The Future of Social Media: Crystal Ball or Join Constant Contact Online Marketing to Stay a Step Ahead.

I don’t know about you, but I do know that I can’t tell the future of anything, let alone social media. Trust me on this one, if I could, I would be super wealthy and be way more advanced. Unfortunately that isn’t the way it is, so your best chance with knowing the future of social media is to search and investigate new products on the market. After I did a lot of searching to determine what I would write about this week, I decided to go with the company that I believe has been a pioneer in e-marketing since the beginning.

Constant Contact is an email-marketing program that helps small businesses succeed and excel in the online world. Back in the day when email programs were only used to view emails from friends, the people at Constant Contact knew there could be so much more to it.

Constant Contact was founded as “Roving Software” in 1995 and set up shop in Brookline, Massachusetts. Randy Parker was the brains behind this very valuable marketing tool that helps small businesses succeed against the large businesses out there.

Constant Contact has many different ways of reaching out and providing small businesses with the right tools to grow and prosper in the world of online marketing. Some of the tools available to use at Constant Contact are: email marketing, email plus, blogging, market resources, web hosting, ecommerce, mobile tools, seminars and training. They operate as an endurance business unit, where they have many large brands in their portfolio such as Hostgator and iPage and they continue to acquire many small companies.

There are many opportunities to use Constant Contact, such as the ability to track your emails in real time; to watch the analytics of your post in order to understand if it is reaching the right demographic; and being able to see who is opening and sharing your emails. With the advantage of these tracking mechanisms, it gives you the insight to know if your email marketing is on target. Constant Contact is able to provide you with reports, which include: engagement reports, comparable campaigns, click tracking, click segmentation and mobile open rates. All of these tools are imperative to small businesses to be able to make sure their email marketing is being sent and used in the right direction for their business. Another very beneficial tool I have found useful is being able to track your marketing on the go through the Constant Contact app that is available to you now. With the app you can edit your content, see the social integration and review comprehensive tracking.

An additional advantage that you can use to expand your reach is the social share buttons that are available to your business through the email-marketing program. Once you have created your email to send to your contacts, you are then able to easily share your email through all your social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You can schedule when you want your email to go out and how many times you want to send it.

“Constant Contact’s mission is to make it fast and easy to drive impactful results from customers’ email marketing, even if they’re a beginner,” said Jonathan Kateman, General Manager, Constant Contact. “These new tools will help our customers easily create more engaging, customized emails that will help grow their business.”

The same can happen with marketing. Even just mentioning your customer’s name in the subject line of an email can boost open rates. If you only have a few chances a day to grab the attention of your customers, you need to make sure you’re doing everything you can to make an impact.

All of these Constant Contact tools are amazing, but unless you have an email list to send them to, it isn’t very useful at all. This is why Constant Contact also provides you with an email list-building tool. This tool is crucial to be able to grow your contact list. Some of the advantages that this tool provides is an easy way to incorporate a sign up form on your website and you can also add the sign up form to your social media platforms. Another advantage is to collect contacts at trade shows and events. There is also the ability to text and join and you can add contacts from apps you are already using. Once people have joined, you can generate a personalized welcome email that is very engaging for the contact.

“Welcome emails generate as much as 320% more revenue than other promotional emails,” Constant Contact, 2018.

It’s important to note that Constant Contact is aware and very respectful of the Anti- Spam Laws. As a small business, you should be aware of these laws and Constant Contact has given businesses the ability to add an unsubscribe link to every email send out. Once a person signs up to your marketing email, Constant Contact will keep that implied acceptance email for your business for future references if need be.

The list of available marketing tools that Constant Contact has to offer small businesses is always changing and growing. Constant Contact has a promise that they abide by and that is to help small businesses succeed and to be available to them when they have any issues.

 

Lessons for Others

Constant Contact is a one-stop shop for small business owners as far as I’m concerned. You can use Constant Contact for employee engagement by adding a unique email list of employees where you’re able to send out invites for in-house events, coupons, meetings, info sharing and so much more. You can use the program for your supply chain, staying in contact with your suppliers and for real time tracking. Constant Contact is the ultimate marketing tool, with the ability to track and analyze all your social media marketing as well as tracking your social media engagement with customers.

Do I have a crystal ball to predict the future of social media? No, but what I do have is a program that I use faithfully every week to continue to grow the company I’m working for. I trust that the team at Constant Contact are always on the look out for new and exciting advancements to the future of social media marketing. With a company that in the last 23 years has been able to grow to having over 5 million businesses subscribe to their program, it’s easy to say that any small business will be in the right hands with Constant Contact if they are looking to advance and exceed in the future of social media.

If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site, please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Program Director, Social Media for Business Performance.

---

References