When it comes to marketing, I'm a little old school. I believe at the heart of most marketing, you want to try to get contact information that will travel regardless of the platform (e.g. Instagram or Facebook). This is–you guessed it–name, e-mail address, and phone number.
The reason is that you can connect with just about anyone via e-mails. Now, it has become more and more crowded and competitive but when there's competition, it doesn't mean not to use it. Sometimes it means to just provide more value and something unique.
Visibility is often the name of the game. It manifests itself in different ways, but I always usually say that most small businesses and entrepreneurs can start with e-mail marketing. The reason is that if you really think about it, e-mail is the largest social network.
Now it's often not as sexy as other platforms, but it does provide you with an opportunity that is in essence the same as social media–to communicate and connect with people.
The reason that I say it's the largest social network is because often you have more e-mails than anything else, especially when starting your business. This is really a great fit for e-commerce websites or small businesses, solopreneurs or anything in between.
One of my recommendations is always to look into using Constant Contact ( Full Disclosure: We are a partner). I usually try to determine how tech-savvy our Blue 16 Media clients are and if they're not (or are) I usually recommend Constant Contact because there's a endless amount of resources that are available (check out one below) and awesome support.
Top Reasons to Use Email Marketing
Please note: Blue 16 Media is a Constant Contact Partner