How to Start Building an Email List for Your Business

Read Having an abundant email list for your business is a powerful form of owned media that you can leverage to create more loyal customers and increase sales. Social media is important to creating brand awareness, but having an even more direct way to communicate with both your potential and existing customers is essential. An email list allows you to have a list of potential leads to turn into loyal customers or followers of your business. The ROI for email marketing is actually the highest out of all the marketing platforms; the average ROI is $40 per $1 spent. If you haven't worked on building your email list yet, here are four ways to get started.

Require emails for access to offers or resources.

We're sure your business' website is chock-full of valuable educational resources or sales and offers”require an email sign-up for individuals to gain access to those resources! And if you don't have any yet, create them! Your website visitors and customers are looking for good deals and answers to their questions, so they're willing to take a second to input their information in order to get to them. Here's an example of what this could look like:

The key here is to understand your website visitors' needs and offer content directly targeted to those needs. You'll then be able to gain and retain individuals for your email list.

Create a call-to-action for each landing page on your website.

Your site's landing pages are perfect opportunities to create unique call-to-actions to entice individuals into signing up for your business' email list. Hubspot found that personalized calls-to-action have 42% higher view-to-submission rate than ones that are the same for all visitors across the site. Whether it's your Contact Us tab or a product page, you have as many opportunities as you have landing pages to get visitors to sign up for your email list. The calls-to-action could sound like anything from Click here for an exclusive 20%-off offer to Subscribe to our newsletter for more social media marketing tips. You can totally get creative with the CTAs here! These could be fixed messages on the webpage or they could be pop-ups to get the visitors' full attention--see the examples below! Either way, creating personalized CTAs for each landing page on your website will have you well on your way to building a robust email list.

Offer events with required email registration.

Another way of gathering email addresses for an email list is to offer events exclusive to those who sign up with their email. In the age of COVID, businesses and organizations have had to adapt by holding their events virtually, but this actually works well for building an email list. Hold an online event like a livestream or a webinar with required email registration. Your business' events should be relevant to participants' wants and needs, so they are more inclined to register and attend the event. If your business happens to be able to safely hold events live and in-person, you can even collect attendees' email addresses directly while they are there.

Here are some more tips on how to conduct a successful virtual event:

Host giveaways.

One last tip for starting to build your email list (and perhaps a fairly simple one) is to host a giveaway! Giveaways are perfect opportunities to get more traffic to your website, collect emails for entries, and get your product into new hands. If your business doesn't offer a product, you can still host a giveaway for a free or discounted service you do offer. We've learned that people are more likely to give their information if they receive something valuable in return. It's essential to understand what your potential customers see as valuable and provide that to them, then collect email addresses along the way.

Here's a great podcast episode with more email list-building strategies:

With these four beginner strategies, you're ready to start building your business' email list. Good luck!

How to Increase Your Instagram Following

There are currently over one billion active users on Instagram. Whether you're running an account for your small business or for a large company, the question is this: how do you stand out and gain followers? Of course, having a ton of followers doesn't necessarily guarantee more engagement or loyal customers, but naturally building your presence can help you get there. We've compiled the best tips on how to organically grow your Instagram following.

1. Post consistently.

If an account rarely posts, it doesn't matter how great the content is. Having a regular posting schedule allows more opportunities for people to see your content. It may not seem like it would make that much of a difference, but users will notice and follow accounts that are a great source of consistent content. According to a Tailwind study, accounts that post every day gain followers more quickly.

Keep in mind that quality of content is still hugely important, so work to create a balance of quantity and quality.

2. Use hashtags.

Being thoughtful with the hashtags you include in your posts can be a great way to gain followers. Use hashtags relevant to the content so your posts can be discovered through the search tab. Users can follow hashtags, so your posts might show up on their feeds even if they don't follow you yet. You can include up to 30 hashtags in a post on Instagram, and we recommend putting these at the bottom so they don't clutter the rest of your caption.

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There's plenty of hashtag-generating tools out there, like Inflact, that can generate hashtags based on keywords, photos and URLs.

3. Engage with your audience.

Engagement is one of the most important aspects of growing your Instagram following, and it goes both ways. Get the audience to engage with your content and then engage with your audience. There's lots of ways to connect with your potential followers: responding to comments, answering questions in DMs, using the interactive Stories features. When users see that an account is responsive and welcoming, they'll be more likely to follow. Building up your community is essential to gaining more followers, but just remember to be authentic.

4. Experiment with different content.

Instagram has come a long way since it's launch in 2010. It has become a lot more than just posting photographs; the platform is now a hub of IGTV videos, Reels and Stories. If you take a look at the Explore page, Reels and IGTV videos are displayed larger than photos. Instagram likes to push the newest features, so take advantage of this by experimenting with these features. Creating different types of content can help you reach a wider audience, and having more than just still photos for users to explore on your profile will keep potential followers engaged and interested in the content you're posting.

5. Use paid ads.

Lastly, think about utilizing paid ads on Instagram. You can pay for ads to appear on users' feeds, as well as in Stories and on the Explore page. When creating the ads, you can target people based on location, demographics and interests. This is a great way to get your posts in front of people that don't already follow you but are likely to once they see your content. Paying for this space on users' feeds can help to increase your following and engagement.

Learn more about using ads on Instagram: https://business.instagram.com/advertising.

It's worth it to put in the work to grow your Instagram presence organically rather than being inauthentic or using the follow for follow method. At the end of the day, it's best to have the most engaged and loyal followers as you possibly can.

Why Your Business Needs Pinterest in 2021

Marketing strategies and advertising campaigns often forget about Pinterest, but it has the potential to be a more powerful tool for leveraging brand awareness and sales than the more popular platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Here's why you need Pinterest in 2021.

Pinterest is a visual-first platform.

Like Instagram, Pinterest is built for sharing photos and videos. But Pinterest is perhaps the most visual of all the social media platforms. The posts, called pins, are displayed on the home and search tabs to show the photo or video as the primary content. Pins can be given titles, descriptions and links to websites, but even those are not fully visible until the individual pin is selected.

Pinterest users are on the platform for this very reason; they are searching for visual inspiration, whether it be for a home DIY project or new recipes to try. This creates a perfect opportunity for businesses to promote their own products or services. There's much less pressure on writing captions and copy and instead letting the products speak for themselves.

Another aspect of Pinterest's visual-first platform is their visual search tool. This allows users to see other pins similar to the selected one not based on keywords or hashtags but its visual components.

Users can search for and save pins they like on their boards and even purchase products from the pins right on the platform.

Pinterest is shoppable.

Similar to Instagram's shopping capabilities, Pinterest now allows users to purchase products straight from the pins. The Pinterest storefront is a great place to increase product sales. While users are searching for visual inspiration for their wardrobe, arts and crafts projects, or any other imaginable needs, they can also shop.

The shopping is made easy, with the price and brand of the product displayed with the pin. Users can click the "Visit" button to access the browser where they can make the purchase.

The shopping capability of Pinterest is a prime way to make sales for businesses that offer consumer products, but businesses that offer services can also be successful on the platform. Tips, how-to's and recipes, for example, are valuable resources for users that can be created on your company's Pinterest page.

Pinterest ads go further.

Pinterest allows you to create ads and track analytics on your company's page, and their study found that ads on Pinterest created 2x higher return on ad spend compared to other social media platforms.

Organic posts can be easily discovered through the search tab and the visual search tool, but paid posts could increase brand awareness and sales even more. Another appealing aspect of promoting your pins is that they blend in to the other pins. This might sound counterintuitive to the purpose of paid ads, but if the promoted pins stood out from the rest of the page too much, users might intentionally ignore them.

Whether businesses decide to utilize organic or paid content on Pinterest, it's time they realize the unique social platform is not a waste of time or money. Pinterest is a powerful tool for growing your business and exposing your brand to new audiences.

5 Things Every Podcast Needs

In 2021, there are now 80 million Americans listening to podcasts weekly. There has never been a more optimal time to launch or revamp a podcast than right now, and it has never been easier to do so. Whether you're launching or revamping, there are five things every podcast needs. Of course, there are the essentials: high-quality equipment, energetic hosts, and something (interesting) to talk about, but aside from those elements, here are five more podcast basics.

1. A niche

So you have a topic to base a podcast on, but do you have a unique one? If you want to talk about financial advice, awesome! But there are hundreds of other podcasts out there with that same topic and some that already have large followings. A podcast needs a niche, then”not something so specific that it'll alienate the listeners, but specialized enough to bring in an audience that will come back for every new episode. Brands and businesses have unique selling propositions that make them stand out from the competition. A podcast's niche should be like that: an original idea or concept that sets it apart from other podcasts with similar big picture topics. It's crucial to find that perfect niche.

2. A consistent schedule

Once the niche audience has been discovered, the podcast needs to run on a regular schedule. If you release episodes twice a week sometimes and once every three months other times, there isn't consistent content that the listeners can count on. You have to focus on building up the audience and then retaining that audience. This is not to say all podcasts need to have daily or weekly episodes, but there should be a dependable schedule. People will fit listening to their favorite podcasts into their schedule, so the creators have to ensure there is a steady stream of content available for the listeners.

3. Storytelling

While audio on its own definitely has limitations in its narrative abilities compared to visual and audio content combined, podcasts present a great opportunity to get creative. Whatever industry or topic you're discussing, there has to be an element of storytelling. Podcasts are meant to be entertaining, after all. Storytelling doesn't necessarily mean crafting a work of fiction for the listeners. It is as simple as the word suggests: telling a story. Telling stories that relate to the topic of the podcast is essential to engaging the audience and making them feel like they are part of the experience, like they're just having a conversation with a friend. Storytelling also means having a logical structure to the podcast. Listeners need to be able to follow along and understand where the episode is going.

Read more about incorporating storytelling in your podcast: https://www.podcast.co/create/podcast-storytelling-101#scroll.

4. Great guests

You can have the most entertaining host in the world, but a podcast needs occasional guests. And not just any random guests, but ones that are experts on your topic and have something meaningful to contribute to the conversation. You shouldn't completely rely on high-profile, well-known guests to keep the podcast afloat in regards to numbers of listeners or viewers”they should be additions to episodes in ways that make sense. Welcoming guests to the podcast is necessary for a change of pace for the audience. It's important for the listeners to hear from someone other than the host in order to get different perspectives on topics and also to just hear a new voice.

5. Fun segments

Many podcasts already incorporate fun segments into each episode, but it's something every podcast needs. Whether it's a five-minute Q&A session where questions from the listeners are answered or a spotlight piece where a certain relevant individual or topical news story is highlighted, you should include at least one segment that elevates your podcast. And it shouldn't just be a time-filler. Having listeners send in questions, suggest episode ideas or ask for advice with a unique hashtag, for example, drives audience engagement. The segment should have a purpose, even if it's just to entertain. At the end of the day, podcasts need to give people a way to feel like active participants in the conversation.