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In this article:\nAdvantages of starting a home-based business\nDisadvantages and caveats to having a business in your home\nThinking of leaving the rat race? Sick of hearing Taylor Swift on your office sound system? Want to spend more time at home with your family or significant other? You may be ready to start a home-based business.\nHowever, it’s not all beer and skittles, as our grandpappy used to say. There are significant and unique benefits, but there are a lot of potential downsides also.\nLets go over some things you should be aware of before you start a home-based business.\nWe’ll give you the bad news first:\nDisadvantages and caveats to starting a home-based business\nRestrictive local and federal laws and zoning regulations\nDepending on where you live and what type of business you’re thinking of starting, you may be subject to local or federal statutes.\nBe sure to consult your local zoning laws, chamber of commerce, city business organizations, federal regulations, and HOA bylaws to make sure it’s even legal to run a business out of your home.\nDifficulty separating work time from family time\nPeople who create home-based businesses may have a hard time keeping “home” and “work” time and resources separated.\nMany times, everything at home becomes subsumed in “the business” and this can cause a lot of friction with family or significant others.\nwife angry with busy husband working from home\nWork hard to maintain dedicated “work hours” and “work space” at home, and try to leave it all behind at the end of your workday.\nMore interruptions\nDepending on how “hands on” you are expected to be with your significant other, spouse, or kids, you may experience more interruptions to your workday when you have a home-based business. \nOf course, a brick-and-mortar shop can have a lot of interruptions as well, but an owner might consider them part of the cost of doing business.\nIt may help to take a similar approach at home and look at these interruptions to your concentration or tasks as part of the price you pay to receive all the benefits of working from home (and there are some great ones! See below).\nDifficulty getting funding \nInvestors, banks, and other purveyors of business capital may view home-based businesses as “less serious” than brick-and-mortar shops, and you might have a harder time justifying loans, cash flow advances, or other needed funding.\nbusiness loan form denied for home-based business\nThis is likely not a serious concern if you have a solid business plan and take your home-based business as seriously as you would a “real shop,” but it could potentially be a concern for some investors and you should be aware of it.\nKeeping accurate records is vital\nAre you organized? Can you maintain very accurate transactional, financial, and tax records? If not, don’t start a home-based business.\nExcellent financial records are essential for \nany\n business, but smaller businesses, particularly sole proprietors who work from home, face a higher risk of getting audited by the IRS, so it is crucial to keep impeccable records and all your receipts in an organized way. \nBusiness and personal expenses can be difficult to separate\nSince your business space and your domicile are now the same, this can create a headache when you face the need to keep your business and home expenses separate and distinct.\nBe ready to accurately estimate and record any use of personal space, vehicles, resources, utilities, etc. if you want to get the tax benefits of starting a home-based business (see the “tax deductions” section below).\nWarehousing or shipping concerns \nIf you sell products and have to worry about maintaining inventory and warehousing/shipping products, a home-based business can make things more difficult. \nIt is sometimes possible to find enough warehouse space at home, but this comes with a host of potential gotchas (local laws, pests, appropriate climate control and security, and angry spouses are just a few). \nGo deeper: Read our \ncomplete guide to fulfilling and shipping orders\n to learn more about some of these concerns and issues.\nPayment processing or accepting alternative payment methods\nSimilar to what you’d need for a brick-and-mortar business, you’ll need some way to take customers’ payments if you start a home-based business. \nSome holdouts still transact mostly by check, but for businesses that sell goods and services it’s pretty much table stakes to take credit and debit cards, which can add significant expense.\nBe sure to talk to your friendly processor representative or merchant service provider and see what kind of a deal they can cut you. Don’t pay for features you won’t need as a home-based business.\nNow that we’ve touched upon some of the potential downsides of starting a home-based business, let’s get to the good stuff.\nThinking about finding commercial space instead of starting a home-based business? Read our article on the \ntop things to consider before renting your first business space\n.\nAdvantages and benefits to a home-based business\nReduced business overhead\nIf you don’t have to pay for business premises, upkeep, or a commercial lease, you can drastically reduce your cost of doing business. \nSince you can share the utilities, maintenance, supplies, and mortgage expense with your primary domicile, and aren’t under any revenue-sharing obligations from a commercial lease, you can save huge… and don’t forget about your tax deductions. \nTax deductions for home-based businesses\nYou might be surprised to learn the tax benefits of having a home-based business.\nWhen you run your business out of your home, you can “write off”—or deduct from your taxable income—an amazing array of expenses, including all or part of your advertising costs, gifts for customers, business banking fees, business loan amortization and interest, “office expenses” and supplies, phone and internet lines, subscriptions to trade publications or newspapers, even a portion of your mortgage, mortgage insurance, homeowner’s insurance, maintenance, utilities, and HOA fees! \nHere’s a great article about all the various \nhome business tax deductions\n available to you.\nMore control of your business and personal environment\nBrick-and-mortar store owners have some say in how their store looks, feels, sells, and operates, but make no mistake, the commercial landlord and lease owner can be quite annoying and forceful in their demands regarding your facilities and finances. \nRead our article on \nhow much it costs to rent space for a small business\n to learn more.\nIn addition, retail customers have expectations about when you should be open, how your store should operate, what music you play (or don’t), what holidays you take off, etc.\nWhen your business operates out of your home, you make the call. \nAnd, you can structure your home workspace however you want. No more Backstreet Boys blasting from the office speakers (unless that’s your bag. You do you).\n\nWhen you’re free from the corporate nightmare of the open plan office or cube farms, when you’re free from noisy environments, smelly co-workers, annoying salesmen, and other distractions… you can make your home business work space a nirvana of creativity and productivity.\nWear what you want\nThis may not seem like a big deal to some people, but for others it can be incredibly freeing to not have to put on the restrictive, button-down corporate costume, strangling tie, powerskirt, or other stuffy, uncomfortable business attire.\nIf you find you work effectively rolling out of bed and working in your jammies and bunny slippers, go right ahead. (We suggest at least combing your hair and putting on a shirt for business video conference calls, though… don’t ask.)\nWork when you want\nHome-based businesses typically don’t have a string of customers stopping by who expect you to be “open” 12 hours a day, six days a week.\nIf you find you’re most productive late at night and prefer getting into a “groove” and working a marathon 14-hour stretch, there’s nothing to stop you (depending on family/relationship needs).\n3 a.m. brainstorm sessions? No prob. Want to dial it back or take some time off? If it’s financially feasible, go ahead. You make the call.\nIf you prefer to keep regular “business hours,” you can do that while still maintaining more flexibility for personal relationships. \nEasy commute!\nPeople who have worked in locales where the typical commute can average an hour (or two!) each way have expressed to us that they almost don’t know what to do with all the time they have when they start a home-based business.\nMore accessibility to family or significant others\nWhen you don’t have to commute or be at work at a certain time, you can be more flexible in your schedule and be there when your spouse, kids, or significant other need your attention.\n\nLive wherever you want \nThere may be some limitation to this depending on what type of business you run, but if you’re a one-person shop that produces products or services delivered via remote warehousing, drop shipping, or digital transmission, you can likely run your business from any location with a reliable internet connection or cell-phone signal.\nWant to live in a treehouse in Borneo? Make it happen, captain! Looking to \nstart your business in a small town\n? Go for it!\nMore time at home for what’s important… and for yourself\nWhen you don’t have to be “at work” to keep up appearances or conform to others’ expectations, you can take the time you need to meditate, cook, exercise, read, listen to music, or whatever else fills up your personal batteries. \nThis can mean you do better work and be more productive in addition to being happier and more personally fulfilled. And isn’t that why we work in the first place?

Advantages and disadvantages of starting a home-based business

In this article:\nWhy the average cost of rent for a small business is not the most useful statistic\nThe best way to approach your landlord about your rent to income ratio\nWhat percentage of your business should be spent on rent\nThe “unit cost” method of determining what you should pay for rent\nIf you’re a current business owner wondering if your rent is too high, this article is for you. If you’re considering renting business or office space for the first time, or perhaps the owner of a growing business wanting to move to a larger commercial space, please refer our article: \nHow much does it cost to rent space for a small business?\n \nIt’s time to address that gut feeling that you might be paying too much in rent. In this article, we’ll explain why questions like “what’s the average cost of rent for a small business” aren’t as useful as using a ‘unit economics’ approach.\nWe’ll also show you how to use unit economics calculations to determine if you’re paying too much for your rent, and discuss the best ways to negotiate a lower rate.\nThe “average cost of rent for a small business” and the wrong way to negotiate your lease\nWhen you’re trying to determine how much your rent should be, it’s tempting to try to research the average rent for a small business.\nMuch like when a renter searches through \naverage rent reports\n for a specific city to find their city’s average rent, this is the wrong approach and doesn’t really tell you anything useful (we’ll explain why below).\nFurthermore If you “just know” you are paying too much in rent, and you try to renegotiate, the first thing your landlord will say is, “Show me the proof! Show me the numbers.”\n \nwoman arguing with business landlord for what should I pay in rent\n\nResponding with, “But… I just \nknow\n you’re charging too much!” is a shortcut to stalemate and could even jeopardize your relationship.\nIf you want to make a strong case and generate black-and-white numbers, you need to know the “unit economics” of your small business.\nAlan Wille, CEO of Klipfolio, a business performance metrics company, defines unit economics as looking at the direct revenues and costs associated with the most basic element of a company’s business model. In other words, unit economics breaks down everything about your business into individual pieces.\nUnit economics is a more accurate view than “how much is rent for a business”\n“Done properly, a unit economics analysis will highlight opportunities, expose gaps, and direct you to optimal strategies for maximizing your profit,” Wille says.\nBelow, we’re going to look at how unit economics applies to rent. Let’s dive in.\nExamples of unit economics vs. average rent for a small business\nFor the sake of simplicity, let’s avoid spreadsheets and jawbreaking financial acronyms to learn about unit economics. Here are examples boiled down to help busy people to make quick, smart decisions.\nOne product costs $5 to produce, stock, and sell. It sells for $10. Looking at the economics of this unit, you can tell there’s a 50% profit margin.\nTo acquire one customer, it costs $25, between the online marketing campaign and paying the hourly employees on the sales floor. One customer typically spends $65. Looking at the unit economics, you can analyze your cost to acquire a customer (CAC) might be a little high, but still positive.\nOne square foot of space costs $6/month. But in one month your average gross revenue is $48,000. If your store is 1,000 square feet, that’s $6,000 a month in rent. Run the calculation and your rent is 12.5% of your monthly gross income.\nLet’s dig into this last example to tell if you’re paying too much rent as a small business.\nbusiness closed sign for how much should you pay in rent\n\nLearning your unit cost can keep your small business profitable.\nWhat percentage of a business’s revenue should be rent?\nTo calculate this commercial price to rent ratio, we’ll look at two things: (1) your type of business and (2) your competitors. Keep in mind the following percentages are rough and not exact. Use them as a benchmark.\nRestaurants: \nWhen calculating a good rent percentage for restaurants, the general rule of thumb is your total occupancy cost (rent and additional fees for property taxes, insurances, etc.) should not exceed 6-10% of your gross sales. (\nsource\n)\nAuto shops:\n The typical full-service auto shop spends 12-13% of annual gross revenues on rent. (\nsource\n)\nRetail stores:\n Retailers should target a base rental rate that is no more than 5-10% of gross annual sales. (\nsource\n)\nLaw firms: \nAttorney offices should expect to pay 6-7% of gross revenue, and even up to 15% for a prestigious address. (\nsource\n and \nsource\n)\nHair salons:\n Rent and property taxes should range from 3% for a remote location to 10% in a well-trafficked mall. (\nsource\n)\nKnowing these benchmarks, the next figure we need is gross sales. Finding this number is easy. How much money did your business make last year? What was the total sales for each month? Some small business owners will know this figure off the top of the head.\nThe last figures you’ll need is your business’s square footage and rent cost. We’ll provide different sums for the sake of illustration.\nFinally, here’s the simple calculation to determine if you’re paying too much in rent.\nGross sales / square footage = sales per square foot\nIf average monthly gross sales are $50,000 for a 6,000 square foot restaurant (average size for a Ruby Tuesday), then sales per square foot is $8.33.\nIf rent is $2/square foot, divide it by sales per square foot to get your percentage of income that goes toward rent.\n2.00 ÷ 8.33 = 24%\nIf this number is greater than the benchmark for your industry — restaurants, in this example, at 6-10% — then you can see you are paying too much in rent.\nIn our example, the restaurant is paying far too much in monthly rent. For every $8.33 in revenue that a square foot generates, $2.00 or nearly one-fourth of that is going to the landlord. This is too much, according to the industry average.\nThis calculation shows the unit economics of your rent, broken down into the revenue and expense of a single square foot. Why is this important? The restaurant owner in our example can now use the unit economics of their space to negotiate a lower rent agreement with the landlord.\nCalculate how much your business should pay in rent\nUse unit economics to calculate the return on each part of your business by analyzing the revenue and expense incurred by a single unit. Units can be anything.\nIn this article we focused on rent and the basic unit of a square foot, but you can use unit economics to analyze the return per employee, per desk, per customer, per product, per hour, etc.

Local business owners: are you paying too much in rent?

How can local businesses compete with Amazon?\nLet’s be honest: Amazon is a brilliant company that has permanently disrupted the retail world. Even longtime conglomerates like Barnes & Noble, Sears, JCPenny, and countless others have become proverbial Davids to Amazon’s Goliath. And, many businesses haven’t survived.\nIf so many small and big companies alike are being challenged like never before by Amazon, how can any business expect to survive and even thrive with such fierce competition? Is it as simple as learning how to sell on Amazon? Does the company have a secret weakness to exploit?\n10 ways local businesses can compete with Amazon\nThere are no easy solutions, but there are steps you can take to help ensure your business's long-term success. Here are 10 tips to help your small brick-and-mortar or e-commerce business compete with Amazon:\nBe unique\nYes, this sounds like an obvious piece of advice, but it couldn’t be more important in today’s business environment. Amazon sells just about everything, but it doesn’t sell \neverything\n. To compete, you’ve got to narrow your niche and offer something that can’t be found anywhere else.\nPerfect your website\nIf your website is difficult to navigate or simply has an outdated look, users will get frustrated and leave. Research shows that more and more people are shopping online. In fact, in \n2021 ecommerce revenue increased\n by 14.1%, reaching 13.2% of all retail sales, up from 8.1% in 2016. It might require a little time and attention to improve your website and ecommerce offerings, but you can’t afford not to.\nMake buying online easy\nEven after finding the perfect item, online shoppers will quit the buying process if something gets in their way. For example, if you require would-be shoppers to login prior to making a purchase, chances are they’ll quit. Make the online shopping experience seamless from start to finish.\n \nOffer a shipping solution\nNo one expects you to beat Amazon Prime’s fast and free shipping plan, but you should offer a shipping solution that works for your customers’ needs. Consider developing a shipping strategy that rewards first-time customers and frequent customers. If you make it easy and inexpensive for your patrons, they’ll likely keep coming back for more\n. \nGrow your online brand\nIs your company active on social media? Do you have reviews on sites like Google and Facebook? If you aren’t paying attention to your online business identify, your company is in trouble. Research shows that 90% of today’s consumers use online reviews when researching a product. Whether it’s shopping for a local pressure washer, tax accountant, or a bite to eat, people look to online voices before they make a decision. You can use that to your advantage.\nFocus on great customer service\nIt’s been said over and over again: customer service is the secret to keeping people happy. This sentiment is especially true in today’s Digital Age. Whether your customers are shopping online or inside your establishment, customer service is exactly where your small business can outshine the big guys. Provide your customers with personalized attention, service, and value they can’t get anywhere else, and they’ll be happy to support your business.\nCreate a loyalty program\nWhile you’re focusing on customer service, don’t forget to create a loyalty plan. Everyone likes free, so treat your repeat visitors to something extra when they come back again and again. The more a customer comes back, the more value you’ll get from them and the more likely they’ll continue to patronize your business.\nEmphasize the “local” in local business\nToday’s consumers care about their communities, and more and more are embracing the “shop local” trend. If you’re not active in your community, get out there. Start participating in events, like sponsoring the local high school team or joining a cancer walk. Open your doors to your neighbors and they’ll come in.\nTreat any employees right\nIf you have employees and they hate their jobs, their disdain and frustration will ooze into every corner of your business. Treat your employees with respect and make the workplace somewhere they want to be. Happy employees will treat your customers right.\n \nLove your business\nLet’s be real: being a small business owner is tough, and it hasn’t gotten any easier. There are so many thing to manage, and you simply can’t be an expert in everything. But if you love your business, your passion will shine through in everything you do.\n \nAmazon is a juggernaut, but your business can survive and even thrive if you focus on delivering a truly unique customer experience. Take a few simple steps and see what happens. We’re rooting for you!

10 ways local businesses can compete with Amazon

In this article:\nDo I need a restaurant feedback system?\n3 easy ways to get restaurant customer feedback\nTexting simplifies immediate feedback process\nThe importance of online reviews\nRestaurant customer satisfaction survey\nHow to get useful restaurant customer feedback is an age-old problem for restaurateurs. The operative word here is “useful.” Every restaurant will have some grumpy customers who love to complain and make their opinions heard, and today these diners trumpet their criticisms through reviews on Yelp, Google, TripAdvisor, and OpenTable.\nWhile you can’t (and shouldn’t) ignore these detractors, you need a more comprehensive view of how patrons are experiencing your restaurant. So, how can you get inside your customers’ heads to know what’s working and what isn’t?\nYou don’t really need a specific “restaurant feedback tool.” Here are three easy steps you can implement to know what your customers are thinking.\n1. \nAsk restaurant customers to text you their feedback\nYour customers have opinions about what you’re serving up, and they want to be heard. But, are you getting the message?\nReceiving feedback via text is one of the lowest-lift, simplest ways to interact with your patrons. Consider this: Research shows that 92% of people will stop visiting a restaurant after just one bad dining experience, but 90% say they’ll return to that restaurant if they are able to speak with management.\nToday, most people prefer to communicate via text, particularly if they have anything that might be somewhat negative to say.\nThat’s why texting is a great way to get more restaurant feedback. It gives your patrons the unique opportunity to converse with you directly, which means they’re more likely to tell you exactly how they feel—the good and the bad—so you can improve the customer experience and keep more customers loyal.\nafrican american woman texting customer satisfaction review restaurant\n\n2. \nRemind restaurant customers to post online reviews via Google My Business, TripAdvisor, etc.\nOnline reviews can make or break a restaurant. In fact, research shows that 95% of people look at review sites when choosing a place to dine.\nBasically, online review sites are your new homepage if you run a local restaurant.\nOnline reviews are great sources of customer feedback, and the more you have the more likely it is that new diners will find your business.\nAnd, getting regular reviews is vital, so you need to find a way to encourage customers to share their feedback about your restaurant online. If you don’t have reviews, start taking matters into your own hands. Research shows that 70% of people will leave an online review if asked — so, ask!\nYou might also like: \n4 steps of an effective marketing strategy for your restaurant\n3. \nAsk restaurant customers to complete a feedback/satisfaction survey\nIf you want to delve a little deeper inside of your customers’ minds, creating a restaurant feedback survey is the way to go. Conducting a survey gives you the opportunity to pick a specific area that you want to examine—your customer service, your menu, etc.—and ask your customers questions about it.\nSurveys are also a great way to discover customer trends that you can use in marketing material and to help you make strategic changes. But, it’s not always easy getting customers to complete surveys. Here are a three keys to consider:\nMake it short and sweet.\n No one wants to spend more than a couple minutes responding, so make the survey short and easy to complete.\nMake it accessible.\n Provide a link to the survey on receipts, the menu, your website—put it everywhere. You can also send out an email or include a “leave us feedback” box on your website or app.\nOffer incentives. \nEveryone likes a free drink or dessert. Offer your customers a special reward if they complete the survey, and they’ll be more likely to do it.\nIn the end, customers want to be heard. If you pay attention to what they’re saying, you can improve your business and build a loyal customer base. 

3 easy ways to get restaurant customer feedback

In this article:\n10 best practices for small business email marketing\nWhy should every small business consider email marketing?\nHow much does email marketing cost?\nWhat is the ROI of email marketing for small businesses?\nAs we’ve written before, \nemail marketing\n is hands-down the most powerful, effective, and efficient marketing tool for small businesses. If you follow the email marketing best practices detailed below, you can increase customer loyalty and revenue, improve conversion of potential customers, and expand your marketing audience.\nHow much does small business email marketing cost?\nDespite what you might think, small business email doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Websites like BEE free, Stripo, Chamaileon offer free HTML email templates, including simple drag and drop options. You can also elect to simply send a personalized email to your list from your business email account, using the default template.\nMany small businesses prefer to use dedicated business email platforms like MailChimp or Constant Contact, both of which offer robust tools for creating professional-looking emails and managing your lists. \nAccording to the sources we found, Constant Contact costs between $20 and $70 per month, depending on your number of contacts and the features you want. MailChimp offers free plans to get you started, the next tier is $10/month, and the “Pro” level plans start at $199 and up (an unlikely choice for a truly small business). Whether these are worth the cost of entry is up to you. \nIs email marketing worth it for small businesses?\nDespite a commonly held belief that email marketing is outdated or ineffective, it has been shown to have an unparalleled ROI of up to 42:1. \nOf course, this is not to say that you are guaranteed to make $42 for every $1 you spend on email marketing, but industry data supports that general figure. One report specifically for small business email marketing reported that users experienced a 183% return on their investments. So it’s clear that it’s worth your time.\nWhichever email service provider you choose, be sure to follow the best practices below to maximize benefit and minimize potential problems when sending promotional emails.\nLet's go over the top 10 email marketing best practices for small businesses:\n1. Get permission, and build your email list the right way\nWhile studies show 86% of customers actually want email from businesses they patronize, it is without question better to get permission before you email potential or current customers. \nGetting email addresses doesn’t have to be an awkward or involved process. It can be as simple as adding an email address field on your point-of-sale platform at checkout, including a “send me an email receipt” option during the purchase process or on your online or order form, or you can go truly old-school and leave a bowl for business cards or a clipboard near the check-out counter where customers can elect to write down their email addresses to receive promotions.\nYou should also encourage your social media followers to send you their email addresses to be included in special offers and promotions for your business.\nPopular business email platforms like MailChimp and Constant Contact allow “opt-in” or even a “double opt-in” process. A double opt-in requires a potential recipient to first agree to receive emails, but also requires that they then click a link in a welcome email confirming their subscription to begin receiving marketing emails.

You may get fewer email addresses on your “send” list this way, but remember the point of email marketing is to send timely messaging to your most profitable customer base, not to simply build an impressively large email list and blast out thousands of emails to people who really aren’t interested (and who will likely mark your emails as spam, which could get you in hot water with your email service provider and even with the FTC—see below).

So, while it’s likely not a huge problem to send occasional reminders or relevant offers to everyone associated with your business whom you have an email address for (as long as you follow the rules), you will almost certainly see better results if you are 100% up front about getting customers’ specific permission before you send them promotional emails.  \nMaking sure you have a solid “opt in” process in place will set you up for greater success as regulations change.\n2. Learn the regulations and follow them\nSending unsolicited emails is illegal in quite a few European countries, and consumer privacy laws are being tightened in the U.S. as well. \nYou need to familiarize yourself with the FTC’s Compliance Guide on the CAN-SPAM act, and which types of email are subject to these regulations, \nhere\n.\nMake sure to comply with regulatory directives regarding spam and unsubscribing. Include an unsubscribe link in every email and make sure to promptly and correctly remove any addresses that request to be unsubscribed, to avoid landing in hot water. \nPersonal email service providers like Gmail are very wary of “spammers,” but as long as you are emailing people who have opted in to receiving promotional emails, or you are emailing your actual customers rather than a purchased list of random contacts, you should be perfectly fine (as long as you comply with the CAN-SPAM act and follow correct unsubscribe practices).\n3. Avoid common “spam” techniques \nSmall business owners are often tempted to emulate the promotional emails they themselves receive… but this can be a big mistake. \nWhen crafting your subject lines, headers, and content, you should avoid generic subjects, caps lock, lots of special characters or EXCLAMATION!!! MARKS!!!! or anything even close to resembling “OMG!! TRY THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK TO SAVE $$MONEY$$!!!!” \nemail marketing best practices 3\nMany popular email service providers will automatically scan such emails and send them to the spam folder, and you may be flagged as a disreputable sender, which will defeat the purpose of sending emails to build loyalty.\n4. Be brief, interesting, and accurate\nUse the appropriate format and messaging expected by your industry and audience. This might include newsletters, offers, sales, birthday wishes, “thank yous” for purchases, reminders, holiday hours notifications, discounts, product announcements, or whatever else you think your customers might want to hear about.\nMake sure your company name or brand appears in the “from” line correctly, and keep your subject lines to 8 words or less, and <40 characters, including spaces. Include a compelling reason for people to read your email in the subject line.\n5. Make it worth customers’ while\nThink of ways to incentivize signing up for your email list. Can you give 10% off today’s purchase when they sign up? Can you promise 5% off all future purchases for everyone on your list? You should ask yourself, “What’s in this for my customers?” \n6. Make sure your links and any embedded content actually work properly\nBefore you send an email, double check that everything displays and works the way it should: videos play, links actually function and redirect to the proper websites, click-to-order takes you to the correct product or offer on your website, email contact links open the appropriate email software and populate the address correctly, HTML emails display content correctly on desktop and mobile, etc. Send yourself and/or your employees test emails and ideally check function on multiple platforms and browsers.\n7. Keep images small\nAny images you include should be optimized for web and should be kept below 100K in size—50K or below is preferable. This helps the email load quickly and fully. You only have one or two seconds before today’s impatient users will give up on your email and delete it. (Pro tip: this also applies to your website pages.)\n8. Proofread your copy\nIf you aren’t the best writer or editor in the world, hire or beg the services of someone you trust to proofread the “copy” (words) for typos, grammatical errors, clarity, and brevity. Professional-looking emails will be free of common mistakes, text formatting issues, etc. \n9. Consider including a text-only version for people who prefer not to open HTML emails\nSources disagree on which format produces the best results (HTML or plain text) but it’s a good idea to cover your bets when possible. So, you might include a plain-text version of every HTML email you send. \nWhy? Some people won’t even look at plain text emails, and some won’t look at HTML emails. When you build an HTML email in most of the common email platforms, there will be an option to also create a plain-text version that will be displayed for recipients who have their preferences set to display plain-text email only, and vice versa. \n10. Try drip campaigns\nWhile a more general email blast to all customers on your list can be effective, more sophisticated users might consider creating “drip” campaigns. \nDrip campaigns are series of emails intended to accomplish a particular goal for a particular group of customers. For example, you can select only those customers who have made recent purchases. A simple after-purchase drip campaign might look like this:\nThank you email —-> offer special pricing on a similar purchase —-> reminder —->\nIf you have a website where customers can purchase from you, you can send a drip campaign specifically to customers who have put items in their virtual shopping cart but then left the website. A drip campaign in this case might look like this: \n(cart abandonment) —-> nudge (“item left in your cart”) —-> purchase confirmation —-> thank you —-> (start a post-purchase drip campaign)\nNaturally, you can create drip campaigns for any group of customers, such as those who have purchased several times in the past but haven’t visited within the last year. \nSources:\n
\nhttps://www.constantcontact.com/blog/email-marketing-best-practices/\n
\nhttps://mailchimp.com/help/best-practices-mailchimp-email/\n
\nhttps://www.fundera.com/blog/email-marketing-strategy\n
\nhttps://www.betterbuys.com/marketing-automation/reviews/constant-contact/\n
\nhttps://ecommerce-platforms.com/compare/mailchimp-vs-constant-contact\n

Top 10 best practices for small business email marketing

In this 4-minute read:\nDon’t be afraid of skepticism\nHow to tell if a review is fake\nWhy do people post fake reviews?\nWhat’s being done about fake reviews?\nThe most common way to determine whether to shop at a new business is to look at their online reviews, whether those are from Google, Yelp, Facebook, or any other review platform. Sometimes, however, it can be difficult to tell if the reviews we read are real.\nWe’ve all heard of businesses paying for positive reviews, and many people create fake profiles online. So, how do you know if you can trust online reviews for the local businesses you research? \nSkepticism about online reviews is good\nFirst, don’t feel bad if you are skeptical of a particular review or set of reviews. \nFake reviews\n do exist, so you need to trust your instincts, and skepticism is constructive for helping you sort out the trustworthy reviews from those that aren’t. \nThere are all kinds of sketchy practices that businesses use to game the review system, so if you feel that something is off, it’s probably because it is. \nHow to tell if a review is fake\nIt can be difficult to tell is a review is trustworthy, but it all comes back to that skepticism. Be smart and trust your instinct. Pay attention to these signs to see if something feels off about the reviews you are reading:\nAfter not receiving reviews for months, there are suddenly 20 reviews within the span of 30 minutes\nA huge influx of new reviews at the time a new product is released\nRepetitive phrases throughout different reviews\nAnonymous profiles with no image or with images that aren’t of real people\nFalse information about the company\nRead \nhow to spot fake online reviews\n for a more in-depth look. \nYou can also try browser extensions like ReviewMeta and FakeSpot to see what trust ratings they give to the reviews you read. There are tons of resources created to help consumers like you to find good, honest reviews.\nWhy do people or businesses post fake reviews?\nOnline reviews have a powerful impact on businesses. They can help local businesses rank better in the search engines (so they can show up in front of customers like you), and they also have a huge impact on converting new customers to their products and services. \nMost of us read reviews before opting into a new service or committing to a new product. And this is why there is such a huge emphasis on online reviews. Some companies will do anything they can to get your business, even to the point of buying or creating fake reviews. \nWhen a company posts fake reviews or pays someone to post fake positive reviews on their own listings, they are just trying to get you to buy what they’re selling. It’s a “black hat” tactic that goes against most search engines’ guidelines. \nAnother type of fake review is when business owners or employees post fake negative reviews on their competitors’ listings to influence potential customers. This is also against most review platforms’ policies, and can create more confusion about the legitimacy of online reviews. \nWhat is being done about fake reviews?\nWith the amount of false information on the internet, is there even a way to trust \nany\n of the reviews that we read? Fortunately, the search engines and review platforms are dedicated to providing authentic experiences and they each have their own way of handling review scammers. \nYelp and Google both have the ability for any of their users to report suspicious reviews for possible removal by the platform administrators. To learn more, see our \ncomplete guide to removing fake reviews\n, and help report false reviews when you come across them. \nIn addition to the popular search engines and review platforms cracking down and trying to provide the best customer experience for their users, law enforcement and regulatory authorities are taking this type of false information seriously and have put laws into place to protect people from unjust review practices. \nPurposely misleading customers violates federal law and can be grounds for a lawsuit under the Lanham Act, which was enacted by Congress in 1946. The Lanham Act was put into place for trademark registration and protection, but it also covers deceptive advertising practices. \nIn recent years, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) brought a case against fake paid reviews in which a company posted fake reviews on Amazon for a weight-loss supplement. This led to an investigation into their product and huge financial obligations. \nIt is the goal of the FTC to protect and educate consumers, so there are guidelines and laws in place that require these online review platforms to subject to trustworthy practices. As the problem of fake reviews increases, the attention from regulatory authorities and review platforms is also increasing.\nShould I just ignore online reviews?\nDefinitely not. Don’t discount all reviews because of the few that may be misleading. While it may seem there is a huge amount of deception out there, there are a lot of genuine reviews, too. You just need to know the signs to look out for and pay attention to the reviews that come from real profiles, with full names, and photos of real people. \nPay attention to business owners’ responses on Google and Yelp reviews. These can offer you more insight into fake negative reviews and give you more information about how businesses treat their customers. \nOnline reviews can tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly about the businesses you are researching, and that research is important for making sure you get the best customer experience possible. \nReal reviews are valuable to consumers and businesses\nWith more and more news coming out about the FTC and other organizations fighting fake reviews, most local businesses are trying to adhere to trustworthy review practices and provide their customers with feedback from real people. \nYou can help contribute to the solution by sharing your own honest experiences with the businesses you come across.

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