This week was Upvote Everything Day on Imgur (the procrastination black hole I spend way too much time on). So instead of the usual feel good fluff and pandering cute pet pics, the front page was crowded with GIFs of women giving birth to candy abominations and video clips of lederhosen-clad German pop-folk music weirdos. Just like god intended. However, it also usually brings to the fore one of my all time favorite types of content (or at least the one I mildly obsess over), cursed images. I have a horrid fascination with cursed images. What interests me is why…
Email marketing is the most efficient way to communicate and build a relationship with your audience. It allows you to speak with them directly through their inbox, at a time that’s convenient for them.
Did you know that email marketing done right, can actually increase your revenue, create more loyalty between your customers and increase your brand awareness. Yet, despite the impact it can have on a business, only 46% of small businesses are using email marketing.
Why?
Maybe it’s the time it takes to build an email campaign. Or maybe you're simply not sure how. Maybe it’s the cost.
If you know what to look for with an email service provider, then these should no longer be a factor.
Here at AWeber, we want to see your business thrive. So to help, we’ve put together a comprehensive list of what to look for with a free email marketing service provider.
What Should You Look For with a Free Email Marketing Service Provider
This is a bit of a tricky question because every business' needs are going to be different. So we’ll do our best to highlight the pros, cons, and main features of each online email marketing company in order for you to weigh what is most important to the success of your business.
Now that we’ve identified some free email marketing service providers, let's take a deeper dive into each one so you can make a decision that’s best for you.
AWeber
I’ll admit, I may be a little biased when writing about AWeber, so I just let all the powerfully-simple extra features, award winning customer service, and world-class platform do the talking.
AWeber is one of the leading email providers, helping over 1 million small businesses successfully grow their business. And we’ve done it longer than anyone else (we were founded in 1998).
What makes this free version stand out above everyone else is our commitment to you. We truly care about the success of your business. When you open an account with AWeber, you get the same level of service we provide all of our customers. AWeber Free delivers powerfully-simple, industry-leading features at no cost to you. That’s right — no credit card and no payment with AWeber Free. Ever.
Plus, you get our Industry-Leading Deliverability. We are experts in making sure your message hits people’s inbox. We don’t outsource email processing, ensuring we control deliverability from end-to-end.
Need to move from another email service provider? No problem, we’ll migrate your contacts and email templates to your new platform. Plus, you’ll have access to 100s of email templates (and climbing), our easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor, and our landing page builder with free templates included.
And we don’t stop there. AWeber is constantly expanding our platform based on feedback we receive from our customers. Whether that’s to add more features to help your business grow or to create a better user experience.
Our mission is simple: to provide you with an easy to use email marketing platform that does 90% of the work for you.
AWeber’s Free Email Marketing Tools
AWeber has everything you need to start growing your business — for free. We offer marketing features in our free plan that actually matter to the success of your business, including:
Native integration with leading ecommerce and small business solutions
Free migration from your current email marketing provider
24/7 phone/email/chat access to customer solutions
AWeber Free Email Platform Pros
With so many advantages it’s tough to narrow it down to just a few pros but I’ll give it my best shot. With AWeber Free, you have everything you need to create amazing looking emails AND landing pages, you’ll be able to automate your email marketing, and integrate with 100s of other businesses.
Drag-and-Drop editor. This could possibly be one of the easiest drag and drop email and landing page editing tools you will ever use. Create custom emails and landing pages in just minutes without ever writing a line of code.
Landing Page Templates & unlimited landing pages. Many platforms will limit the number of landing pages that you can build. Not us. We know a landing page could be the foundation for your business to increase their leads flow. Part of our mission is to help you grow your business, so why not give you every advantage to power you forward.
Access to our Smart Designer, an AI-powered design assistant that automatically builds you amazing-looking branded email templates in seconds. We understand not everyone is a graphic designer, so we make creating beautiful email templates super easy.
Get started even faster with a huge library of pre-built email templates. Again, we try to make your job easy by doing 90% of the work. Simply add your logo and you're ready to send your emails.
Access to our Award-Winning Customer Service Team. Ask our award-winning customer solutions team any question by phone, chat or email. They’re available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to help you succeed with email marketing.
I can go on forever talking about the fanatic benefits and features that AWeber Free has available. But why go on when you can see for yourself. Sign up today for AWeber Free. No credit card, no commitment, no worries once you’re part of the AWeber family.
I’d be lying if I told you we didn’t have any cons with our free email services. We don’t offer email split testing on the free plan. Plus there are some other fantastic features that you will only have access to with our Pro plan. But we can’t give the farm away, even though we tried.
But the biggest con with AWeber Free is that you didn’t discover it earlier. Really, it’s that good.
Mailchimp
When you think of email service providers, MailChimp is usually at the top of the list due to their brand awareness and how long they’ve been supporting small businesses. Overall MailChimp’s free email platform is solid. In fact, of all the email marketing platforms we evaluated, MailChimp may be the second best option.
MailChimp’s Free Email Marketing Tools
You get access to several of MailChimp’s features with the free plan. However for those tools you receive access to, MailChimp puts a limit on what you can use.
Some of the key features you get with the free plan include:
Segmentation
Website builder
Landing page builder
Marketing CRM
Integrations with over 200 apps
Mailchimp Email Platform Pros
You don’t last 20 years in business without knowing what you’re doing, and we’ll give it to MailChimp they have a very robust platform with several benefits with their free plan. Yes, it does have it’s limitations, such as saving most of their main tools for paying customers.
The marketing CRM tool is a nice touch that you won’t see with many other free platforms. You can also build and publish a basic website.
Mailchimp Email Platform Cons
If you value customer support, then Mailchimp may not be for you. You’ll receive 30 days of email support once you sign up, but after that you’re on your own. You’ll receive no phone, no email, or no chat support.
Not everybody has a creative background and can build emails or landing pages that look amazing and can convert, so they rely on the templates provided by their email marketing provider. With MailChimp, you only have access to their “basic” templates.
And while MailChimp’s free plan has some advantages, MailChimp can quickly begin getting pricey as you begin growing your business and need more support and features.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit is an email marketing service provider that’s built by a blogger for bloggers, although the platform is not limited to bloggers. The free plan starts at 100 subscribers for free, but that can jump to 1,000 through their referral program where you can earn an additional 100 subscribers for every referral who also signs up for a ConvertKit account.
ConvertKit’s Free Email Marketing Tools
On ConvertKit’s pricing comparison page they state their free tools as including:
Landing page builder
Form builder
Segmentation
Subscriber tagging
ConvertKit Email Platform Pros
The biggest pro that I can find with this platform is a tool that is not yet released. ConvertKit recently announced a brand new tool called ConvertKit Commerce. This feature will let you sell digital products right inside ConvertKit’s platform.
Outside of ConvertKit Commerce, there aren’t many pros to ConvertKit’s platform that you couldn’t find in other email service providers.
They provide free migration services, so if you need to move from another email marketing platform, they will assist in moving you to ConvertKit. But you will need to have 5,000+ subscribers for it to be worth their time and effort.
ConvertKit Email Platform Cons
ConvertKit is a very basic platform. There are no drag-and-drop email templates or builders. In fact, you only have two templates to choose from — a plain text version and a very plain-looking HTML version. And with the HTML version, you are limited with what you can customize.
The free plan also does not include email automation, which can be frustrating if you want to begin cultivating a relationship with your clients by sending welcome or thank you emails.
While their landing page builder may be fully customizable, you have far fewer templates to choose from compared to other email marketing platforms such as AWeber.
And they outsource their customer support so it can take hours to days for you to get a response. There is no email or phone support, instead you leave a message in their app and someone will email you a response.
Overall, ConvertKit lacks the bells and whistles that you can get with most other free email marketing services like MailChimp and AWeber.
SendInBlue
SendInBlue was actually founded as a digital agency. They switched to become an email marketing provider when they realized an opportunity to help marketers automate email marketing on a budget.
SendInBlue is a good tool for ecommerce marketers with customized triggers based on purchase behavior and the ability to import customer orders.
SendInBlue Free Email Marketing Tools
While SendInBlue has some very good email marketing features, many of those are only available with their paid plans. Here are some of the better features available with the free plan:
Unlimited contacts
Customizable signup forms
Advanced segmentation
Marketing automation workflows (up to 2,000 contacts)
SendInBlue Email Platform Pros
SendInBlue possibly has one of the best marketing automation tools. Their automation features are advanced and user-friendly. In fact, they are able to track your customers’ website behavior and trigger an email message at just the right time.
SendInBlue’s email builder is also a very easy and convenient tool to use. You have the option to use one of their 140 email templates, or you can build your email campaign with their easy-to-use drag-and-drop editor.
SendInBlue Email Platform Cons
While SendInBlue is a solid email marketing platform with good tools, they still lack a number of features you can get with other email providers. And they save their core features for their paid customers. You need to be on the Essential plan to start getting some of the real, juicy features, such as A/B testing, more detailed reporting, and better support.
SendInBlue is also limited in the number of integrations with their platform.
Despite these limitations, the biggest con for the SendInBlue platform would have to be their daily email send limit. While you can have an unlimited number of subscribers, you can only send 300 emails a day, up to 9,000 for the month. This makes it nearly impossible to grow on the free plan before you need to upgrade.
MailerLite
MailerLite offers good value and a solid platform. Their email campaigns were easy to set up and use. They cater to small businesses, as roughly 90% of their subscribers have 50 employees or less.
MailerLite Free Email Marketing Tools
The MailerLite free email plan includes access to features like automation, landing pages, and advanced segmentation. However, like other providers, some key features are gated and live chat and phone support are not available.
Some tools that you do get include:
Landing pages, but limited number of templates
Drag-and-drop editor
Built-in photo editing
Pop-up subscribe forms
Email automation
Advanced segmentation
MailerLite Email Platform Pros
MailerLite was one of the easiest to use platforms we evaluated. You don’t need a technical background to set up and send emails. And their email campaign reports are clear and easy to understand.
You also get full access to their marketing automation options which is a convenient option for those more sophisticated marketers.
They also have a popup creator which you can have set up and ready to go with just a few clicks.
MailerLite Email Platform Cons
While the reporting and email setup are really easy to use and navigate, their segments and grouping can be pretty confusing.
And like so many other email marketing platforms we evaluated, you can only build up to 5 landing pages. And they have a very limited number of email and landing page templates. If you don’t have a creative background, you may find this very frustrating.
MailJet
If your main goal is to find a solid platform that is cheap once you graduate past the free plan, then MailJet may be for you. MailJet is one of the most basic email service providers that we researched, especially when it comes to their free email plan.
MailJet Free Email Marketing Tools
MailJet’s free email marketing features are very, very limited. Like SendInBlue, you won’t have to worry about upgrading your account as your subscribers increase, since you get unlimited contacts. However, also like SendInBlue, they limit you to a certain number of sends per day.
Other features in the free plan include:
API’s, SMTP Relay, Webhooks
An advanced email editor
Advanced statistics
MailJet Email Platform Pros
The pros for the free email platform are few and far between. There’s obviously the unlimited contacts, which is a big plus. They also have a very easy to use drag-and-drop editor which is great for a new user. Outside of that, we didn’t find too many pros that would separate MailJet from the competition.
One pro worth noting is a multi-user collaboration feature, which allows multiple users to work together in real-time on the same email. Think Google Docs. However, this is only available on the Premium or Enterprise paid programs.
MailJet Email Platform Cons
MailJet is a very basic email service provider with no added benefits outside of email sending. Many of the other email marketing companies we reviewed have extra features such as a landing page builder or pop up builder. These extra features could be important as you look to grow your business and save money in the process.
And, as mentioned above, although you can have unlimited contacts, MailJet does limit the number of emails you can send in a day to only 200 or a max of 6,000 per month. You may find it tough to grow your business sending to only 200 a day.
Moosend
If you’re looking for a platform with email automation options, but don’t need landing pages as an option for collecting subscribers, then it might be worth checking out Moosend.
Moosend Free Email Marketing Tools
Moosend is relatively new when it comes to providing free email marketing services. And the available features are on par with some of the more well known platforms.
Unlimited emails
Sign up and subscription forms
Reporting and analytics
Drag-and-drop editor
Email automation
Moosend Email Platform Pros
Moosend’s free email marketing platform offers a number of features not offered on other free platforms. Marketing automation features like onboarding and abandoned cart sequences and list segmentation, a/b testing options and spam testing are available.
Moosend’s Drag-and-Drop builder and templates also help email marketers get started with email design without worrying about coding.
Moosend Email Platform Cons
Moosend’s platform allows up to 1,000 unique subscribers on the free tier. However, when your subscriber count starts to climb, so does Moosend’s cost.
Other typically important features like the ability to send transactional emails and create landing pages are missing from Moosend’s free email platform. Phone support is also left out of the free plan, and is reserved for enterprise level users.
SendPulse
If you’re looking for a marketing automation platform that lets you do more than just email, SendPulse has options for you. SendPulse offers SMS messaging, transactional email capabilities, chatbots and web push notifications.
SendPulse Free Email Marketing Tools
SendPulse has a good number of available tools, including:
Email marketing automation
Web push notifications
SMS marketing
Viber marketing
Chatbot messaging
SendPulse Email Platform Pros
SendPulse lets you send up to 15,000 emails to 500 subscribers. However, the free plan limits the number of sender addresses you can have. Plus, while SendPulse offers some cool features like its Automation360 tool and the ability to resend to subscribers who haven’t opened your messages, SendPulse limits the storage volume for files up to 20Mb.
SendPulse Email Platform Cons
In addition to the limited sender addresses and storage volume, SendPulse doesn’t allow you to bulk manage email addresses — i.e. you can’t export your mailing lists to Excel or other spreadsheets. And if you want to use SendPulse because of its SMS capabilities, you should know that you can only send 10 free SMS text messages through its free plan.
EmailOctopus
EmailOctopus has a solid sender reputation with emails being sent through Amazon SES. Once you move past the free version, EmailOctopus is fairly affordable, but you get what you pay for in terms of features. If all you need are basic email features, then this email marketing service provider worth considering.
EmailOctopus Free Email Marketing Tools
They don't have a large number of features, but those they do have are solid.
Email marketing automation
Segmentation
Sign up forms
EmailOctopus Email Platform Pros
Yes, EmailOctopus has one of the more generous free plans in terms of subscriber count. Free users can send 10,000 emails each month to up to 2,500 contacts, which is great if you want to send a weekly newsletter. Plus, with an easy-to-use WISIWYG email builder, creating good looking email newsletters isn’t difficult.
EmailOctopus Email Platform Cons
EmailOctopus’ simplicity — which some could view positively — is also one of its main downsides. Their feature set is extremely limited and their usability is not that strong. The tool also stores your statistics for only 30 days at a time.
So, if you want to take a more strategic approach to email marketing beyond weekly newsletters and analyze your email marketing results, it may be best to look elsewhere.
BenchMark
BenchMark provides a simple email marketing service, but that's just how they want it. They designed their email builder to be simple and straightforward. Their email editor is super easy to use, one definitely doesn’t need a technical background to use this feature.
They pride themselves on being international as they have a presence in fifteen countries around the world. Plus, from a useability standpoint, BenchMark gets it right.
BenchMark Free Email Marketing Tools
If you are just starting out with email sending and have a very small email list, then the available features may work for you. However, compared to the competition, BenchMark’s available features on their free plan are very lite.
Basic Email Marketing
Lite Marketing Automation
Signup Forms
Basic Drip Campaigns
Heatmap reporting
BenchMark Email Platform Pros
BenchMark’s biggest pro is their, as they put it, insanely simple drag & drop editor. And you’ll get no argument from me. This editor is as simple as it gets.
Automation Pro is a tool developed by Benchmark Email to create automations for your email subscribers. Automations are a set of elements or modules that automatically perform specific tasks based on your subscribers’ interactions with your emails and website. Within Automation Pro, automations can add or remove subscribers from lists or automatically send an email based on website activity, which are tasks that regular automations can’t do.
Their heatmap reporting is a nice touch for the more sophisticated marketer. And they have a basic, but solid marketing automation tool where you can set up simple behavior-based email campaigns.
BenchMark Email Platform Cons
As nice of a platform the BenchMark has to offer, they have their cons. For starters, you can only send 250 emails per month. I don’t know about you, but that’s not enough for me to send one email to my list.
The free plan is also missing a lot of key features needed to grow your business such as their landing page builder, more advanced email automation, and priority support.
So, how do you decide what’s right for you?
We know, that’s a lot to take in. But putting in the time upfront to figure out what email marketing service is best for you will pay off in the long run. Just want a quick comparison of the most important features? Check out the table we put together at the top of this article.
Ultimately, make sure you choose a provider who has — and will — stand the test of time. While migrating to AWeber from another platform is painless, we can’t promise the same for the other guys. So do your due diligence upfront to make sure you’re choosing a platform that’s powerfully-simple and gives you the features you need now and in the future.
As an owner or employee of a small business, we know your time is limited. Marketing isn’t your only hat and if you’re confused on where to start for Facebook, we’re here to help. Over 90 million small businesses use Facebook and its related products.
There are many reasons for a small business to use Facebook. The network boasts 2.45 billion monthly active users and 74% of its adult users who earn more than $75k are on the platform.
Not only does Facebook cover a wide demographic range but it also serves as a multi-use platform for small businesses. Potential customers use Facebook to discover new businesses, research them, receive ads and more. Having a Facebook Page establishes brand credibility and for some businesses, can take care of a customer from start to finish without ever leaving the site.
From setting up a Page to the promotion, here are some expert tips on how to get the most out of your Facebook Page as a small business.
Facebook Page setup for small businesses
Facebook offers a wide range of products so it can be understandably daunting to figure out what works best for you. If you’re starting fresh on a Facebook Page or it’s been a while since you performed a Facebook audit, these tips are for you. Not every feature is meant for every type of business, but it’s especially important for small businesses is making sure everything is up to date.
Choose the right category & template
You can change your categories, subcategories and templates anytime so don’t sweat if you don’t pick the right one at the beginning. However, refining to the right selection is specifically important for small businesses because categories are key for discovery, and templates unlock important features like shops and reviews.
Customize your tabs
When you go through the Page templates, you’ll be able to see which tabs are available to you. After applying the template, you’ll then be able to hide and add select tabs, as well as rearrange their order. So, for example, if you think you’ll be investing in a video marketing strategy, then you should move the Videos tab up further in the lineup.
Customize CTA button & link a catalog
If you’re a service or product-based business, then taking the time to set up your call-to-action button and linking your product catalog is important. These features allow your customers to book directly or purchase from your Page without ever leaving the site.
PRUDY Braiding Studio lists its services and has a CTA button for booking appointments. When a customer is interested in a service, they can click it to learn more and then use the button to book their appointment. This flow provides a seamless experience for customers.
At the time of this writing, Facebook Shops is rolling out to all businesses as a way for them to promote new products.
Tip: A bonus for setting up these features is that they also become available to you if you have a linked Instagram account. Set this up once for two networks.
Set up Messenger & more
A prime advantage of being a small business is that you’re more nimble than the larger ones. This means that direct communication with customers via Messenger might not need to go through as many approval hoops.
Messenger has evolved from a peer-to-peer chat box to a customer service platform. Add your availability times, FAQs and even automated responses.
The above are just the basics for setting up a Facebook Page for a small business. There are far more tips you can explore, including using Facebook Business Manager to manage multiple permissions and learning about the verification process to further establish your brand credibility.
Facebook Page promotion & execution
Once your Facebook Page is set up to your liking, it’s time for promotions and posts to begin. Explore a variety of post ideas to bring in more engagement and consider using a content calendar to plan out your work. Having this is in place helps you understand what’s missing and how to space out your posts.
Run occasional discounts or flash sales
No one likes to miss out on deals. The latest Sprout Social Index indicates that 40% of consumers follow brands on social media to learn about promotions and discounts. Why not give them what they want?
To enhance your social promotions, use Facebook’s ad offer feature so you can track how many are actually taking advantage of the sale.
Cross-promote your content
As a small business, you need to be savvy about how you use your content. One platform’s content could be reused on another if the audience and goals fit. A small tweak in caption is less time consuming than creating fresh content.
Even better, if you use Instagram Stories frequently, you can link your Facebook Stories to them so every time you publish Stories on Instagram, you also publish the same content to Facebook.
Set up expectations for social customer service
The same Sprout Social Index report found that when consumers follow brands on social media, 74% of them will reach out for customer service or support. If you’re going to use Facebook as a platform for social customer service, you’ll need to set up those expectations beforehand with clear information for your customers. Don’t wait for someone to message and then wonder what the next step is going to be or when they’ll hear back.
As mentioned earlier, Messenger has multiple ways for you to manage this expectation, including your own availability for responding to messages. Your away message here should include your hours and helpful links if you have those available.
Schedule posts
Once you have the content and calendar all ready to go, it’s time to schedule all those posts. Facebook has a robust native scheduler or you can use software like Sprout to help manage posts across multiple platforms.
The Sprout schedule not only shows drafts and scheduled posts but the ViralPost feature will automatically schedule based on your brand’s highest engagement times. You may not need a scheduling tool if you’re just starting your social presence, but over time you’ll likely find saving the time and effort for other parts of your social strategy to be an advantage.
Learn more about Facebook for small business
Facebook isn’t a set-up-and-done kind of social media platform. It’s constantly evolving in features, ads and newsfeed algorithms. Your campaign strategy from last year might not work as well this year if you repeat it without consideration of new social trends and features. Because of this constant evolution, it’s important to continue learning and exploring new strategies.
Custom audiences for ads
One of the strongest ways to advertise on Facebook is to use the custom audience feature. You can retarget those who have visited your website, engaged with your ads and most recently, taken certain shopping actions. Custom audiences take advantage of sources that you already have in place, like a newsletter list, and advertises to them. These people are likely more receptive to the ads because they’ve willingly followed or interacted with you already.
Review analytics
Without analytics, you can easily find yourself floundering in the midst of all your content efforts. How do you know if a post was successful if you don’t look at how it performed? Facebook’s native Insights tab gives you a plethora of information from engagement to clicks to Page actions.
However, with business growing, you might find yourself with a need to present analytics graphics to investors or management. Analytics tools like Sprout help you easily understand what’s going on with your Page and will generate presentation-ready graphics for you with the click of a button.
Keep up on new features
As mentioned before, Facebook is not a static platform. New features are constantly added and the advantage of being a small business is that you can easily test these out without a complex and time-consuming chain of approvals and inputs.
For example, your business might benefit from adding a Shop feature, allowing you to tag products on a post and for consumers to purchase from it. A larger business may have difficulty linking a huge catalog but a small business with a focused offering could do it easily.
COVID–19 grants
With the COVID–19 pandemic severely impacting small business operations, Facebook announced a $100 million cash grant for small businesses and an additional $100 million to Black-owned small businesses, creators and nonprofits. Take a moment to see if you qualify for the program.
Take Facebook for Business courses
It’s to Facebook’s advantage for business owners to get the most out of their platform. Because of this, the company created an entire resource library for businesses. The resources range from new features relevant to businesses to singular courses to helpful case studies for inspiration. Exploring resources like this and reading about new Facebook strategies puts you ahead of the curve and at a competitive advantage to other small businesses.
Conclusion
Facebook doesn’t have to be a daunting platform for small businesses. Once you break it down into steps, a Facebook marketing strategy is easy to learn and execute. Small businesses need to pay attention to details like the CTA button and set up Messenger to take full advantage of what the platform offers. With the right approach and upkeep on new features, you’re well on your way to being a pro at Facebook. For the latest data on how marketers and consumers are using social media, explore the Sprout Social Index.
While nearly everything came to a halt in early 2020, social media never slowed down. In fact, roughly half of consumers report using social more since the coronavirus pandemic began.
Sprout’s Agency Partner Program was built to help our agency customers expand their client networks, connect with other agencies around the globe and use Sprout best-in-class tools to serve their clients more effectively. Agency Partners have always recognized the power and value social, but a common challenge agencies face is demonstrating that value to clients. The events of 2020, however, created a tipping point. Read on to learn about how eight agency experts turned tumultuous times into an opportunity for their clients to level up on social.
1. Social is an essential tool for essential businesses
Ingredient is a food marketing agency and several of their clients are grocery stores, which were deemed essential businesses during COVID-19 and were one of the few places consumers still regularly visited during the pandemic.
“Social media has been critical when it comes to grocery stores keeping customers informed of store hours, mask guidelines, and what precautions they are taking to keep their employees and customers as safe as possible. We’re seeing customers connecting with their local stores at more of an emotional level instead of just a functional level as customers openly express their support of and appreciation for the store employees.
Through Sprout Premium Analytics, we’ve been able to monitor the impact of this on impressions, reach and engagement. More specifically, we saw organic impressions double from February to March as customers looked for and shared this information on both Facebook and Instagram.”
When the world feels unstable, people search for answers and a port in the storm. Throughout the pandemic, the 123 Internet Group’s top priority was ensuring that their clients are staying connected with their customers and communities on social.
“No matter what industry you’re in, you need to keep in touch and be transparent with your customers. We worked closely with all our clients to help them understand the needs of their customers while providing answers and advice related to the pandemic.
We use Sprout Social to schedule and post regular Q&As so our customers can drum up conversations and take direction as to how they could improve their business straight from their customers. Then we use Sprout Analytics to understand which posts and topics had the most engagement and which stories resonated. As we continue to grow their following we can ensure we continue to highlight these topics to increase engagement”
– Scott Jones, CEO, 123 Internet Group
3. Personal connections > constant sales messaging
Retail is an industry that has faced major disruptions during 2020 like store closures, production plant shutdowns and drops in sales. Connec+, a full-service digital marketing and retail consultancy business, recognized that social media would be instrumental in filling communication gaps.
Thanks to social media we were able to continue to provide the connection that customers were craving throughout this time. We moved our focus from marketing and ads to more direct engagement—one-on-one interaction with other people—and our followers responded.
As we added in marketing messages we were able to convert more customers through social media to sales, and the loyalty we created during lockdown has continued as the stores have reopened. It’s been an important lesson for our clients that personal connections on social media are more valuable than constant sales messaging and we hope that they will continue to see the importance in the months to come.”
Connection is the new currency. At Aroluxe Marketing, an integrated marketing agency in Nashville, TN, the team takes an empathetic approach to creating deep, authentic connections between clients and their audiences.
“Social media is now more important than ever. It enables your brand to stay connected despite our current environment. The key is finding what your audience needs during this time both emotionally and physically. Do they want to be sold to right now? Would your product or service be valuable to them right now? Maybe your ideal customer just needs some feel good stories or wants to know how your brand is supporting its community. Sprout’s Social Listening tool allows us to dive deeper into whatever those needs may be and build content around those insights.”
– Sara Staats, Social Lead, Aroluxe Marketing
5. Teach clients where they fit into the new landscape
Emely Roman and her team of “marketing mixologists” at The Foundry Collective ensure that their clients’ social presence is anything but generic. Unfortunately though, social was the first thing to go for some of her clients as the pandemic disrupted business. They quickly realized their mistake.
“In the beginning of the pandemic, we lost a couple of clients because social media had sat on the back burner of their company budgets. However, as social distancing and isolation became a new norm, those same clients and new ones quickly realized how important it was to use social to connect with their audience online.
A restaurant, a public speaker and even a ministry reached out to us to help them enhance their social media presences. All of them were now faced with the challenge of developing new product offerings and reaching out to an evolving consumer base. Thankfully because we had Sprout Social on our side we were able to send proposals with live competitor analysis from their Listening Tool, which showed how much more efforts the brands that are currently being successful were putting on social media.”
– Emily Roman, CEO, The Foundry Collective
6. The only doors that have stayed 100% open during hard times are on social media
At See.Spark.Go., social media is a pillar of the content marketing they provide for their clients. As their name suggests, they balance long-term thinking and learning with quick reflexes and real-time data.
“As Sprout’s CMO Jamie Gilpin said during Sprout Sessions, ‘the only doors that have stayed 100% open are on social media.’ Whether it was daily changes in store hours or a CEO opening a dialogue about racial injustice, we were able to show our clients data from examples—both good and bad—and connect it to their long-term strategic business objectives.
Reporting weekly, being transparent and adjusting our strategies based on new learnings regularly allowed us to continue to show the value of social media, so much so, that clients who were forced to furlough internal team members saw that the one thing they couldn’t press pause on was social.”
– Jennifer Garrett, VP of Content and Creative, See.Spark.Go.
7. Social is the where customers go for quick, reliable customer support
According to the 2020 Sprout Social Index™, 49% of consumers will unfollow a brand on social due to poor customer service. In times of crisis, the need for reliable customer service and support only becomes greater, which Happy Hour Media Group recognized and championed during the pandemic.
“Our agency has shown our clients how powerful social media can be for providing customer support and helping to ease tensions and concerns their customers have during tumultuous times. Businesses that stay silent leave their customers more confused, so we advised them to continue sharing any and all relevant updates on social media to keep customers updated and informed.
Thanks to the help of Sprout, our agency is able to stay on top of incoming messages and relevant mentions that come in through the Smart Inbox. This ability helps our agency and our client be responsive enough to turn a frustrated customer into a satisfied one.”
– Amanda Mueller-Hickler, Social Media Manager, Happy Hour Media Group
We're bringing you a 4-part series on lessons learned from a global crisis full of insights from social media marketers…
CREW Marketing Partners, a full-service agency that prides itself on growing their clients into leading brands in their industries, proved it’s not just paid media that supports marketing goals. An engaged audience and organic content can go a long way. They’ve got the data to prove it.
“I talk with clients about companies that invest in content and audience building year after year, and explain that those are the brands that are finding themselves in a better place today than their competitors who didn’t make that investment. That’s in part because those businesses that build engaged audiences don’t have to rely entirely on paid media for their traffic when times get tough.
When we halted nearly all paid activity, we pitched a social contest to a client as a way to continue building brand awareness. We were able to use Sprout Social data to clearly illustrate how the contest helped give the brand extensive organic reach and impressions, engagement and new followers. Making the investment in building audiences has recently paid dividends, and will again in the next downturn.”
– Brad Marshall, Director of Digital Marketing, CREW Marketing Partners
Grow with us
Being able to help our Agency Partners excel during challenging times is what Sprout’s Agency Partner Program is all about. The program includes access to co-marketing resources, sales support to grow your network and a community of support and unmatched social expertise. Come grow with us! Learn more here.
Huawei and TikTok were two of the most successful examples of globalization. Huawei started as a small private firm in 1987 and has risen in just over 30 years to become a world champion in telecommunications. TikTok has succeeded over a much shorter time period. Having only launched in 2016, the video-sharing service is now the fourth most popular app in the world and has achieved 1.9 billion downloads worldwide. Both of these Chinese companies are now at the mercy of a widening geopolitical divide. The US has led an increasingly successful campaign to eliminate Huawei from the global market…
The four horseman of the techpocalypse – the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google – joined the US House of Representatives today for an antitrust hearing. We watched every second of the more than five and a half hours of Congress’ grilling of some of the richest men in the world so you wouldn’t have to. Let’s start with the ending. House Antitrust Committee Chairman David Cicilline closed today’s hearing with the following statement: This hearing has made one fact clear to me: these companies as they exist today have monopoly power. Some need to be broken up, all…
When making purchasing decisions, potential customers put a lot of weight on the experiences of others. Many shoppers seek out reviews to find objective and unbiased information on products they’re interested in buying. As a marketer, social proof such as reviews from customers organically sharing their opinion is extremely valuable.
It’s essential to incorporate asking for reviews into your marketing strategy to make sure that you’re getting quality reviews from your customers.
The importance of customer reviews
Figuring out how to use customer testimonials as part of your brand’s marketing process can boost credibility through social proof, improve your reputation and relationships with your customers, and improve your brand’s SEO and visibility.
Better brand reputation
Having a lot of reviews can improve your brand’s online reputation and inform new potential customers. Shoppers will see that your brand has helped others solve a problem and use it as a solution of their own.
According to a study conducted by BrightLocal, 85% of online shoppers trust reviews just as much as personal recommendations. So when shoppers see a high number of positive reviews, they’re less likely to have concerns, or second guess purchasing your product.
Increased social proof
Social proof is a concept rooted in customers’ sense of belonging. Customers want to feel good about who they’re giving their money to and they want to feel like they are making the right decision. Having a lot of customer reviews can reinforce potential customer’s feelings of certainty about your brand. It makes them secure in their buying decision by showing them that others have made the same decision and that they are satisfied enough to recommend the purchase to others.
Improved SEO
Once your brand receives five reviews on Google, your business will begin to show up on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). This strategy is most beneficial for local businesses. However, it can also create an advantage over your competitors if you have the most reviews on your Google My Business page. The more reviews you have on Google, the higher your business will show up in local search results.
How to get more reviews from customers
Most brands hope that their customers will love their product or service enough to leave glowing reviews organically. But if you’re not actively seeking out reviews, customers may move on and forget to write them. For this reason, it’s important to incorporate intentional strategies to ask your customers for reviews.
If you’re unsure how to ask for customer reviews, here are some strategies you can use to encourage your customers to provide reviews more frequently.
Reach out to power users or repeat customers
One of the easiest ways to get customer reviews is to reach out to customers who you already know enjoy your products. For e-commerce or B2C brands, follow up with customers who have made multiple purchases. For B2B brands or Saas companies, take note of the people who continually use your service or software and reach out to these power users for feedback or even participation in case studies.
This outreach can be as simple as sending an email expressing your appreciation for their continued support. In this email, ask if they are willing to leave a review and create a direct link for them to use to review a product they purchased.
Make it as easy as possible
The easier it is for your customers to leave their review, the more likely they are to do it. Creating a template or form that the customer can quickly fill out will lower the barrier and streamline the process. While you want the review to be authentic, creating a streamlined process makes it easier for your customers to share their thoughts.
A lot of brands, like Expedia, create forms that give customers the option to rate different parts of the experience. All it takes is a few clicks to rate and review various aspects of their trip.
Offer an incentive
Sometimes people need an extra push to share their experiences. After all, people are busy and leaving a review or testimonial can be time-consuming. Show your customers that you value their time and feedback by offering a small incentive to anyone who leaves a review. This can include things like a small discount on their next purchase, a freebie or a shoutout of some sort.
ActiveCampaign implemented this strategy by emailing their users a request to leave a review in exchange for an Amazon gift card. To promote transparency, they even encouraged customers to disclose that they received an incentive to leave this review.
Create review options on different platforms
To make it even easier for your customers to leave reviews, give them the option to leave reviews on a variety of platforms. If customers are more active on Facebook, they’re more likely to leave a review on your Facebook Page. Some of your audience might prefer to use Yelp or Google reviews and choose to leave you a review there. Make sure that you’ve claimed your business pages on various platforms to allow your audience to share their experience more easily.
Share user-generated content
Keep an eye out on social media for people who are already, organically talking about your brand. If your brand receives a lot of user-generated content, highlight those customers by sharing their posts with your audience. It demonstrates that you have fans who value your product enough to talk about it on their own. You can also show your appreciation for your loyal customers by replying to them on social media and sharing their messages on your accounts.
You can also create a branded hashtag and encourage your audience to share their experiences using that hashtag.
Use a Review management tool
If you’re not sure how to track and manage your Facebook or Google My Business reviews, Sprout’s Reviews tool can help. The tool enables you to manage and monitor reviews across multiple business pages. The Reviews tool makes it easy to keep track of all of your review platforms. In Sprout, you can Google My Business, Facebook Pages and TripAdvisor reviews, all from one easy-to-use dashboard.
Using a review management tool that helps you integrate all of your review platforms can save time and keep you organized. It will also make it easier to respond to reviews and track where they come from. Knowing where your reviews most frequently come from can help create a more streamlined strategy when asking for them in the future.
Create case studies
For B2B brands, creating case studies can be a lucrative way to show how you’ve helped other businesses. Case studies are much more in-depth than standard testimonials. When done right, they can be an incredible way to showcase your product or service in a new light.
At Sprout, we use case studies to highlight customer success stories and showcase how brands are using our tools to meet their goals. Case studies are mutually beneficial for clients because they also highlight the other business. They also demonstrate new ways existing customers can use product features that they may not have thought of previously.
Creating a case study will require more of a time commitment on your part and on that of the client. You may need to conduct multiple interviews and it helps if you have been tracking the client’s progress over time.
Things to remember when asking for customer reviews
Yes, asking for reviews is an integral part of your strategy. But you still want your customer reviews to be as authentic as possible. There are some strategies you should avoid as they can promote dishonest reviews and even damage your brand’s reputation. Keep the following guidelines in mind when asking for reviews:
Encourage honest reviews. Always encourage your audience to be as truthful and authentic as possible in their review. Offering incentives can encourage more reviews, but never pay someone to write a positive review. The purpose of the incentive should not be to sway their review in any way.
Avoid asking too soon. Wait until your customers have enough time to form an opinion before asking them for a review. Asking too fast or too often could come off as pushy.
Create a feedback loop. Make sure that you’re engaging with your audience before asking for a review and have a good feedback loop cycle. If you consistently receive negative reviews, find ways to make improvements and incorporate customer feedback into your product before asking for additional reviews.
Customer reviews have the power to propel your brand’s reputation and build trust with your audience. Whether you’re collecting reviews on your website, social media, or another tool, these strategies can help streamline the process. For a more in-depth look at how reviews can impact your business, download our complete guide on Building a Better Reputation with Reviews.
