Social Media is not only a “buzzword” or the cool thing to get into when you have a business. It is now in indispensable part of every marketing campaign, especially for small businesses, where goals are big but budgets are small, and the demand for immediate ROI is even more immediate. It is not a big secret that e-mail is one of the best marketing tools in the online space. E-mail is free, has the potential to reach a vast audience, and the results are measurable.
According to a recent study made at eMarketer.com, a primary source for social media experts and enthusiasts alike, “small businesses look to E-mail and social media.”
“Three-quarters of small businesses will increase their spending on e-mail marketing in 2010, while nearly seven in 10 will put more dollars toward social media, according to VerticalResponse data.”
VerticalResponse CEO and founder Janine Popick says that small business know that they need to “allocate portions of their budget to marketing channels such as email and social media, despite the downturn in the economic climate.” The next step is integrating search engine marketing into their marketing campaigns, with the goal of ranking on top search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.
So apart from the being free, effective and measurable, here are a few listed benefits of e-mail marketing, according to Emarketer.com.
- Inexpensive, effective way to reach out to new prospects/customers
- Generates a fast response so I can tell the campaign is working
- Provides an effective way for me to build customer loyalty
- Provides a better return than other marketing tools
- Easier to track and measure results than other marketing tools
These are the best strengths of E-mail marketing – it is inexpensive, effective, fast, and results in good ROI. It is also trackable and measurable, which is increasingly becoming a significant component of every social media undertaking. This is actually the strength of almost all social media platforms, and some of the few good reasons why social media is one of the best tools around to promote your small business.
