Email marketing for small business is either (a) the tool that will rescue your marketing plan from certain disaster, or (b) a relic of marketing strategies past, as obsolete as a 1980s "portable phone." It depends on who you ask. 

If you ask me, based the evidence I've seen, email is a small business marketing tactic that's worth its word count in gold. Here's why:

I happened to pick up the Wall Street Journal while traveling last week, and this story caught my eye: PetMed Asks Google to Remove Tramadol Ads From Search Results. In it, an executive blames Google's algorithm for displaying the company's ads with certain problematic search terms.

The PetMed story raises important questions for current and potential PPC advertisers: What if any risks do you face in engaging in PPC? Who bears responsibility when it plays a role in illegal or harmful activities? And what can you do to minimize the risk of that happening?

By now, most of us appreciate the unique and powerful pull of stories, but when it comes to small business digital marketing, it’s a crucial tool that we often forget.

Your small business marketing strategies provide the roadmap for your tactics, such as your marketing collateral, and give the framework for great stories told through compelling content online and beyond.

Even as the rules continue to evolve, small business digital marketing is one area of your overall marketing strategy in which content is still king.

A key goal of the marketing collateral you create for your small business is to share your brand’s story with the world. Before you begin broadcasting that story, it’s important to take several behind-the-scenes steps.

Everyone on your team – not just the marketing department –should understand what your brand means and what it stands for. A clear articulation of your mission and reason for being will drive everything about your small business marketing, including the traditional elements of collateral.

Before you create your collateral, here are some internal tools to help you understand and define your brand.

For many business owners and marketers, there’s little time for crafting small business marketing strategies. Many companies have fallen into a cycle of throwing marketing tactics against the wall and seeing what sticks. Not only does this approach waste time and energy, it doesn’t do justice to the company’s story.

Before deciding what small business marketing tactics will be most effective, you need a strong strategy. And that strategy comes from a clean, simple articulation of the mission of your company.

Your business's mission is the heart of everything you do, including your marketing strategies, so let’s take a look at what it is, how best to express it, and how to turn it into effective marketing.

Updated March 2019

Even social media-savvy marketers in the nonprofit sector ask this question, and there's no shame in it. Most nonprofits are active on Facebook, but in many organizations there's internal debate about what's the best format: a Facebook group or a Facebook page.

The biggest tactical challenges for how to market a small business often come down to time, expertise and resources. You know you should be marketing, but who has the time? How do you even know where to start? Where will the money come from?

Fortunately, launching an effective marketing program doesn’t have to take forever, can use tools you already have in hand and won’t break the bank if you make wise investments. And keep in mind that you don’t have to go it alone.

Over time, technology has truly transformed small business marketing: It used to be that unless your firm was a big company with sophisticated advertising and PR programs or had big marketing teams with big budgets to go with them, you didn't think marketing was for you.

The digital environment has provided us with a democratic marketing revolution, making it more accessible to everyone. As a small business, you've been committing more resources to your web presence through the accessibility of marketing channels such as websites, social media, and email marketing.

Still, marketing can be confusing and overwhelming, especially with ever-changing and emerging digital platforms and tactics.

Healthcare practices thrive on referrals. If your practice isn't actively working to get positive reviews online, your competitors are most likely winning patients that you're losing. 

On the other hand, it's not uncommon for practices to have many positive reviews, only to have them buried by a few negative comments — especially on Yelp. I've worked with numerous healthcare practices that had dozens or even hundreds of positive Yelp reviews that are hidden from public view, while the most vocal critics show up front and center. That's because perfectly valid reviews can be hidden under Not Recommended because of Yelp's seemingly arcane filtering algorithm.

When I ask nonprofit leaders about the top communications challenge they face, about one-third of them say “telling our story effectively.” That puts effective story telling second only to fundraising in the outreach pains facing the nonprofits my team and I work with.