Social Media and On-Line Marketing is Key to Helping Grow Business.

The news broke just in time for Valentine's Day!  A love letter of sorts explaining how small and medium-sized businesses can take advantage of social networking and on-line marketing strategies to conserve marketing dollars while finely focusing their sales messages to their desired customer base.  

An on-line study of 1,000 marketers conducted in January by e-mail marketing company ExactTarget and Internet market research company Econsultancy revealed that 64% of companies surveyed plan to increase their budgets for search-engine optimization (SEO).  More than half will increase their spenidng on paid search and mobile marketing.  Two-thirds of the marketers surveyed plan on increasing their investment in social media even though less than 20% say they can effectively measure their return on that spending.

What's this all mean?  Marketers are pulling money away from radio, TV and print media and putting it toward online marketing with the belief that they'll see better results and spend less money. 

Social networking and online activities like e-mail marketing help messages go viral and create interest faster and for less money than other more "traditional" methods of advertising.

Check out these tips on effective e-mail marketing methods: 

• Start by building an opt-in e-mail list. Opt in means that your customers have given you permission to send them e-mail communications. Make sure they know how often and under what circumstances they will receive e-mail from you. And remember to keep your lists clean by promptly deleting those who decide to stop receiving e-mail.
• Know your customers’ interests. Once the list is started, segment it—dividing customers by age, gender, preferences or other important criteria. Doing so will allow you to target customers more specifically and appropriately.
• Make sure your content is relevant. The first thing readers do when they open an e-mail is ask themselves “What’s in it for me?” You have about seven seconds to answer that question. No matter how good your message is, if it’s not relevant to the interests of your customers, it’s a failed campaign.
• Remember to test campaigns and track your stats. Don’t just send e-mails out and hope for the best; test campaigns to improve your results. Test things like subject line, offer, e-mail template or best day and time to send. Then track your results to see which variables work best. If you learn a little something from each e-mail, you’ll go from novice to expert in no time.