Hardwood Floors February/March 2019

BUSINESS BEST PRACTICES MARKETING

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and even emails sent to a broad audience to sell a product or service. Outbound marketing is usually one-way communication that seeks out customers. Inbound marketing draws attention to your products, services, company, or brand by providing helpful content to people who have requested to hear from you. People find you because you’ve earned their interest by entertaining or educating them. Blogging, social media content, eBooks, white papers, guides, and templates are all forms of inbound marketing. Debate continues about which is best. The answer is probably both. Smart marketers are using outbound strategies to drive inbound traffic. For example, an outbound email may contain a link to a landing page, blog post, case study, social media post, or other content. When the recipient follows this link and signs up for a newsletter or future emails (called opting in), that’s inbound marketing. The right marketing automation platform can manage all of this activity, tracking respondents’ behavior and interaction with this content. Many platforms can also manage leads to automatically send follow-up emails based on the recipient’s actions or digital profile. Real-time analytics can track engagement and assign scores to leads based on your criteria. This makes it easier to create campaigns that change based on an individual lead’s actions. As a result, emails can be more personal and relevant to customers, making themmore likely to respond. DON’T SEND THAT FIRST EMAIL YET Most platforms provide a wealth of tutorials, help menus, articles, and tips to walk you through the process of creating and optimizing your email marketing campaigns. Further, most have customer support staff dedicated to helping you succeed. But before sending that first email, consider these best practices.

Using email for marketing is considered old school by some and high-tech by others, but one thing is certain: it works. The median average ROI of email is 124 percent, according to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) in 2017. Email marketing is growing in use and spending. According to The State of B2B Email Marketing Report , 77 percent of B2B marketers claim they’re using email marketing to drive visits to their websites and ultimately sales. That represents significant spending, which experts say will grow from $2.07 billion in 2014 to $3.07 billion in 2019 (Statista). Marketing with email offers many advantages. It can be highly targeted and personalized, and it’s more effective and cost- effective than other tactics. Depending on which study you read, every dollar invested in email marketing garners from $38 to $44 in revenue. WHAT EMAIL MARKETING CAN DO A quick internet search will yield a number of email marketing platforms and marketing automation platforms. What’s the difference?The lines are blurring as entry-level platforms continue to add features and capabilities. Email marketing novices may want to start with an entry-level platform like Constant Contact or MailChimp, then upgrade to a plan with more capabilities or subscribe to a new, more robust marketing automation tool. But what’s more important than the platform you choose is how you use it. You may have heard the terms "inbound" and "outbound" applied to marketing. Outbound marketing usually refers to more traditional methods such as print and broadcast advertising, direct mail, telemarketing, banner advertising,

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