The Benefits of Regular Email Newsletters for Small Business

Sometimes, in the attempt of small businesses to target new customers, they tend to neglect the importance of other marketing strategies such as with email newsletters. Though, it is not considered one of the strongest, studies still shows that sending email newsletters is still one of the most efficient and cost-effective means of online marketing strategies that have provided high return of investments.

When it comes to numbers, emailing is still the biggest social network online. No one who uses the internet does not use any email. In fact, it remains one of the first things that anyone would have to enter when signing up online, either for their social networking account, or signing up for any website they want to be a member of.

Other sites also allow users to sign up using a social media platform, such as Twitter and Facebook, but what many do not realize is that business sites do this in order for them to have easy access of emailing newsletters for their new members. And while many social media platforms may come and go or swarm the business world, but email marketing will stay and is still such a powerful tool for small businesses.

Other benefits of email newsletters include:

Sending email newsletters is very economical.

Unlike Facebook where a business page needs to spend out first before all their friend’s list and followers can see their ads, or Twitter where updates are just limited to 140 characters, sending something promotional through email newsletters is very cost effective.

Plus, small businesses do not need any more to hire SEO or marketing experts to create any email campaign. Most email newsletter sites leave users with a blank template, and it would be up to their imagination and creativity to make their newsletters as informative and as enticing as they want it to be. Converting promotions into an email format is not only cost-effective, but it is also quick and easy, encouraging more business revenue.

Email newsletters can provide added value to the business.

The vast majority of customers make online shopping decisions right after acquiring information from a website. However, there are times that websites neglect to put vital information that customers might also want to know. For instance, an email newsletter can include history information, ingredients or materials a product is made of, and exclusivity of a service. All these can be sent through email newsletters together with a link that leads back to the website where the reader can purchase the product or service they just read about.

Sending email newsletter does not only build traffic back to a website, but it also fills up any empty spaces that most small business’ site misses out. It also provides customers a full understanding of how a business as well as their products and services can benefit them.

Email newsletters can increase sales revenue.

Most of the time email newsletters become an uninteresting flop of information that most customers tent to ignore, delete, archive, or unsubscribe. This is probably true to small business who does not know what customers like to be receiving from their newsletters.

Customers want to read about opportunities that would lead them into potentially purchasing the products or taking the services. These opportunities can be as big as contest raffles, down to discount coupons that only those who receive these newsletters can avail. Anything that readers can take advantage of to make their lives a bit happier, they will be more than likely to jump on board without hesitations.

Giving back what the customers desire through incentives is a great promotional strategy for them to make a new or additional purchase. However, business must take note that this can only be done either through a monthly basis, or twice a month at least, in order for customers to keep wanting for more and to build anticipation as well.

Company newsletters build brand awareness.

Brand awareness is something hard to achieve, especially if a business is still starting up or is competing with other similar products. By having a memorable brand stand out, a business can increase its chance that their customer will purchase from them when presented with another known brand.

So, how do businesses achieve this? First is through brand recall and brand recognition. The two can be incorporated into one through email newsletters. By sending regular email updates about relevant information, company’s tagline, visions, and anything that can attribute to the business will eventually demonstrate a connection between the customers. The more they know about the business, they more they become aware and trust and loyalty will suddenly follow. After all, customers will be likely to purchase items from companies they know, than those they barely are familiar with.

Company Newsletters fulfill expectations

Consistency is the game when it comes to email newsletters, which one of the benefits of hiring an email marketing company. The reason why most users subscribe to an email list is because they want to hear from the business. So, when a business promises they will send out email newsletters daily, monthly, or any schedule they vouched for, they have to keep it, because more than likely readers will be expecting it from them. Take, for example, the traditional magazine subscriptions most people have, if a magazine says they will send a new copy ever month; tendency is that a subscriber will expect it or would even wait in front of their houses for their mail, just so they can grab the newest copy; same goes with email newsletters.

One thing that small businesses should never miss out is to maintain a positive contact with their customers. Sending regular email newsletters builds trust between their audiences, and it is the same trust that can pitch any business into the pedestal.

Email newsletters give a huge presentation of a business, which is why; it should not only catch customer’s attention, but it should be as informative and generous as it should be. Promotions through incentive are a great form of generosity. Giving the customers back what they deserve in the first place will keep customers keep coming back. Nonetheless, the vital component of email newsletters is consistency. Sending email newsletters at a consistent pace will not only educate customers, boost sales, but it will also build lasting relationships with existing and potential customers while saving time, effort and money all at the same time.

Is SEO for E-Commerce Different Than Regular Online Businesses?

E-commerce is one of the most competitive markets across the globe today. With online retail biggies ruling this realm, it is difficult for the new players to survive the cut-throat competition. Well, there are some fronts through which they establish themselves digitally. One such area that is somewhat easy to conquer is that of search engine optimization. But, you need not forget that the professional support is necessary to improve your search engine ranking. This is because search engine optimization of an e-commerce website is completely different from that of a regular online portal. An experienced and credible S.E.O company in Chicago can tell you about the differentiating factors.

The factors we discuss below also help you understand how search engine optimization strategies of online retail portals are different.

There are myriad of pages:

A regular website that informs about the services of a company has very limited pages, which makes the search engine optimization somewhat easier. Talking about the e-commerce sites, there is a product page for every product the portal sells. Therefore, the company needs to optimize each page so that the product available on the portal could be found by the potential buyers.

There is always addition of new products:

E-commerce is a domain where the company will be adding new products regularly to expand their sales or to modify the business strategies. And, it is vital that the product pages of these new products are optimized efficiently. Otherwise, you won’t get the expected results.

Speed has to be fast:

Talk to any experienced digital marketer, and he/she will tell you how important the loading time of a website is. Slow websites not only offer a bad experience to your customers but also upsets the search engines like Google. In case of online retail websites, the speed gets slower due to the presence of unnecessary plugins, heavy images, third-party widgets, and inefficient coding. To avoid these issues, you need to connect with a social media marketing Chicago that offers specialized services for e-commerce websites.

There are also category pages:

The category pages are considered the most powerful areas of an e-commerce portal. They need to be efficiently optimized to help you get the best results. The URLs have to be search-engine friendly and content has to be unique and user-friendly. Also deep-links related to product categories have to be built for better results.

All these factors show you can’t use the regular search engine optimization strategies for your online retail or wholesale business. A specialized strategy has to be planned and implemented to get desired results and avoid getting penalized.

The team can help you raise your e-commerce business-related marketing efforts through an efficient S.E.O plan. Several companies from Chicago that seek affordable S.E.O services connect with this agency for the results.

Part-Time Lawn Mowing Business While Working a Regular Job

No matter what the economy, the grass still grows. There is always someone near by who needs their lawn mowed and cannot do it themselves. These folks have a problem and you, the full-time employee wanting to start a part-time lawn mowing business, have the solution. They can pay you to mow their yard. Problem solved.

I often get the question of whether you can start your lawn mowing business part-time in the evenings and on weekends and keep your full-time job. The answer is a big yes!

The question is can you do it? If you have lots of energy, enjoy being outdoors and working in your yard, and can handle just 5 to 10 extra hours of physical work each week, you can start a part-time lawn mowing business and keep your regular job.

People who work 12-hour rotating shift schedules are in a terrific position to run a lawn mowing business part-time while keeping their full-time jobs because they have so many days off.

Marketing
First, you need to find some customers. Write a flyer using word processing software, print it, take it to your local copy shop, have 25-30 copies made, and distribute them around your neighborhood within walking distance of your house. You may want to use a half-page flyer so you can distribute to 50-60 houses. Include what you offer the prospect (lawn mowing, edging, cleaning off the concrete), your name, best phone number to contact you, your address so they know you are a neighbor and how much you charge. Since you are new to the business charge on the lower end of the average rate other lawn care professionals charge in your area. Five dollars cheaper than average may get your neighbors to stop using someone out of the neighborhood and start using you instead.

Another reason to start with your neighbors is they know you or know of you and we all want to help other people, especially people we know. Since these folks are close by, you get to go out, knock on doors and meet your neighbors while marketing your business to them. Smile, introduce yourself and tell them which house is yours or what street you live on and get to know a little about them and some things you might have in common. Hand them a flyer at the end of the conversation and move on to the next house.

Keep this up until you have at least one person ready for you to go home, get your equipment right now, come back and work that day and are pulling out their checkbook to pay you. If this happens, stop marketing that day, service your new customer and earn some money. Continue marketing the next day.

When you have the number of customers you think you can handle, stop marketing daily and only doing a little occasionally or when someone asks for your information. You will need to keep a few flyers on hand to give out. Be on the lookout for yards that overgrow and see if a lawn service comes to mow them. These folks may need someone closer who will service their lawn regularly. Be sure to visit them and ask.

Equipment
Do not buy any commercial equipment or go into debt. You only need the mower you use on your own lawn, a gas-powered string trimmer and blower to get started. If you have an electric-powered string trimmer and blower, you can still use them, but make sure the customer knows you will need access to an electric outlet and you will need a very long extension cord.

Alternatives to gas and electric-powered trimmers and blowers are the cordless rechargeable models. They are less expensive than their gas-powered cousins, cheaper to operate and much more environmentally friendly. If you have electric equipment that requires an extension cord, you will want to replace it with cordless electric or gas-powered equipment as soon as you earn enough money mowing to do so.

Starting within walking distance of your home eliminates the need for a truck or trailer to haul equipment to job sites keeping costs down. If you live within walking distance of the job you can put your equipment and gas can in a wagon or cart and pull your lawn mower along by hand. If you are willing to do this extra manual labor you are more likely to succeed because you are not afraid of hard work and not prone to overspending.

Earnings
One of the biggest reasons to have a part-time lawn mowing business is you make significantly more money for the time you spend working than at most other part-time endeavors.

If you charge $50 to mow the grass, edge and clean up and you can do 5 lawns after work and on weekends each week, you will earn $250 per week. You will need to set 15% of your revenue aside after expenses (gas, parts, repair, replacement equipment, etc.) for self-employment taxes which you will need to pay each quarter. If you spend $9 on gas and save $36 for taxes, your net weekly earnings will be $205. Six weeks of hauling your equipment by hand will build physical strength and allow you to accumulate about $1230. You could also resubmit your form W-4 at work to take the correct amount of extra money out of your pay checks to cover these taxes. However, if you are trying this to determine if you want a full-time lawn mowing business I recommend you become familiar with paying self-employment taxes quarterly.

After 20 weeks of mowing 5 lawns per week you will have netted nearly $4,000. It will be less than this because your equipment will need maintenance and repair. That will not cost more than a few hundred dollars, so you will still have around $3,700 if you save your profits.

Now you will have the cash to buy a good used commercial lawn mower. Once you have a commercial mower you will be able to increase the number of yards you can mow per week in the same amount of time it took with your residential mower, increasing your revenue. You may be able to mow 10 yards per week instead of 5, so your gross revenue will jump to $500 per week. After another 10 weeks you may have enough cash to buy a used trailer to haul your commercial equipment.

Remember that in many areas there are only 3 mowing seasons or about 40 weeks of steady work each year. If you spend the first 40 weeks earning enough to get some commercial equipment and increase your customer base, your second part-time year will be mostly profits.

Two years part-time in the business will allow you to decide if you want to start mowing full-time. You will know it is time to go full-time when you are turning customers away because you do not have time to service their yards and if you could take on those customers, you would earn more annually than at your full-time job.

Earning more means earning more than your current annual pay after taxes plus paying for the benefits you and your family need, like health insurance. If your spouse works outside the home, he or she may carry the family benefits leaving you free to earn lots of cash. You will have to save for retirement and pay your own disability insurance even if your spouse can provide the other benefits. Few companies offer spousal retirement or spousal disability coverage.

If you are willing to work during your off hours and not spend money on equipment you do not need, you can work part-time mowing lawns and earn a lot of extra money. You may also be able to eventually leave your job and run your business full-time.

Exit mobile version