There is a good reason why people constantly talk about the benefits of social media as they pertain to small businesses. However, with all of the attention being paid to social media, email often gets lost in the shuffle. Email is still a wonderful way to generate leads and gain interest in your small business. With so much of an emphasis on Facebook and Twitter, email marketing is quickly becoming a lost art. If you know how to use email to your advantage, you will be amazed at the increase in traffic you will have at your site. Here are some small business email marketing solutions.

1. Free gift for sign up

Your mother always told you that you have to give something to get something. As usual, her words are very true. In the world of business email solutions, offering a free gift is a proven method to get people to do just about anything you want. In this case, you want your customers to hand over their email addresses so you can send them promotional information about your products and services. However, many people will not take the time to fill out a form online unless that are getting something in return. Offer something cheap as the free gift. Although this free gift will cost you money, compiling a list of valid email addresses will be more than worth the investment. Companies often pay a lot of money for email lists to help them generate leads.

2. Content unlocked with email addresses

This is becoming an increasingly popular trend in the world of e-commerce. Here is how it works. A site will promote some content that will attract the interest of users. This might be some videos, pictures or articles that are exclusive to that site. However, in order to have complete access to this content, the person must enter his or her email address. Upon doing this, the content will be unlocked. This is another form of giving the user something in exchange for them handing over their email address.

3. Sweepstakes and giveaways

Promote the fact that you will be having a sweepstakes or a giveaway in the near future. In order for people to be eligible to win some nice prizes, users will have to, you guessed it, type in their email address. Very few people can turn down a contest with no entry fee.