Moving your Small Business online - Part 3: LinkedIn, Meet-Up, Email Marketing

Continuing with our tips for moving your business into the online space, let's look at what businesses should consider having a Company LinkedIn page, network through Meet-Up or use regular Email Marketing. 

LinkedIn 

LinkedIn is a great way to leverage your own professional network, and great for HR and recruitment purposes.

LinkedIn in a nutshell:

• Create your professional profile (online CV), and connect with those in your professional network. 
• Recommend or endorse your connections for skills you have seen them prove. 
• Use LinkedIn to share updates in your career or news related to your business, you can also use it to share articles with connections or to let them know of new skills or career changes. 
• Create a business or company page to share updates and information about your business including business services, promoting job vacancies and connecting your business with your employees for greater brand awareness and reach about your products and services. 

Businesses who should use LinkedIn: B2B or businesses who rely on their professional network for their business.

Meet-Up

Meet-up is an online profile where you can upload information about yourself and create and organise to attend networking events in your area with other users.

A broad reach with localisation means that entrepreneurs can connect with each other in an online space, as can people of different interest groups. You also have the ability to connect with other people in the Meet-Up network.

Businesses who should be on Meet-Up: start-ups, entrepreneurs, small businesses who can offer their services to other business startups, businesses who want to grow their network.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a great tool to build customer loyalty and retention. When used correctly, email marketing can generate healthy web traffic and sales. We've written a lot about Email marketing including Best Practice do's and don'ts, how to create a database and importance of clean data, tips for the functionality and design of a marketing email and a post on execution and reporting of an email campaign

Businesses who should use email marketing: any green or eco-friendly business (instead of direct postal mail-outs) sole traders or small businesses for sharing news about their company to regular customers, retailers, B2C businesses who offer sales and discounts or whose range of products varies by season, businesses who want to capitalise on word of mouth referrals and for customer retention. Season specific businesses, Accountants and those which may go for months without speaking to customers, to optimise top of mind brand recognition and therefore retention.

Part 4, our final collection of tips for assisting businesses in moving to the online and digital space looks at paid advertising across search engines, social media and other websites.

Sincerely,

Caitlin Davey

Director of Communications

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