Hello friends. We're all in the same boat! We are trying to adjust to this work at home environment and doing our best to keep business moving forward. For some of you, that is not possible. Perhaps you've had to close your business for the time being. And for others, business has slowed to a crawl. So what can YOU do during this slow time to drum up business? 

MARKETING!
Take advantage of this time to work on your marketing efforts. One of the BEST marketing avenues is Email Marketing. Email marketing has proven to be one of the most effective forms of advertising. But how do you get started, you may wonder? Let me share with you a few valuable tips...

Step 1: Sign up with a reputable email marketing service. MailChimp, Constant Contact, Vertical Response are all great services. Compare prices and options. We personally like MailChimp the best.

Step 2: Add an opt-in form to your website. This will allow people to sign up to receive emails from you.

Step 3: Create compelling emails with valuable information for your clients and prospects.

You might be saying to yourself, "Great Eric, but HOW DO I GROW MY EMAIL LIST?"
Answer: Develop a powerful Lead Magnet!

A Lead Magnet is a valuable piece of content that you give to your audience for free in exchange for an email. These can be in the form of a cheatsheet, checklist, guide, report, emailable tips, etc., that would be valuable to your clients.

Questions to ask to develop a great lead magnet:

1. What are the 3 questions you’re constantly asked by your audience?
2. What are your audiences’ BIGGEST pain points or desires?
3. What content would be so valuable that your ideal customer would say, “I can’t believe this is free!”

Once you've put together your free lead magnet, promote it on the home page of your website with a sign up form asking their name and email address. After they sign up, they are taken to a confirmation page where they can download your free content or be notified to be on the lookout in their email for the tips or whatever it is you are offering. Isn't this exciting? 

Finally, use this downtime to promote the lead magnet on social media!
Promote the heck out of your free lead magnet. Write a blog post about it, create a newsletter, create social media posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter with your free offer. Use Instagram and Facebook stories to make videos on the topic and then tell people about the free item you're giving away. Be creative! Have fun with it. 

Do you need help getting started? We have a great offer for you.
For the months of March and April, Visual Media is offering FREE setup (normally costs $250) with an email marketing service provider with the purchase of your first email that Visual Media creates for you. AND the first email is a fixed price of just $150, regardless of length and complexity.

For a one time price of $150 Visual Media will:

• Design and send a beautiful email to your clients and prospect lists.
• Set your company up with a Free MailChimp account*.
• Import your contacts into MailChimp for you.

(*MailChimp is free up to 2,000 contacts after which they charge a monthly fee)

Contact me to learn more and take advantage of this limited-time promotion.

Offer expires April 30, 2020.

Stay home, stay safe, stay busy,
Eric

I am extremely excited to announce that I am going "ALL IN" on Visual Media! After 27 years of running this business part-time, I'm making it my full-time hustle. Read my email announcement and let me know if I may be of service to help grow your business.

​Traditional thought has long centered around sending emails Tuesday through Thursday mornings between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Conventional wisdom and past studies have shown that these hours are when many people read their emails. However, more recent studies have since pointed to other optimal times.

One cross-industry report found unique open rates averaged 21.7 percent between 8 p.m. and 11:59 p.m., and 17.6 percent between midnight and 4 a.m. Those night owls also had the highest clickthrough rates.

Another study determined mobile activity peaks between 9 p.m. and midnight, that Monday emails produce the highest ROI, and that Friday emails produce the highest clickthrough rates. Saturdays and Sundays produced the lowest sales volumes, but the highest open and clickthrough rates in this study.

Some research indicates emails are most effective within the first hours of delivery; that’s when almost 24 percent of all emails are opened. Interestingly, virtually no emails are opened 24 hours or longer after they’ve been delivered.

Are you still using email marketing without a thought to whether your emails are mobile-friendly or not? Today, you need to think beyond mobile-friendly emails to “mobile-first” emails. Here are seven reasons why:

1. Between 2010 and 2015, the number of email opens on mobile devices increased by 30 percent, according to Campaign Monitor.
2. More than two-thirds (67 percent) of all U.S. email opens occur on a mobile device, according to a study from Movable Ink.
3. If your email isn’t mobile-optimized, it will load slowly. Think that doesn’t matter? A delay of even one second can cost you 7 percent of your conversions, according to MDG Advertising.
4. The number of mobile email users is predicted to grow by 23 percent in 2016, according to The Radicati Group.
5. By 2018, 8 out of 10 of email users are expected to access their email accounts on mobile devices, the same Radicati Group report says.
6. The number of email click-throughs on mobile devices increased 22.8 percent on Black Friday 2015 compared to the previous year, based on IBM’s Watson Trend benchmark data.
7. When your email isn’t mobile-friendly, 80 percent of recipients will delete the email, according to a study from BlueHornet. Worse, 30 percent will unsubscribe from your emails altogether!

Are you convinced yet? To succeed at email marketing now and in the future, your emails must be designed with mobile in mind from the get-go — not just as an afterthought.
That means using:

• Shorter subject lines. The average desktop inbox displays about 60 characters of an email’s subject line, but mobile devices only show 25 to 30 characters. Shorter email subject lines get more attention wherever they display.
• Single-column format. Using a single-column email template makes your emails much easier to reach on a mobile device.
• Mobile-optimized photos. Photos are one of the biggest culprits in slow-loading emails. Make sure your photos are a suitable size to load quickly on a smartphone while still being crisp.
• Lots of white space. White space around hyperlinks, buttons and other “clickable” content lessens the chances of fumbling fingers tapping the wrong thing and causing frustration.
• Streamlined design. Consider revamping icons and even logos for maximum impact on mobile. “Flat” graphics load faster and adapt better to different screen sizes and formats (from thumbnail size on a mobile device to full size on a desktop).

Bonus: Mobile-first emails will also load faster and display more of their content when viewed on a tablet or a desktop — and that gives you a better chance of getting your target customers to open, read and click no matter where they are.
​
Karen Axelton is editor for the Web.com Small Business Forum and Chief Content Officer of GrowBiz Media, a media company that helps entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses. Visit them at SmallBizDaily.com.

​As seen on Samsclub.com

This infographic shared by Prestige Marketing explains email marketing best practices.