As a small business, finding time for effective marketing can be challenging. That's where email automation comes in! This incredible tool can help transform your marketing and amplify your reach by automating many crucial tasks.

In the digital age, when marketing strategies are constantly evolving, email marketing remains a steadfast tool that local businesses can use to drive growth, engagement, and customer retention.

This cost-effective and versatile approach enables businesses to connect with their target audience on a personal level, fostering a sense of loyalty and community.

Welcome to the final installment in our three-part series on local citations. In this article, you can review the top Frequently Asked Questions about local citations. Our local citation FAQ is designed to help small business owners like you understand local citations and turn them into real business value fast.

“What are local citations?”

Local citations are online references to your company’s name, address, and phone number on other websites, especially websites that are regularly used and trusted by people in your community. You might see this info referred to as “(NAP)” (Name, Address, Phone) for short.

When starting a small business, getting your name out there is crucial for success. While physical mail and flyers can still be effective, the digital world we live in offers a powerful tool: a mass email marketing campaign. By reaching thousands of people with a single click, you can significantly expand your brand's reach. To ensure the highest open rates and engagement, we've compiled ten proven email marketing strategies to craft effective emails that captivate your audience.

When you invest time, effort, and money into email marketing, you want it to pay off reasonably fast. Email still remains among the most powerful players in the realm of digital marketing, after all. To that end, there is nothing more disappointing than lackluster results despite your best efforts.

If you're experiencing a dip in your email marketing ROI, it's time to consider freshening up your campaign. A stale email marketing campaign can cost you new and possibly old subscribers.

Read on for some ideas to refresh your marketing and bring your email open rate closer to the current average of 16 percent.

Do you have a budget specifically allocated for SEO?

As you spend money on marketing, advertising, and other general business expenses, it's natural to wonder if search engine optimization is really worth your hard-earned dollars. In fact, you may be one of the 46 percent of small businesses in the United States that has a nonexistent SEO budget.

If that's you, spoiler alert: SEO is indeed worth your investment. Furthermore, you are most likely hurting your business if you choose to cut corners with SEO or ignore it altogether.

That said, in addition to budgeting for SEO, you have to know how to spend the money wisely.

How many of your email subscribers use a Gmail address?

Today, with about 1.8 billion users, Google's free email platform remains the most popular one worldwide. Therefore, it's safe to say that at least a quarter of your subscribers get your marketing messages via Gmail.

In 2013, Google gave Gmail a total makeover with specific tabs for sorting messages. Instead of landing in one general inbox, each email is assigned to a tab (social, promotional, primary, etc.) based on an ever-changing algorithm. In order to make the most of your engagement with your Gmail subscribers, here's what you need to know about the promotions tab and what you should do to avoid it.

If you've considered ditching your email marketing campaign in favor of a more modern marketing method, think twice. Email marketing is still king in 2022. Its ROI is about 36 dollars for every dollar spent, and the average open rate across all industries is 21.6 percent.

With approximately 300 billion emails sent around the world each day, it's safe to say that though email is several decades old, it is still a stable and relevant form of communication today. Here's why you should be focusing on your email marketing campaigns and how you can restructure them to maximize your reach this year.

Email marketing is one of the best digital marketing strategies. An average return of 4,200% means you can expect a whopping $42 for every $1 spent! It’s a massive opportunity.

Unfortunately, email marketing isn’t as straightforward as most marketers imagine. As a result, several digital marketers rarely get anything from their campaigns. A particularly interesting case is the publishing company that spent $5.3 million on email marketing over nine years with not much to show for it.

So, how do you avoid similar losses? How can you make email marketing work for you? We’ve rounded up seven practical tips to get you on the right path.

We all:

• Know how important it is to have a marketing strategy in place well in advance. 

• Intend to focus on our marketing strategies so we’re prepared for upcoming holidays.

• Know that often, the day-to-day makes putting a firm plan into place a difficult task.

There’s no time like today to start planning for a successful business year. Whether you’re an organization soliciting donations, or a business wanting to increase revenue, or grow your customer base - planning ahead allows you to be strategic with your time and resources.