Collaborate for New Customers

Here’s an easy way to double your income: Put yourself in front of twice as many people who are interested in what you have to offer. Of course that is easier said than done. Getting traffic and exposure is one of the hardest things to accomplish as the internet grows and expands. Sure, you could throw a lot of money at the problem and accomplish it with well placed ads, but that’s not a viable option for most of small business owners.

One of my favorite low-cost marketing strategies is to find other small businesses who work in the same niche as I do and form collaborative partnerships.

A great way to get in front of a new audience interested in what you have to say is to find someone else who’s doing something similar to what you’re doing. In other words, find other small businesses in your niche, or closely related niches and start to collaborate. For example, let's say that you are a massage therapist and have your own spa. You may want to partner up with someone who does health coaching. Your customers are interested in their health and take advantage of the healing benefits of massage. Her clients are also interested in improving their health and are interested in new or different strategies for achieving wellness. Cross-promote each others events and offers, tap into each others mailing list. Co-host an event. Do you see how this could work?

Start small.

Start by opening conversations with the other small businesses who work with the same target audience that you do to brainstorm ideas about how you can work together. A great place to start is to offer to share something of theirs with your readers first. If the business sells a product, ask if you can interview them, or see if they have a special coupon you can share with your readers. By making the first offer of collaboration, you are putting yourself out as someone who wants to collaborate and is willing to give of your time and resources.

Make sure they will reciprocate.

Next, ask if they would be interested in sharing you with their own audience. This is always your end goal! While it is nice to promote other businesses and shows that you are a good community partner, you are also trying to grow your own business and should receive as much as you get. Depending on your business model, there are several different ways to accomplish this. If you have a paid product, or offer an introductory service of some kind, sharing your information with their audience should be a no-brainer. You can also offer to create unique content for the other person’s audience. If they aren't willing to reciprocate by sharing your business with their audience, don't be afraid to move on and research other possible strategic partners.

Keep it simple.

No matter what you decide to do, make it as easy as possible and do whatever you have to do to get your fellow small business owner to email his or her list for you. Using our example from earlier... a health coach could provide a downloadable article or ebook with simple tips for improving your health; the massage therapist could offer a coupon or special service upgrade for the health coach audience. Mentions on social media and blog posts are great, but your ultimate goal should always be to get them to email for you. When they do, your next goal is to get these people on your own list and to turn them into paying customers.

Choosing an Email Service Provider: You’re Asking the Wrong Question

Here’s the question that’s on everyone’s mind when they start thinking about mailing lists: “Which service should I use?”

You’ve probably wondered yourself, and maybe even spent a few hours (or days, or weeks) researching your options.

Stop!

This is not the question you should be asking (yet). And it’s exactly why so many entrepreneurs get stuck in the planning stage of list building. Making the wrong decision on your ESP can leave you with a service that doesn't meet your needs, wasting both time and money. To find the provider that is right for your business, you need to do a little homework.

The First Step In List Building

Before you need to think about tools, you must ask yourself this:

“How can I best serve my market?”

It doesn't matter what type of business you have. Your customers and prospects have a need that only you can fulfill. And when you discover what that need is, you’ll have two valuable pieces of information:

  1. What incentive will be a true no-brainer for your ideal client to opt-in to your list?
  2. How can you use your mailing list to provide the best value for those who join your list? 

Don’t over-think these questions, though. Your opt-in incentive can be as simple as a resource guide or a short how-to video that answers a common question. You don’t have to go overboard with dozens of downloads and a 100-page eBook. Rather than providing value, these massive downloads are more likely to overwhelm your reader than encourage them to learn more.

And when it comes to providing value to your list members, keep three things in mind:

  1. Regular communication is a must (consider an autoresponder series if you’re not good with scheduling email updates)
  2. Marketing is second to information—too much selling will cause your opt-out rates to soar.
  3. It’s your responsibility as a thought leader in your market to distill and provide the information, tools and products your audience needs.

What is your list-building goal?

How will you be using your list? Will you:

The answers to these questions will help you determine not only the right tool for your list-building needs, but will also determine the path for your ongoing mailing list content, promotions, and growth.

There are many choices in Email Service Providers. Do your homework (above) and then do your research to make sure that the ESP you choose will make it both easy and affordable to reach your goals.

To your success!

Laura

P.S. I personally use and recommend Constant Contact for both email and social media management. Click here for a free trial.

5 Tips For Crafting Compelling Subject Lines

The first thing you need to get right when it comes to email marketing is the subject line. If you can’t get your subscribers to open your emails, it really doesn’t matter how good the actual email is.

It’s easy to spend a lot of time crafting a great message and then just slap a subject line on it at the end. Spend some time writing them and see what type of headline gets you good open rates. Here are five tips to get you started.

Keep It Short

You want your readers to see the entire subject line before they click it. You also want to make it easy for people to scan through their emails. Try to get your point across in 50 characters or less. Pay attention to how your subject lines look on your own devices.

Frankly the best tip when it comes to crafting compelling subject lines is to keep a swipe file of examples that grabbed your attention and got you to open the email. Even if the emails are on a very different topic, you can adapt them for your own needs.

Avoid “Spammy” Words

Stay away from using any words we all associate with spam emails. Words like “sale”, “discount”, “coupon”, “free”, “limited time offer” and even “reminder” are over used and even if they don’t trigger a spam filter and actually make it to your reader’s inbox, chances are high they’ll get ignored.

Instead, start by using the emails you’re saving in your swipe file and then go back and see what subject lines got the best open rates. Try to analyze why they worked well for your market. Not everything will work well in every niche. Find the types of subject lines that get your readers to open your emails and tweak from there.

Personalize It

While personalizing emails with someone’s first name has been overused in some markets, it still works well for many of us. Give it try and see if it works for you. Don’t overdo it, but use it when you really need them to open the email.

Depending on what data you collect when your readers sign up, you can personalize other things like their location for example. Seeing the name of your state or even city in an email subject line is sure to get your attention.

Pique Their Curiosity

We are all nosy and it’s hard to ignore subject lines that sound intriguing or only tell part of the story. Using “…” at the end of your subject line will also work.

The idea here is simple. You want them to click and open the email to find out what the heck you’re talking about or how the story ends.

My best tip: try to put yourself in your reader's shoes. What is of interest to them? What current problem are they having that you can solve? Use your subject line to address their needs and chances are good that your email will get opened!

To your success!

Laura

Why Is the Money in the List?

Susan was an cosmetologist who had recently opened her own salon. She’d heard the expression “the money is in the list” several times but she wasn’t sure what it meant. What exactly was a list and why was there money in it?

Fortunately, Susan had a marketing coach (me) who answered her question. I explained to her that this expression refers to a “mailing list”. A mailing list is a list of people who have shared their email address with the informed consent that they will receive messages from you.

A mailing list can be quite profitable, which is why you may have also heard the expression that “the money is in the list”. But exactly how lucrative is having an email list?

According to Constant Contact, businesses typically see $42 in profit for every $1 spent on emails. This means that a mailing list is one of the most profitable business assets that you can develop.

Why Does Email Marketing Work?

Email marketing is effective because an email address is similar to having an ID. It’s necessary to do almost everything online. From joining social media sites, leaving reviews, or even browsing Pinterest, an email address is required.

Many people have more than one email account. Often, people have email addresses for work, personal, and other projects.

Email marketing works because almost everyone has an email address, and they check it daily. Some people even check their email multiple times as a day as their device dings and sends a notification that there’s a new message.

Isn’t Social Media Just As Good?

You may hear some marketers and business coaches tell you that email marketing is dead. They will encourage you to be on social media.

The problem with this approach is that you don’t own the contact information for your followers on social media. This means that if you ever have your account cancelled for some reason beyond your control, you have no way to get in touch with your followers. You’re stuck rebuilding your audience all over again.

But with a mailing list, you have contact information for your subscribers. Even if you get kicked off a social media account or your website goes down, you still have a way to make sales and continue to bring in additional income.

One email address is more valuable than 50 likes on your Facebook page.

To get a mailing list, you need to sign up for a list service. This list service will store the names and email addresses of your subscribers. There are many good services out there. For the money, I recommend (and I personally use) Constant Contact because it is so much more than just email - it is also a complete marketing dashboard, where you can manage your social media and even your website! Click here for a free 60 day trial.

Can You Add Your Friends, Family, and Contacts to Your Email List?

Once you have an account and set up your list, you’ll need to get subscribers. You might think this is as simple as looking up email addresses online and adding them manually. You might even think you can take the email addresses of contacts in your address book and add them to mailing list.

However, the idea behind an email list is that subscribers are on there with informed consent, meaning they entered their email address in a form on your website or blog. This means you cannot simply import your address book to jumpstart your new mailing list.

It’s also important to note that many countries have specific spam laws you must follow. If you don’t follow these regulations, you could be fined. If you live within the US, familiarize yourself with the CAN-SPAM Act.

How Do You Get Subscribers on Your List?

In the early days of the internet, you could put a form on your website or blog and ask visitors to subscribe for updates. But thanks to the creation of spam messages, many people don’t like to share their email address anymore. This means you need to find a way to get people on your mailing list by offering them something valuable in return.

Some websites offer exclusive discounts. Others offer free content such as an eBook, report, or video course. The important thing when offering a free gift is to make it relevant to your website.

For example, Stacy teaches art classes. For her opt-in gift, she could offer a report on pet care. But the problem is these subscribers who are looking for pet care tips aren’t looking for art classes.

You want to make sure that your free gift matches what you plan to offer later on. If you want to sell low carb cookbooks, then a short 3-day low carb meal plan is a great free gift. It’s relevant and it’s likely to attract the kind of visitors who will go on to buy your cookbooks.

What Is an Opt-In Page?

The best way to get visitors to share their email address is to have a dedicated opt-in page. This is sometimes called a “lead magnet page”. But don’t let the name confuse you—it’s still a free gift you’re offering subscribers.

Ideally, your opt-in page will be short with just a paragraph or two describing your free gift, a screenshot of the gift, and a place for visitors to enter their email address.

Remember that this page should not have your normal navigation area. In fact, the only option for visitors should be to sign up or click away. This distraction-free approach makes it more likely that you’ll get subscribers on your list.

What Makes for a Good Opt-In Gift?

A good opt-in gift is one that helps your visitors reach their goals and encourages them to explore your offers. For example, if you’re a money coach that specializes in helping entrepreneurs get their finances in order, then you’ll want to offer a worksheet to overcoming money blocks. The worksheet could then reference your low-cost webinar on the topic of healing money blocks.

When you have a good opt-in gift, it naturally leads your subscribers onto your next offer. This offer can be a free or paid resource, depending on what works best for your audience. Some people may need to consume multiple free resources from you before they’re willing to make a purchase.

Your opt-in gift will work best if it’s something short and easy to consume. Consider offering one of these gifts to your visitors…

Most of these gifts are easy to make and don’t require a lot of time to create. In fact, your worksheet could be as simple as 3-5 questions. Use a template from a site like Canva and you have your opt-in gift created in minutes!

How Do You Turn Subscribers into Customers?

Now you have an opt-in page with an amazing gift. You have a mailing list service and you’re starting to see a tiny trickle of new subscribers. You’d like to turn them into paying customer as soon as possible. But you’re not sure how to do that.

Start by helping them get to know you. Remember that people buy from people who they Know, Like, and Trust. A newsletter is a great way to nurture the relationship with those who have opted in for your freebie. In each newsletter, include some helpful information, show a little bit of your personality, and introduce your other product or service offerings.

Your email service will include insights and analytics that will help you to understand who your most engaged subscribers are and what your most popular products are. You can use this information to develop special offerings for those people and move them even further into your sales funnel. As you become a more advanced user, you can create ongoing campaigns using an auto responder segmented by where, when and how a prospect signs up for your list.

I firmly believe that the most important way to earn money, practically on demand, is to build a healthy email list full of hungry prospects. Make it your goal to fill your list so that you can market your products and services repeatedly to your audience in a more direct way. Your business WILL go to the next level!

To your success!

Laura

Making the Case for Email Marketing

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of email marketing. There is so much that you can do with emails that you simply cannot do with other forms of marketing or advertising. It is the perfect way to deliver the right message, to the right people, at the right time. There is no better way to communicate with your existing customers or to nurture your prospects through your sales funnel.

Unlike other marketing channels, email marketing allows you to keep in touch with your customers on a consistent basis. A simple "Thank you for subscribing", a cheery "Welcome on Board", or a sincere "Happy Birthday" email can be an easy way to let your customers know you value them.

Email marketing has the highest ROI of all forms of marketing, averaging about $42 in return for every $1 spent.

Source: DMA (2019)

Not convinced? Here are the best reasons you should use email marketing to take your business to the next level:

There are many more reasons to use email, but these are the big ones. If you are ready to get started with email marketing there are two ways I can help you:

To your success ~

Laura

8 Effective Ways to Market Your Small Business Online Without Spending Money

As we all know, marketing our business to potential customers is a necessary part of having a successful business. Marketing for small businesses can be especially tricky as budgets often do not allow for large scale and more expensive strategies.

The issue with traditional advertising, such as newspaper, radio, and television ads, is that they can be expensive and may produce little or even no return on investment. Advertising online is an option because you can easily track the effectiveness of each advertisement. Then, you can focus your marketing strategies on the techniques that are the most profitable. But if money is tight there ARE options for online advertising that don’t cost you any money at all!

Here are some free online marketing methods that you may want to consider for your business:

  1. Partner up with another expert in your field. Consider joining forces with another brand. You can then offer a more substantial product together than either one of you could offer alone. In addition, you’ll automatically get the attention of both audiences, resulting in more sales and adding more leads to your email list. In the future, these new leads can drive more sales of another one of your products. Partnering on even one marketing campaign can bring long-term benefits to both of you.
  1. Encourage user-generated content. If you can acquire user-generated content, your website will grow without you having to create your own content. This type of content also increases your website visitors. Enable comments on your website and contribute to the discussions. Allow visitors to submit their own articles and encourage guest posts from other experts. Tap into your vendors for helpful articles or content that you can use in your own marketing.
  1. Affiliate marketing. When you create an affiliate program for your business, you will be getting other experts in your field and the public to send business your way. This can be mutually beneficial, and you will only be paying commissions (after the sale) if the affiliate makes a sale. As with the partnering technique, many of these new visitors will sign up for your email list, even if they don’t buy something right away, bringing you long-term benefits and sales.
  1. Be active on social media. There are millions of users visiting the various social media platforms daily, so it makes sense for your business to have a presence there. Here are some ideas:
  1. Use free online tools. There are plenty of tools online that can help your business. You can sign up for websites that will enable you to create free surveys, or you can use a free online service to send emails to your customers. You do not have to pay a premium to receive top-notch service.
  1. Change and reuse old advertisements. Rather than going through the expensive route of creating new articles with every marketing campaign, try reusing parts of an advertisement that worked well. This will save you time and expense. Be sure to keep consistent brand imagery through every ad - this will help with brand recognition.
  1. Build an email list. If people are visiting your website, chances are good that they are interested in what you have to offer. Make a form available for them to join your email list and be kept in the loop about future product releases or special offers. Once they’ve signed up to this email list, you can send emails to these prospects with news and further information about your products. Let them know whenever something goes on sale. Email marketing is one of the best ways to drive sales. Treat your list members like gold, because that’s what they are to you and your business.
  1. Create some video content. Video content is incredibly important nowadays as the younger generation would rather watch a video than read a blog post. If you can create interesting videos, you’ll create interest in your brand.

As you can see, it is certainly possible to do online marketing without spending money. Some of these methods might take some time and effort to implement, though, before you see profits. For example, it can take a while to build an email list. However, once you have a list, making sales can be as easy as sending out an email to your list. Once you’ve built a social media following, making sales can be as easy as making a post on your social media accounts. Be consistent, and be patient - the results will come!

20 Low Budget Marketing Tactics You Can Use Now to Get Results

Did you know that you can do marketing like the pros without breaking the bank? By leveraging some effective low-cost digital marketing tactics, any business no matter how small can spread brand awareness, generate leads, and make more sales. You don’t need a big marketing budget to have a big impact.

Here are 20 low-cost or free marketing ideas you can start using today:

  1. Get into content marketing. Create unique, helpful content and share it far and wide across the internet.
  2. Find the online groups where your target market hangs out and interact with them there.
  3. Blog regularly. Attach a blog page to your site and keep it updated with fresh content.
  4. Share useful tips on social media. Try to get your audience liking and sharing.
  5. Create a social media group related to your brand.
  6. Build an email list and send your subscribers exclusive content, industry news, and special deals.
  7. Produce short videos that tackle specific problems in your niche and post them on YouTube.
  8. Hold a livestream event where you teach something to your audience and interact with them in real-time.
  9. Learn how to ask for referrals. Get your audience members to tell their friends about you.
  10. Write press releases. Take some event in your business or industry and tell the public about it.
  11. Follow conversations online related to your business. You can learn a great deal about your market by seeing what conversations they’re having.
  12. Send out a customer satisfaction survey. Get feedback from customers that you can use to make improvements to your products or services.
  13. Create collaborative content with a business partner or colleague. This is a win-win where you each get exposure to the other’s audience.
  14. Drill down your unique value proposition. Create a simple statement that explains how you uniquely meet your customers’ needs and use this wherever you have a profile online.
  15. Write guest blog posts and submit them to other people’s blogs to get exposure to a new audience.
  16. Appear as a guest on podcasts. Get interviewed on topics that are interesting to the show’s audience.
  17. Run a social media contest. Give your audience something fun to do and share with others.
  18. Check out Quora and other Q&A sites to see what questions people are asking about your topic.
  19. Reach out to influencers in your niche and try to get them talking about you.
  20. Create an online community where your target market can discuss issues, network, and get the support they need.

How should you get started? Just take an idea from the list and give it a try. Monitor your results and then see where you can improve. Add a new tactic when you’re ready, then the next tactic, and so on. Pretty soon, you’ll have a whole repertoire of effective techniques you can use that cost you absolutely nothing.

Market Like a Huge Brand Without a Huge Budget

Big brands spend an enormous amount of money on advertising and marketing, but as a solo entrepreneur or small business owner you don’t have to do the same. You can market your business just as effectively on a shoestring budget by utilizing some basic free or low-cost marketing tactics. Small business marketing doesn't have to be expensive: if you engage with your audience effectively and provide high-value content, you can achieve all your business goals just like the big companies do.

Here are five ways you can do your own marketing online with little or no cost.

Engage on Social Media

Social media is a great way to interact with your audience and spread awareness of your brand. You can use it to communicate directly with your followers, share content, build a community, and research your audience members.

Start by finding out which social media platforms your audience uses. The major ones now are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. LinkedIn is a social media platform specifically geared towards business-to-business and professionals. If you don’t know which platforms your audience uses, ask them directly, run a survey, or sign up to each and look for them.

Social media sites are free to use. All it takes is an investment of a little time daily posting content and managing your account.

Produce Helpful Videos

People watch videos on YouTube to learn new things and find solutions to the problems they’re facing. YouTube is one of the world’s most popular websites and its user base spans every demographic.

For YouTube, you can create short videos that offer help on various topics. Take a simple tip and show your viewers how to do it. Make a video where you answer a commonly asked question or discuss trending topics in your industry.

You can use free video production and editing software, and it’s free to post on YouTube. Be sure to post your videos to your social media platforms for maximum exposure!

Build an Email List

Email is a highly personal way to interact with your audience. People subscribe to email lists to receive useful content, the latest news, and exclusive promotions straight into their inbox.  Email is also the best way to maintain communication with your existing customers!

The best way to get people to sign up to your list is to offer a lead magnet. A lead magnet is usually an information product that you offer for free; all the recipient needs to do is enter their name and email address. In exchange, they benefit from your helpful email newsletter.

To get started with email marketing, sign up with an email autoresponder service. Some of these are free, while others can get costly – research the different options to find out what’s right for you. Always start with a free service or a free trial to test out the software and make sure it gives you what you need before investing. 

I personally use and recommend Constant Contact.  Far more than just email marketing, it is a complete marketing dashboard where you can schedule and manage your social media, manage events, and so much more.  Get a free trial here: https://go.constantcontact.com/signup.jsp?pn=nextlevelad  

Start a Referral Program

With a referral program, you can offer your customers incentives to tell others about your products and services. The incentive could be freebies, free trials, exclusive content, or discounts to people who spread the word. This is a great way to generate some valuable word-of-mouth marketing.

A referral program multiplies your marketing efforts. The key is to offer something that’s valuable for your customer but costs little to nothing for you to produce. Some good ideas include free membership to your site, a deep discount on your products, or an information product that only takes time to create.

Leverage the Internet and Save Costs

You never need to spend a great deal on advertising and marketing as long as you have an arsenal of marketing tactics you can put to use. Always focus on providing valuable content that meets your audience’s needs, and you can avoid spending a dime on advertising.

Email: Give Them What They Want - And How To Find Out What That Is

Effective marketing boils down to this: Find an audience, figure out what they need or want and then deliver it. Email is one of the best mediums to help you do just that. And it isn’t always about selling them on a product. In fact, that isn’t at all where you want to start.

First and foremost, you want to build a relationship with your readers. You want them to get to know you. You want to help them out so they start to like you and trust you. Only then will you be able to make an offer and have them pull out their wallet and buy it.

Secondly, pay attention to your stats. Programs like Google Analytics can give you a lot of information of where your readers came from, what page the landed on and where they were on your site when they joined your list. Your email service provider should also have statistics that show how many people opened your email (deliverability) and what link(s) they looked at (Click Rate). That data, along with your ideal customer demographics, will tell you a lot about your audience - who they are and what they are interested in.

Secondly, pay attention to what your customers are saying. As you start to email your readers, they will (hopefully) reply and get back in touch with you. If they are asking questions, it means that they want more information - and it also means that others probably have the same question. This is both a good buying signal and an indication that you may want to spend more time on this topic.

It can also be helpful to ask your readers for suggestions. Keep the questions open ended if you want a lot to work with. Consider having your readers fill out a simple little survey. It’s quick and easy to do with Google forms or a free service like SurveyMonkey. You get some good data and you get your readers to interact. Having them contribute builds a sense of community even via email.

Last but not least go back and look at the past emails you’ve sent. Pay attention to open rates, click through rates and unsubscribes. If a large percentage of readers opened the email, that’s a good indication they were interested in the topic. If they clicked links to additional content, that’s even better. If, on the other hand, not many people opened the email or clicked on your links, or if you got a lot of unsubscribes, that might be an indication that either the topic was wrong or your language and overall message didn’t click with your audience.

Email marketing is one of the most powerful tools you can use to grow your business - both for attracting new customers and for building relationships with your existing customers. Implementing these tips can help you accomplish your goals. If you’d like some more tips for taking your email marketing to the next level, grab a copy of our FREE Blueprint for Success: Email. Get it here.

To your success!

Laura

If you are not currently using an email marketing program, I recommend Constant Contact. It's a great tool for small businesses - easy to use, great list management tools, and helpful metrics for tracking your results. Click here to get a free trial.

P.S. If you are a small business owner (or want to be one), whether you are just starting out, or have been in business for awhile, I hope you will become part of the Next Level family.  Visit our Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/NextLevelAd) for tips, tools, and resources to help grow your business.  We now have a Facebook Group, Next Level U, for those who are interested in joining a private community of small business owners and marketers.

3 Ways to Make Take Your Email List from Foe to Friend

“You need a list,” they said.

“The money is in the list,” they said.

“You need an autoresponder,” they said.

So you purchased an autoresponder; you added an opt-in box on your website, uploaded your current customers and have added new subscribers to your list. You have a sweet list of people who want to know more about you and your business. Now what?

Now, you sit down and plan out what you’re going to send to your list. The money is in the list ONLY if you stay in contact with the list. If you send out random emails every few months or every few years (yikes!) chances are you’ll have several unsubscribes and maybe even a few spam reports. Simply because you weren’t consistent in your communication and your subscribers probably don’t remember who you are or how they got onto your list.

Know Your Subscribers

Your subscribers should also be your ideal clients. You may have a few who don’t fit that ideal description and maybe they subscribed because something about your opt-in offer intrigued them but basically, speak to your ideal clients.

What do they need? What are their pain points right now, this minute? How can you help them? What kind of information can you share that will solve a problem they are having? What products or services can they use in their lives right now? Knowing the general details of your subscribers’ lives and their needs will naturally tell you what kinds of offers - both free and paid - to make.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Questions

In this social media age, people are gung ho to offer opinions on absolutely everything, so don’t be afraid to ask open ended questions about what your subscribers need. This is market research and shouldn’t be construed as an invasion of privacy. You want to fill their needs and guessing isn’t a productive way to use your time. Use a tool like SurveyMonkey (free for short questionnaires) or just ask people to Reply to your email with their answers.

Get Used to Planning

Consistency is key to developing loyal followers so plan your emails to correspond with your other content efforts during the month. Decide how often you will email your list then pick a specific day of the week. Mark it in your calendar so it’s official (yes, you should consider yourself a client). At the very least, tie in your weekly blog content with your email theme/offer or get adventurous and choose a monthly theme. Write it all down so nothing falls through the cracks.

Email is just one small part of a comprehensive marketing strategy for your business. If you’d like some more tips for taking your email marketing to the next level, grab a copy of our FREE Blueprint for Success: Email. Get it here.

To your success!

Laura

If you are not currently using an email marketing program, I recommend Constant Contact. It's a great tool for small businesses - easy to use, great list management tools, and helpful metrics for tracking your results. Click here to get a free trial.

P.S. If you are a small business owner (or want to be one), whether you are just starting out, or have been in business for awhile, I hope you will become part of the Next Level family.  Visit our Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/NextLevelAd) for tips, tools, and resources to help grow your business.  We now have a Facebook Group, Next Level U, for those who are interested in joining a private community of small business owners and marketers.