Email has now for many people become a big of their lives. Whether it is for personal or business purposes, email is so powerful that it allows anyone at any time to communicate with others around the world almost instantly. Global communication is pretty simple, easy-to-use and most importantly free. Any business, no matter how big or small, how international or local should learn to embrace this tool as an effective way to reach a larger target audience and also communicate with stakeholders whether that be shareholders, customers, suppliers or even staff.

Through the use of email marketing, businesses can now build a trustworthy, strong and interactive relationship with their existing and new customers and clients. But why? Why should a small company use email marketing? There are so many other ways so why email? We look at 5 reasons as to why experts recommend small businesses to use email marketing.

As a small organisation all you ideally want, is to keep the existing customers coming back and the new ones to coming in. However, you know it means resources. It means time, money, staff and you kind of don’t know what would work and what would not. If you results, email marketing is probably your best choice.

Email marketing is a cost-effective solution that gives businesses the power to reach customers in a place most place most people visit every day – their inbox (Forbes, 2015). By doing this, you as an organisation are effectively sending email messages to a list of potential or existing customers with information as a way to promote the products and services your business provides (Truex, 2015).

The real truth is, it has worked before so why wouldn’t work now? Despite the rise of social media being used to digitally market companies, email is still one of the biggest and most commonly used platform. For example, a recent study has revealed that 91% of consumers check their emails every day; this number is far higher than the number of people who use Facebook, which is the most popular social network. It is also said that email is almost 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined in helping a business acquire new customers (McKinsey, 2014).

So why should you really use email marketing? Content Manger at Forbes, Ryan Pinkham breaks it down and we look at the top 5 reasons and how if you were a small organisation in London could benefit from email marketing.

#1. Build credibility

As a business, you want your customers to feel like they’re doing business with people they know, like and trust. Email allows this to happen and gives you as business the opportunity and platform to build that credibility with your customers and clients by sharing and giving them access to helpful information in the hope that those customers will soon become loyal.

#2 Boost Sales

It’s pretty simple and probably the obvious benefit of email marketing. Ideally, the more people who know about you, the more they’re going to come to you. By receiving updates, deals and offers, you will think about your target audience and meet their needs in order to effectively meet yours.

#3. Strengthen relationships

To build that strong foundation and relationship with your customers and clients, every business no matter how big or small should and effectively must have a great, working and efficient communication tool. This tool is ideally going to help you as a business communicate with those who matter most. With millions of people checking their email every day, the platform gives you the ability to top-of-mind and keep people engaged and informed about your business no matter what time of day or year.

#4. Learn what works

To understand how effective any digital marketing platform is, you need data. These metrics are the key to finding out if you are doing the right thing or the wrong one. Performance is key and email marketing and the data that it produces helps you digital market your business smarter and more effectively. It also gives you a better understand of your customers’ needs. For example, if your customers aren’t actually opening their emails and straight away delete them; you need to think why and could maybe reword your email, change the format or even opt to personalising each email for each customer.

#5. Reach people on any device

Smartphones alongside emails are taken over the world by storm. With nearly two-thirds of all emails being opened on a mobile device, email marketing seems like the easiest way for business to get information across to its customers so it’s accessible for them. Most smartphones can link almost 5-6 email accounts to one phone which means that the customers are more likely to see and view the emails at any time or any place. This will improve your data figures and customer engagement.

But there are limitations to using email marketing for small businesses especially including the resources including the cost, time and staff resource. However, in the long run; it is sure to be worth it in the long run for your business.

References

Aufreiter. N, Boudet. J, & Weng. V (2014) Why marketers should keep sending you e-mails [Online] < http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/why-marketers-should-keep-sending-you-emails> [Accessed 27^th April 2016]

Butters, K. (2014) How important is email marketing? [Online] <http://www.201digital.co.uk/important-email-marketing/#ixzz46y8PrqGH> [Accessed 27^th April 2016]

Edgecomb, C. (2013) 25 Compelling Statistics about the importance of Email Marketing [Online] <https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/25-compelling-statistics-about-the-importance-of-email-marketing> [Accessed 26^th April 2016]

Forbes (2015) 10 Reasons to use Email marketing (As Told by Small businesses) [Online] <http://www.forbes.com/sites/constantcontact/2015/09/17/10-reasons-to-use-email-marketing-as-told-by-small-businesses/#7dc330db7eba> [Accessed 26^th April 2016]

Truex, L. (2015) Email Marketing [Online] <http://homebusiness.about.com/od/homebusinessglossar1/g/email_marketing.htm> [Accessed 25^th April 2016]

Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them (Facebook, 2016). The ‘Ratings & Reviews’ function of the social networking site is something that is being used by largely by businesses to get customers to tell what they think. But the question is why do customers rate and review? Do you rate and review? If yes, how often do you do it? And why would you rate and review? We look at the importance and of ratings and reviews, why and how they help customers and businesses.

The uprising of Facebook reviews has resulted to companies such as Yelp failing as people effectively prefer to do things online and prefer everything to be in one place. According to USA Today, when Facebook began silently testing the new feature in 2015; Yelp’s shares fell 9% to $26.87. However, it can be taken in a positive perspective. Darren Aftahl from Roth Capital Partners said Facebook’s test “only strengthens our long-term thesis that Yelp’s business prospects and user growth could be further challenged in local.” This therefore demonstrates the growth of people wanting to share their opinions and experiences with others.

Ideally, customers who leave reviews must follow the Facebook Community Standards to create a valid review and must focus on the product or service offered by the page (i.e. business) and be based on their own personal experience. Online customer reviews have real bottom-line benefits including increasing conversion, lowering return rates and customer dissatisfaction, and boosting SEO efforts (DigitalVisitor, 2012).

Recent research has also shown that customer reviews can have a positive influence on sales. Chen et al. (2008) found that the quality of the review as measured by helpfulness votes also positively influences sales and Clemons et al. (2006) found that strongly positive ratings can positively influence the growth of product sales. Online customer reviews can be defined as peer-generated product evaluations posted on company or third party websites (Mudambi & Schuff, 2010). A number of sites that provide consumer ratings have emerged in speciality areas (Dabholkar 2006) such as travel.

Before looking at how to encourage people to leave reviews, it is important for organisations to understand the reasons for leaving reviews. Here, are three reasons for why people love to tell others what they think:

#1 Helping others – Often, people write reviews to help others. As a customer themselves, people value reviews & ratings to help them make a buying decision; making them feel valued as a member of the community.

#2 Rewards – The internet has become a place where anyone can say anything, anywhere they want. People are using the likes of social media e.g. Facebook, Twitter and other methods such as blogs/ vlogs to tell others what they think and felt. Therefore companies expect more from their customers asking them to like pages, share posts etc. resulting to driving sales up and expanding their target market. Customers are now aware of this subtle marketing method, therefore expect something in return for giving their opinions.

#3 Fame – The most common and obvious reason for customers voicing their opinions and rushing to tell other people what they think is the fame. The internet now has the power to get a comment/picture/post viral within minutes. Whether that be a heart-warming or comedic customer review, anything has the opportunity to go viral. One of the best examples of this is ‘The Dress’. In 2015, a picture of a dress posted on Tumblr went viral as it revealed differences in human colour perception which was the subject of an ongoing scientific investigation in neuroscience and vision science since. The confusion arose when some people thought #thedress was black and blue and others thought it was white and gold. This resulted to a significant drive sales of the dress.

Part of the joy of customers telling people what they think means that people share content that catches their eye; whether that be the unusual or the amusing; if something goes viral, you’re effectively seen as ‘famous’. Also, traffic is being sent to a business’s site and while people are there, they may be tempted to look around; resulting to an increase in sales.

If a business wants to digitally market itself effectively and get more people to be talking about them, in a positive way of course, the first step is to find out why their customers rate and review and then they must find a way to get them to do it more i.e. how to get them interested. BUT remember, this only works in their favour if the reviews are positive.

References

Chen, P., Dhanasobhon, S., and Smith, M. (2008). All Reviews Are Not Created Equal: The Disaggregate Impact of Reviews on Sales on Amazon.com, Carnegie Mellon University

Clemons, E., Gao, G., and Hitt, L. (2006) When Online Reviews Meet Hyperdifferentiation: A Study of the Craft Beer Industry, Journal of Management Information Systems (23:2), pp. 149-171.

Dabholkar, P. (2006). Factors Influencing Consumer Choice of a ‘Rating Web Site’: An Experimental Investigation of an Online Interactive Decision Aid, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice (14:4), pp. 259-273.

Digital Visitor (2016) What’s in it for me why customers leave reviews? [Online] <http://digitalvisitor.com/whats-in-it-for-me-why-customers-leave-reviews/> [Accessed 25^th April 2016]

Facebook (2016) Facebook Community Standards [Online] <https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards> [Accessed 25^th April 2016]

Facebook Newsroom (2016) Our Mission [Online] <http://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/> [Accessed 27^th April 2016]

Mudambi, S, M. & Schuff, D. (2010) What makes a helpful online review? A study of customer reviews on Amazon.com, MIS Quarterly Vol 34 No 1

Travel Post (2016) Homepage [Online] <www.travelpost.com> [Accessed 26^th April 2016]

Telegraph (2015) Dressgate: If you saw THAT dress as white your brain was working overtime [Online] <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/15/dressgate-if-you-saw-that-dress-as-white-your-brain-was-working/> [Accessed 26^th April 2016]

USA Today (2015) Yelp falls 9% as Facebook tests local business reviews [Online] < http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/12/15/facebook-local-businesses-rating-yelp-angies-list/77364056/> [Accessed 25^th April 2016]

It is right to say that social media has taken and is taking the world by storm and has changed the way firms and its customers communicate with each other.  Social networking allows entities to connect with each other based on their social bonds or ties (Russell, 2007).

The likes of social networking sites such as Facebook has allowed customers, tourists and guests to allow our opinions to be heard, views to be shared and photos to be seen. Facebook’s main purpose and vision is bringing people together and therefore allows us to not only connect with the hotel and the city, but also other travellers like us, who have used or are using the accommodation in various holiday destinations worldwide. Using Facebook to book a holiday means that as a customer you can connect with others around the world therefore increasing reachability in a quick and efficient way (Rospigliosi, 2015).

Facebook offers firms in the Travel & Tourism industry, the ability to identify potential guests and customers, communicate directly with them and allow them to engage with the firm itself; before, during and after their trip. In 2012, Facebook reviewed the top stories people shared to their timelines and found that the top story being shared by users was travel experiences. 42% of stories shared to users Facebook timelines were travel experiences, more than double that of the next category (MMGY Global, 2016).

The travel and tourism industry depends heavily on Word-of-Mouth and spread of opinions which are used when consumer communication can be used as a means of multiplying a brand’s popularity through customers spreading the brand name of a product or name of a company (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004). Facebook provide the ideal platform to do this as it is seen as one of the most powerful forces driving travel planning today (Bennett, 2012).

A recent study showed that 52% of users changed their travel plans after researching their trip using social media. The majority of us tend to look at what other people think and use either social media or review websites such as TripAdvisor. Users also tend to use their smartphones on holiday and access Facebook etc. and use friends’ and families’ holiday photos and opinions to decide where they should go and visit.

Most people are passionate about sharing their travel experiences through the use of pictures and writing what they think. It allows them to share their holidays and experiences: both positive and negative, with others. This way you can voice your opinions freely without having to have anyone oppose it.

Most tourists use Facebook as an inspiration tool to allow them to find places they would like to visit. Although they may not use Facebook to book the holiday, it allows them to see pictures of locations so they get an idea of the things they can expect on their holiday. However, some firms have recently started using Facebook to manage its bookings such as American Delta and Hilton Hotels & Resorts (seen in the image below). This can be seen as something that allows all information to be located in one place making the booking process much simple, easier and more accessible to potential customers.

So let’s look at an example from an individual perspective. You are originally from, let’s say England. You’ve always wanted to go to Las Vegas and have a tight budget but don’t know where to start. So what do you do? You could visit a travel agency or you could sit at the comfort of your own home and take matters into your own hands. The internet has now opened us up to so much useful information so you could find a place to stay, find out more about Las Vegas and what it has to offer in your own time.

Whilst researching hotels in Las Vegas, you find a site that provides you with what you want. You therefore click on its Facebook page and find reviews, opinions and pictures. What this allows you to do is find out what people like you, both tourists and travellers, think about Las Vegas as a city, and the hotel or apartment they stayed at. You also use the Facebook page to find out where the hotel is in terms of its location and its nearby tourist destinations, using its address which is connected to Google Maps.

Let’s take a well-known hotel who use Facebook well: Hilton in Las Vegas. With more than 8000 likes, the Facebook page has the ability to allow potential customers to access information about the Resort, details of what is available, contact details and mainly TripAdvisor reviews. Its ‘Visitors’ page feature allows potential guests to ask questions straight to the hotel and build that special interaction and connection with its guests. This makes them a more reliable and trustworthy place to stay. As a guest, you want to enjoy your stay as much as possible and make it worth every penny. So if you have friendly staff that is happy to help online; you are more likely to stay there. The page also has 4.1 stars out of 5 with 1,463 reviews all fairly positive which is likely to persuade you to book the hotel.

But as a customer, you should always be aware that reviews can also be manipulative in a negative way. Some people can use inappropriate images and language which you should be aware of at all times. You should also always consider that some companies can be very deceiving at trying to get their message across and may not always be what they seem.

So should you use Facebook when looking for a holiday? The simple answer is yes. Facebook now has more than enough features for you to find out information about the destination, your place of stay and most importantly what people think.

References:

Bennett, S (2012) The Impact of Social Media on Travel and Tourism [Online] < http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/social-media-travel-hospitality/466163> [Accessed 1^st April 2016]

Hennig‐Thurau, T., Gwinner, K. P., Walsh, G., & Gremler, D. D. (2004). Electronic word‐of‐mouth via consumer‐opinion platforms: What motivates consumers to articulate themselves on the Internet?. Journal of interactive marketing, 18(1), 38-52.

MMGY Global (2016) Facebook Marketing for Tourism Organisations [Online] <http://www.mmgyglobal.com/media/1397782/facebook_marketing_for_tourism_organizations_-_mmgy_global.pdf> [Accessed 2^nd April 2016]

Rospigliosi, A. (2015) ‘Social Media – The Social Web’. [Lecture notes] Brighton: University of Brighton Business School, Unpublished

Russell, J (2007) Social Networking: Applications for Health Care Recruitment, Nursing Economics, 25(5), pp 299-301

ThinkDigital (2014) Role of Facebook for Tourism [Online] <http://thinkdigital.travel/opinion/role-of-facebook-for-tourism/> [Accessed 2^nd April 2016]

‘Deciding to hire a SEO is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but [it] can also risk damage to your site and reputation’ – Google, 2016.

The world of SEO has changed … and continues to change the many ways companies digitally market themselves. Creating a SEO strategy for a company using its existing web site means that the company will be able to explore several distinct areas of the site and the changes to traffic (Rospigliosi, 2015). They could do this with a framework to analyse the results.

So what is exactly do you understand by the term SEO? Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is described as a cluster of strategies and techniques used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (Parikh & Deshmukh, 2013). So basically, the aim of a SEO strategy is to increase the visitor traffic to a specific website and make them our customers.

But my question is, is it beneficial to all companies? What about small companies?  Surely, it’s a lot of work? The truth is SEO actually requires resources, time and money. And it’s continually evolving, which means companies must predict and anticipate changes in the future and need to create a SEO strategy that is prepared for these changes to succeed in the long run.

We look at the main drawbacks of SEO to small companies and look at a couple of examples of big organisations making small mistakes and resulting to big losses.

The Drawbacks
#1 New SEO strategy means new costs.
Creating a new SEO strategy for any organisation means time, investment and resources which for smaller companies means a cutback in spending etc. It is said that an expert is ideal in situations like this as they know how to align the SEO strategy with the company strategy, attitudes, aims etc. This therefore makes a long process and needs input for senior management, finance, marketing etc. SEO knowledge in businesses are fairly low, so any employees who may have impacted the website in the past may be reluctant to change it (Allin, 2016).

#2 Not all the data you need is in one place.
SEO data tools (e.g. Google Webmaster Tools, Moz, Panguin etc.) are currently not advanced enough to have all the data you need in one location. Each tool will provide you with different types of data so you must individually compare and contrast and look at how the company needs to optimise value and quality which is time consuming and costly.

#3 How can you define ‘a good quality’ SEO method?
It is difficult to define what has good quality, what is unique and what is useful in terms of SEO and a company’s pages. Everyone has different opinions/perceptions of techniques and some say it does more harm than good.

Matt Cutts from Google Webmasters addresses the idea of negative SEO and talks about how this can cause spam, fraud etc. You must also think about Black Hat techniques. Small companies must be aware of using “black hat” techniques. These are the techniques that can lead the search engines (like Google) to ban a site (Malaga, 2008).

If a small organisation uses SEO methods, it must be very aware not to violate any guidelines. But, although those techniques seem ‘unfair’, ‘unethical’ or ‘wrong’ to some, if it means more views and better results quicker and easier, why not? Right? I mean, what could go wrong?

So are there examples in the past to show how companies have used Black Hat techniques? Well the simple answer is yes. Big companies have been publicly fined but this happens fairly regularly. As it’s seen as the easy way, it is more common. So if large companies are being caught out, surely the same thing happens to smaller companies? We look at two Multi-national companies (MNCs) and look at their stories …

Toys R Us want Toys.com

In 2009, Toys R Us paid $5.1 million for the domain name ‘Toys.com’and it was simply because they didn’t have expert knowledge. Instead of transferring the domain name, the site was forwarded. Google noticed it and reindexed the domain, causing Toys R Us to lose its top ranking for the word ‘toys’.A report by Allemann (2009) writes “Now the value of ToysRUs’ $5.1M purchase of Toys.com has been relegated to type-in traffic and potentially some of the inbound links to Toys.com.’

Ideally, the plan was to use SEO cleverly so that when people searched for the word ‘toys’, it would direct them straight to their domain name. But that clearly isn’t what happened, the team who launched the new site, failed to redirect their old URLs and resulted to Google having to take action.

As for their domain name? Instead to climbing up; went falling down. The worst bit is they didn’t even use any ‘wrong’ or Black Hat techniques … they just made an error which costs them a lot of money. So surely if a large company can make this big of a mistake, anyone can; no?

Google vs. Google

But I suppose the biggest example is when Google received a penalty from no one other than Google. Yes, you heard me right.

In 2012, it was found that Google Chrome was benefitting from paid links which resulted to a two-month penalty from the company itself. Although it was technically an external party who had done this, it questions the idea of who you could trust to create and execute a SEO strategy for you?

Surely, if Google can make mistakes, so can we all?

So we’ve seen it, the drawbacks, the techniques and the examples. Although, it is wrong to say SEO never works; you have to think about if it holds value to your company. So no, it’s not a bad idea but just means to start it, you need time, effort and money and A LOT of it.

‘Think about what people are doing on Facebook today. They’re keeping up with their friends and family, but they’re also building an image and identity for themselves, which in a sense is their brand. They’re connecting with the audience that they want to connect to’ – Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder of Facebook (2009).

I think its right to say that the growth of social media has taken the world by storm and has changed the way firms, despite their size and location market themselves. The power of social media has meant that companies can connect with a larger target market quickly, efficiently and at a cheaper cost. But exactly how effective is social media marketing? And most importantly, what about Facebook? We look to see if a small enterprise such as an independent short let company in London could benefit from marketing using the biggest social networking website in the world.

‘Social networking is the process of connecting entities together based on their social bonds or ties (Russell, 2007).’ According to The Conversation Prism (Solis, 2008), Facebook falls into the Social Networks category and as we all know, is based more around the idea of people listening to the brand and using those networks to build more networks within their community or globally.

Facebook has a vision and purpose for bringing people together. Using this platform, means companies are able to reach a wider and more global audience just as we know it today. The rapid growth of technology now means that mostly every individual and business use social media actively due to its accessibility. But, what really differentiates Facebook from the others? Now, we’ve established that the use of social media is vital for organisations; it’s time to look at tips to help make the most of Facebook.

Most of Facebook’s revenue is derived from advertising sales. As well as being the biggest social network as of November 2015, Facebook is known for the amount of data it collects from its users which is used to sell space for advertising and predicted to grow further in the future.  Designed to facilitate feedback and recommendations to friends, its most popular feature; the ‘Like button’ is now integrated into virtually every major website, especially those offering content (Statista, 2015).

If a small company in London wanted to use Facebook to market itself, it would have consider the best way to do this. Social networks are treated at times as a mathematical technique and more of a subset of Graph theory (Rospigliosi, 2015) and results to connectivity and centrality with customers. Due to its industry nature, the company would also have to embrace ‘Glocalisation’ and spread awareness and its business to attract guests both locally and globally.

We all know there are lots and lots of factors any company should consider when using Facebook as a social media marketing platform. Ramsay (2010) looks at the ‘social etiquette’ of Facebook and we pick out 5 tips, a small company would benefit from to reach potential customers of the 1.55 billion users worldwide (Statista, 2016).

#1- Be aware of Terms of Service and carefully choose the content you use on your page.

#2- Brand the service: Give it a voice without covering it with sales messages.

#3 – Remember all wall posts are public: Consider who is looking at your content; what do you want them to do? Is it offensive in any way? What tone are you using?

#4 – Show appreciation: Interaction with consumers is great. Any positive comments should be acknowledged and talk with them and find out what they liked their experience. And remember posts are public (#3) so others will see these comments.

#5 –Make sure updates are relevant and frequent.

However, these tips can be critiqued and said that they are very generic and not specific to Facebook, no? Other social media platforms e.g. Twitter could be used and different in their ability to network and giving customers a more realtime ability to share their views and experiences. You, as a company must consider factors such as privacy of Facebook, the time and resources and reputation management the company i.e. how they react to any negative feedback etc.

For social media marketing to be successful, you need to think about WHY people talk and share (Shawbel, 2013) rather than WHAT they say and share.

In conclusion, Facebook can potentially benefit organisations especially small ones like yours who have international consumers. It is already set up and globally known and used BUT you need to focus more time and resources on improving your social/digital marketing.

References

Hoffman, D, L & Fodor, M (2010) Can you measure the ROI of your Social Media Marketing? [Online]<https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Donna_Hoffman2/publication/228237594_Can_You_Measure_the_ROI_of_Your_Social_Media_Marketing/links/552c11f50cf29b22c9c41cc1.pdf > [Accessed 16^th January 2016]

Ramsay, M. (2010) ‘Social media etiquette: A guide and checklist to the benefits and perils of social marketing’. Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management [Online], Vol 17 Available at <http://www.palgrave-journals.com/dbm/journal/v17/n3/pdf/dbm201024a.pdf> [Accessed 16^th January 2016]

Rospigliosi, A. (2015) ‘Social Media – The Social Web’. [Lecture notes] Brighton: University of Brighton Business School, Unpublished

Solis (2008) What is the Conversation Prism?[Online] < https://conversationprism.com/> [Accessed 17^th January 2016]

Statista (2015) Statistics and facts about Facebook [Online] <http://www.statista.com/topics/751/facebook/> [Accessed 17^th January 2016]

Zuckerberg, M. (2009) The Wired Interview: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg [Online] <http://www.wired.com/2009/06/mark-zuckerberg-speaks/ > [Accessed 15^th January 2016]