times more engagement than a post without a video.

Another great thing to include in your LinkedIn posts are SlideShare or PowerPoint presentations especially if you would like to share trending data for analysis. If you are well-versed in making charts and making them simpler to understand while being able to present data in a clear manner, then you could use it as a good LinkedIn marketing strategy for your business.

Although these may all be just numbers, it just goes to show that one of the key steps in ensuring that you get engagement from others is to make your posts livelier and more interesting with related images and videos all together.

6. Stay on customer’s radar

This is a LinkedIn marketing strategy that is found to be effective because there will always be recall when you are always visible.

Visibility and ensuring that your presence in the industry is known should be one of the goals of the business by going on LinkedIn. LinkedIn can help a business generate leads for your business and the goals are to actually turn them into part of your customer database, get them to be loyal to your business in terms of regular sales activities, and to give them a good and positive experience that they would like to share with other people.

Staying on your customer’s radar would mean setting up marketing campaigns that would encourage engagement with your current customers and create potential ones. This may come in the form of free webinar offers regarding certain topics or even just about the business you are engaged in right now. You may also want to ensure that your clients and the potential ones are always up-to-date about your latest offers via email marketing.

Continuously updating your LinkedIn page with relevant topics and discussions about your business’s industry or group will also keep you on your customer’s radar since your customers are always on the lookout, too, for new things and offerings coming from your business.

7. Start with connections. Build Relationships.

LinkedIn has been very successful in changing the way relationships are built and connections are made from within the platform. Although it garnered a reputation to be just one of those job boards where you can look for a job or search a potential candidate for a job, this reputation has been further enhanced and improved with the other things that LinkedIn has offered businesses who join them over the last 18 years.

LinkedIn marketing suggests that in order to garner good and hot leads, you should always look at the profiles of the people or business that you come across on the platform and start engaging with them. The more people you connect with from the platform the higher the possibility that you will be able to create and build the right relationships with the right people.

Be engaging. Be true. Be friendly. Be nice. These are some of the things that people on the platform are looking for to connect with. You do not necessarily have to be a guru because you can eventually become one over time with all your business and personal experiences in life as you go along. What is important is that LinkedIn is an avenue for everyone in there to share these experiences with each other with the hopes that everyone, too, will be learning a lot from them. These sharing of experiences actually help in building rapport with each other, and people will start to want to get to know these people behind the experiences.

LinkedIn does not just help build connections. It helps people reconnect with each other. There have been so many instances when you have already lost touch with certain people for the longest time and then you see them back on LinkedIn. That old cliché “six degrees of separation” – LinkedIn has apparently reduced it already to 3.5 because of what it does within the platform. It is interesting to note how LinkedIn marketing strategies made it into that. It bridged so many people from across the world and we are all learning from everyone at the same time despite cultural differences and distance from each other.

8. Avoid hard sells

Every business would be excited to get the ball rolling for them in terms of sales that were gotten from leads generated from the connections and relationships that were formed from joining LinkedIn.

LinkedIn marketing strategists have strongly suggested against doing hard sells on LinkedIn as this is a practice that has been frowned about and is unprofessional in the world of LinkedIn.

A primary LinkedIn marketing strategy that is often used would be about creating your brand awareness and establishing your niche in the business. Once this has been established, you really need not do a hard sell just to make everyone buy from you. Establishing and creating brand awareness from LinkedIn has been a subtle way of generating leads in order for people to buy from you. What is good about this LinkedIn marketing strategy is the fact that marketing people would really have to think of innovative and creative ways of selling without really doing so. It is and has always been a challenge for people and businesses on LinkedIn simply because hard selling is not the way to go from within the platform.

LinkedIn is equipped with marketing tools that are designed to help businesses do their sales thing without resorting to hard selling. The pages are there to always help in your business’s marketing campaigns. It comes across to everyone and not just to your generated leads so this helps spread the word around even more without really having to directly do hard selling to everyone.

Also, LinkedIn has the option to cross-post your marketing campaigns to other social media platforms. It comes out more professional that way and your intended target market is extended outside of LinkedIn because of your followers and leads from your own social media accounts. A business being on LinkedIn is regarded with respect so people take your business seriously. Besides, a business owner would never want to be put in a position where people think that all he or she can do is to hard sell.

9. Put a face on the people behind your company

Who would want to deal with a company who can never show how proud it is of its employees?

One of the good LinkedIn marketing strategies known is to encourage your own employees to be on LinkedIn to show that you are indeed a legitimate company, with legitimate employees who work for you. Having them join LinkedIn and being able to showcase and highlight their achievements on the platform would show that you put value to your employees and how they help your business grow. Encourage your employees to engage in discussions actively and positively on the posted content on your page regarding the business. This would also help encourage others to do the same. It is not just your business that is gaining connections and building relationships with other businesses. Your employees also expand their network of people, and this would allow them to also start creating connections of their own and build relationships with other people where they can learn from each other.

10. Join LinkedIn Groups

Why is it important to join LinkedIn groups?

Aside from the fact that you get to know people from within the same industry as your business, you are put in a place where you can learn a lot from other businesses as to how they deal with their day-to-day activities or face their challenges and adversities which can give you a different perspective on how you deal with business issues from your end.

LinkedIn groups are very active by nature and there may be content or discussions in there that could sometimes be irrelevant, it is still found to be a good LinkedIn marketing strategy that can move you forward to the direction that you would want your business to go in terms of technical knowledge and even being introduced to people who can be a good business lead for anything in the future. This is where a lot of the discussions about your industry are done. This is where you can possibly meet the right people for a certain job that you may be looking for to be filled from within your company. This could also be the place to meet people with whom you can discuss your business ideas without getting judged or being thrown biases at.

LinkedIn groups are generally fun to be in. Not only do you get to meet a lot of new people, but you also gain a lot of knowledge and ideas that could be applied in the operations of your business from experts and those who have learned everything the hard way. Sharing of experiences, especially in running a business, from within the LinkedIn groups are really eye-openers where you can learn a lot and probably would be able to explore on some occasions soon.

Whichever LinkedIn marketing strategy you think you can apply to your own business, we all know that when used properly and with good intent, being on LinkedIn reaps of so many benefits not just for the business, but also for its investors, its owner, its employees, and the business’s customers in the long run. LinkedIn marketing strategies may sometimes be a little too tedious to do but these are proven techniques and strategies that have helped businesses and individuals alike grow. The world has been made a little smaller and more connected because of how LinkedIn strategized their marketing techniques and ideas and clearly, small business owners could really learn a lot from these.

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What is digital marketing?

Everybody needs something at some point, be it a want or a need, and consumers who have the purchasing power to get those will find a way to get those wants or needs in their hands. It is normally just a matter of choosing where to go to purchase products or services at the right price. Marketing is used to promote products and services that are primarily relevant in the lives of consumers.

As opposed to traditional marketing where strategies such as the use of marketing collaterals like posters, TV ads and other forms of commercials, and flyers are being used to promote businesses and gain public awareness and exposure to build a customer base, digital marketing uses the same but with the aid of online tools and facilities, such as emails and social media platforms. Both structures have the same goal: to build a loyal customer base, provide service and products suited to the needs of the customer, and retain these customers for further future transactions.

Nowadays, most purchases start with consumers searching the internet for what they need. Most, if not all businesses, already have their details available online. With just a keyword search on your browser, you will be presented with listings that are relevant to your needs and your location. This starts the whole digital and even the traditional marketing process.

Forms of Digital Marketing

There are several forms of digital marketing strategies being used by businesses to promote their products and services. Digital marketing strategies have evolved and improved over time making sure that their products and services are marketed to the right people, at the right place, and at the right time.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

We have all heard about search engine optimization at some point. This type of digital marketing strategy is a process that develops specific languages for websites in order to land at the top of search engine pages. When we look up search keywords, say, “best coffee places,” coffee businesses would like to land on the first page of the search engine that the potential customer used to gain better views and mileage. Those search results would usually be relevant as to where the customer is located so the customer will be able to find best coffee place nearest him. The more these keywords are used and clicked, the more they are likely to appear on the top of the search pages. The more clicks that a listed business on this keyword gets, the better the chances that a customer will go to the place and check out their product offers.

There are people who have been specializing in search engine optimization by way of writing up articles which include specific keywords or phrases for the specific business they are working for. It takes a lot of patience and hard work to come up with these articles, but they are truly helpful in getting out the business’s product offerings and services coupled with additional learning about specific and related topics along the way.

2. Pay-Per-Click Marketing (PPC)

This is a type of digital marketing strategy wherein companies will pay search engines to ensure that their pages will land on the top of the first page of the search engine results page. Whenever a customer clicks on their ad, the search engine is paid. The ultimate goal of pay-per-click marketing is to convert the high volume of customers’ purchases to eventually offset the costs of paying the search engine for this purpose.

3. Email Marketing

We have all been receiving emails from different businesses offering their products and services. And sometimes we ask: “How come I got this email and I have not really dealt with this business?”

With a lot of businesses now that are on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, these businesses have ways of doing market research simply by getting hold of data from these social media platforms with artificial intelligence integrated tools. These tools can assess, gauge, and track online activities, such as website visits or interaction with certain online posts, of customers who are interested in the same products or services that a business may be offering. Within the bounds of the various data privacy acts worldwide, email marketing is one of the ways by which businesses would introduce their products and services to potential customers in the hopes of converting them into actual and loyal customers in the future. Email marketing is not just about presenting products and services but may also contain promotions, discounts, and other useful information about topics relevant in their respective businesses that customers can make use of.

4. Influencer Marketing

With social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Tiktok, among others, businesses now employ the so-called influencers to promote their products and services. Marketing teams have a way of classifying and verifying the integrity and aptness of the people who can rightfully promote and sell their products and services not just to the right clientele but also to those who may be potentially good customers in the future.

Influencers already have a head start when it comes to promoting products, especially if they are well-known personalities like actors, television and print commercial models, bloggers, and vloggers. With so many of them in the circle, and even those who are self-proclaiming ones, marketing people should be able to wisely choose the right personality to promote their businesses’ products and services. Businesses should be able to get influencers who share the same vision as they have for the business.

The more frequent you see these influencers promoting or featuring a certain business’s product offerings and services, the more that potential customers will be curious about them. And often, the curiosity will end up with the consumers trying these products or services out.

5. Automated Marketing

There are social media and online platforms that will be able to automate certain marketing tasks after the marketing team has provided all the necessary data, such as listings or postings of product offerings and services, the specific target market, and marketing campaign details. The repetitive tasks may be done away with and the marketing team will be able to concentrate more on data analysis as to whether the campaigns are effective or otherwise, and coming up with better digital marketing strategies that would complement the current ones that they have in place.

6. Video Marketing

With YouTube as one of the primary sources of video information and learning, marketing people have found this to be an especially useful tool in coming up with a variety of digital marketing strategies to promote their business. A lot more people are very visual and are easily enticed with what they see. With the right video composition and content in under 30 seconds or even a minute or two, digital marketers may be able to send the message across and find potential customers through its viewers.

7. Social Media Marketing

Most people nowadays have social media accounts where they share stories about their lives in a nutshell. These may include products and services they may have tried or used or would want to use and they share the information to their friends, family members, and other connections from these social media accounts. At this day and age when it seems like people cannot do away with social media anymore, digital marketing has been known to effectively and efficiently used social media platforms to gain public exposure and mileage. Online presence is now essential for businesses, specially so that we are still experiencing a pandemic and is now a key to effectively carry out a business’s digital marketing strategy to boost sales and income, with lesser costs and lesser manpower.

8. Content Marketing

Remember that most customers do not just buy out of whim, and they would like to be presented with choices and options where they can better get their hard-earned money’s worth, specially nowadays that money is hard to find and earn. Majority of customers would still like to know details about the products or services they would like to get so they would have informed choices and options.

As opposed to direct selling, content marketing is a form of a digital marketing strategy that focuses on educating a potential customer about the business’s products and services. The better educated potential customers are about a company’s product and service offerings, the more likely there is a chance to convert these potential customers into actual customers in the long run. It may or may not be immediate but there the probability of that happening is relatively higher, most especially if the customer is a willing and able buyer.

Content marketing aims to establish that the business has a reputable and reliable source of information that is why it is necessary for digital marketers to share information about the company’s products and services that is true and honest to their word.

9. Market Infographics

Market infographics are essential in coming up with digital marketing strategies that would very well promote a business’s products and services. It is important for marketing people to know their target market so they can come up with digital marketing strategies that would be suited and beneficial to both the business and its customers. Market infographics may also help determine the business’s competitors which could be studied by digital marketing strategists so they could come up with a solid marketing plan for the competition.

Market infographics may include the following:

• Market location
• Age bracket of potential customers
• Social media platforms most used by competitors to gain customers

One good thing about using market infographics as a form of digital marketing strategy is that the data is now easier to track because of the built-in tools used when you sign up and utilize social media platforms for your business. As these tools are mostly automated, data can easily be extracted and analysis of the available data will already be in your hands at any time of the day or night.

Based on studies, from among these forms of digital marketing strategies available for use, a lot of businesses have been using more of search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click marketing (PPC), email marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing. Businesses find that these five digital marketing strategies have brought in more favorable outcome in terms of business exposure and sales. It does not mean though that one should use more of the other. The marketing team can use any of these digital marketing strategies available based on the result of their market studies and primarily what the business really needs and can afford. It could be safely said that the use of any one or a combination of these digital marketing strategies can yield positive results to the company for as long as it is studied properly. It cannot be denied that sometimes that coming up with a workable digital marketing strategy can also be a trial-and-error thing. The marketing and sales teams should be able to walk the business owner through all the advantages and disadvantages before embarking on specific digital marketing strategies to be used for the business.

Benefits and Advantages of Digital Marketing

With all these being said, we could run down the benefits and advantages of digital marketing, especially at this time when we are all still experiencing the effects of a pandemic. It is also especially important to note that digital marketing strategies should always be well-planned and even audited in order to be able to suit the business needs. Digital marketing strategies should also be flexible enough to cater to what the business and your customers might need. To plan this, data analytics derived from your online platforms should be helpful.

Digital marketing has made it easier to create engagement and awareness between the business and its customers during pre- and post-sales activities. The work of marketing and sales do not end with gaining a sale or a customer for the business’s profitability. The marketing and sales teams should work together with customer service to come up with a particularly good post-sales service and follow through in order to earn their customers’ loyalty towards the brand and retain them for future purchases and other possible transactions.

Effective digital marketing strategies have been known to convert potential buyers into fans of the product or service that they availed of. It is noticeable nowadays how one or two people who purchased from a certain company or business can make it go viral and people will start getting curious to try it out. In this connection, effective digital marketing strategies, when done the right way can put the product or service further out there in the market by word of mouth and social media sharing. Of course, it would have to

Digital marketing strategies work not only for the big businesses but more importantly to the small business owners. Given the limited resources that any small business may have in terms of budget and manpower, digital marketing strategies bring about brand awareness, customer reach and interaction, analytics and data gathering – all at a much lower cost to the small business owner.

A business owner should also bear in mind that digital marketing is not just about being digital or your business being all digital and online. It is important to remember that digital marketing strategies are helpful tools that can be used to put out in the open your products and services on the web to be extended to your physical store, if you have one, and through to your present in the traditional marketplace. Being present online is not just about joining the bandwagon but more of extending your presence to potential customers that would want or need your product and service offerings in the future.

To conclude, digital marketing strategies should be as innovative as they are very dynamic in these times. Today, podcasters and marketing gurus will be raving about the effectiveness of one or two digital marketing strategies. Tomorrow, those strategies may already be considered “dead” and non-existent.  As all markets across all industries are currently volatile at the moment, it is proper for businesses to be always abreast with current trends on digital marketing strategies to keep up with the changing times and thrive despite the adversities. Over the years, customers have not been only scrutinizing of the products and services they avail. Customers are also more likely to look after how post-sales activities are done by the company – how a company would treat their customers after their purchase. Digital marketing strategies should be able to help balance out customer-centricity and the business needs for a win-win situation.

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The post Digital Marketing Strategy: The Ultimate Guide for Small Business Owners first appeared on Bizzloans Australia.