One action small business websites fail at and shouldn’t!

I consistently meet and speak with a wide range of small business owners. And they all have the same simple request of teaching them to generate more customers and make more money.

And if not, then their request is that I provide them with an SEO solution that will increase rankings and traffic in hopes of increasing repeat sales.

There are many marketing actions and things a small business, especially an online business or a business that depends on its website as the primary source for lead generation, can and must do when it comes to planning and executing sound Internet marketing strategies.

There is low-hanging fruit, such as participating using social media networks such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and LinkedIn, to name a few. Of course, it can pay to submit to the legit directories.

Then there is also pay-per-click advertising for those who desire instant results.

Then there is the old tried and true method of creating content that engages potential and existing customers to share with the masses.

And don’t forget press releases, guest posting, blogging, ebooks, tutorials, and video marketing, to name a few.

But there is one internet marketing strategy that I experience quite often that small business fail to take action on… Guess what action it is?

What small businesses often fail to do with their website…

All in all, the one action that I see small businesses fail at taking most often is not setting up a mailing list to capture email addresses.

Often small business owners tend not to set up a mailing list when launching their website due to a lack of technical inclination and expertise or due to the lack of time amongst other business-related tasks.

Most times, the thought of a mailing list doesn’t happen until small businesses have amassed years of business and customers under their belt.

This is fine, but the opportunity lost in gathering customer emails from the initial website launch and along the way is HUGE.

For instance, I have website projects outside of KickstartCommerce.com that I launch with newsletter mailing lists, and those sites gather at least 2-3 individuals per week.

Now that total might not be much to write home about, but it sure beats ZERO email signups per week, right? Exactly, that’s what I thought.

So stop letting visitors visit your website, click around, and read content without you having prompted them to join your mailing list.

You’ll thank me later once you see how many potential customer email signups come your way on a weekly basis (hopefully hundreds more than my website!).

How to get started with your website’s mailing list.

So how do you get started? Well, I’m glad you asked!

If your small business has failed to execute a mailing list subscription on your website, then I invite you to view my latest video tutorial about integrating WordPress WP Popup Plugin with Mailchimp.

Of course, your website will have to be WordPress to use the plugin, and you’ll need to create a Mailchimp account.

If your website is not developed using WordPress, then you can use Mailchimp’s built-in pop-up form generator to create your popup modal mailing list subscription form.

In addition to the popup modal, I recommend placing a signup form at the top, side, or bottom of each web page.

Oh yeah, I use Mailchimp because it has a free service for sending 12,000 monthly emails to a max of 2,000 subscribers.

After you pass either limitation, you can reasonably afford an account upgrade using Mailchimp’s account upgrade calculator.

And before I forget, lastly, don’t let using Mailchimp or WordPress stop you from executing a mailing list signup on your website.

There are a variety of WordPress and other CMS mailing list plugins you can search for and use.

In addition, there are options in the email marketing space, such as Aweber, Constant Contact, iContact, Vertical Response, and GetResponse to name a few.

So, if nothing else, and no matter how you decide to execute a mailing list, just don’t fail at not taking action for your business and website.

That’s it for now! Watch the video tutorial, and I’ll catch you in the next post!