Marketing a small business can feel like a second job you never applied for. You know you should be sending emails, posting on social media and maybe even texting customers. But between running the business and looking after clients, it can be hard to know where to start, let alone how to do it well.
The good news is that marketing doesn't have to be complicated. Bringing your email, SMS and social media activity together can make it easier to plan campaigns, reach the right people and understand what's working.
Here are some of the most common small business marketing questions.
Getting started with marketing as a small business
What's the difference between multichannel and omnichannel marketing?
Multichannel marketing means reaching people through more than one channel, such as email, SMS and social media.
Omnichannel marketing goes a step further by connecting those channels so the customer experience feels consistent as people move between them. For a small business, that might mean using email, SMS and social media as part of the same campaign rather than treating each channel as a separate activity.
Why use more than one channel?
Each channel has its own strengths. Email gives you room for detail, social media helps you stay visible to a wider audience, and SMS is useful when you need to get a short message noticed quickly.
Using more than one channel also gives people different ways to engage with your business. Someone might see your offer on social media, receive more information by email and then click an SMS reminder when they're ready to act.
You don't need to use every channel for every campaign. Choose the channels that make sense for your audience and the message you're trying to communicate.
What should I do first when I sign up to Transpond?
Start by authenticating your sending domain, then run the Brand Analyzer. It scans your website for elements such as your logo, fonts, colours and social links, then uses them to help create branded email templates.
If you're moving from Mailchimp, you can also bring across your audiences, images and templates using the available integrations.
Choosing your audience
How do I pick who to send a campaign to?
Start with a clear group of people who are likely to find your campaign relevant.
For example, if you're promoting a new service, you could target previous clients who have shown interest in similar services. Use tags, custom fields or other contact information to narrow your audience and make the offer more relevant to the people receiving it.
You can also combine filters to create more specific audiences. For example, you might target previous clients who bought a particular service, attended an event or live in a specific area.
What's the best way to build that audience?
Save your filter as a list in Capsule. It becomes a segment in Transpond and can update as contacts are added or change, so there's no need to keep exporting and recreating the same audience.
If you're working as a team, make sure the list is shared with the relevant colleagues. If someone can't see a list you've created, this is one of the first things to check.
What's the difference between a group and a segment?
Groups and segments serve different purposes.
Groups are useful for broader contact organisation, while segments let you create filtered audiences based on information such as tags, fields or activity. That makes segments particularly useful when you want to send a campaign to a specific type of contact.
Segments saved from Capsule show a blue Capsule icon in Transpond. You can also create segments directly in Transpond, for example, based on website activity.
Creating your email
How can I make an email look professional without a designer?
Start with a template that has a layout you like, then make it your own using the drag-and-drop editor.
Add your logo and resize it if necessary. A full-size logo can take over the email, so leave enough space for the rest of your content. Remove anything you don't need, add relevant images from the built-in Unsplash library and crop them to fit.
You can also use the Styles settings to change elements such as button colours throughout the email, helping everything stay consistent with your brand.
Where should my main button go?
Place your main call to action relatively high in the email, where people can see it without having to scroll.
Use a colour that stands out from the rest of the design and make the button text specific. Instead of a generic "Click here", try something that tells the reader exactly what will happen, such as "Book my design consultation".
Can AI write my email for me?
AI can give you a strong starting point, which is often the hardest part of writing an email.
In Transpond’s AI Content Assistant, choose a tone, format and industry, then describe what you need. You can ask it to shorten the copy, change the tone or translate it, or edit the suggested text yourself.
It can also suggest a subject line based on the content of your email.
AI works best as a starting point rather than a replacement for your own judgement. Check the copy before sending to make sure it sounds like your business and contains the right information.
How do I personalise an email?
Use merge tags. They pull information, such as a first name, from each contact's record when the email is sent. You can use other fields you store about your contacts too.
Preview the email as a contact before sending to check that the information is appearing correctly. Merge tags can also be used in subject lines.
What's preheader text, and do I need it?
Preheader text is the short line that appears alongside or after the subject line in many inboxes.
It gives you another opportunity to tell people what the email is about and encourage them to open it, so it's worth filling in rather than leaving it blank.
How do I follow up with people who showed interest?
Use Link Tags to identify people who click a specific link or button, such as a booking link.
You can then create a segment of people who clicked that link and use it as the basis for a follow-up campaign.
For example, if 50 people click through to your consultation page but don't book, you could create a follow-up campaign specifically for those contacts rather than sending another message to your entire audience.
When should I send my campaign?
Choose a time that makes sense for your audience and your business. You can send a campaign straight away or schedule it for later, and you can build and schedule several campaigns in one sitting.
Transpond's Smart Sending options can also help you optimise delivery. Optimized Delivery prioritises more engaged contacts, while Best Engagement uses engagement patterns to help choose when to send. Availability depends on your plan.
A/B split testing can help you compare two versions of a campaign before sending the better-performing version to the remaining audience.
Two extra tips:
- Give each campaign a clear name, including the date, so it's easy to find later, and
- Turn on campaign updates if you want colleagues to receive a plain-text performance summary.
Sending SMS
When should I use SMS?
SMS marketing is particularly useful for smaller, targeted groups of people who already know your business. It can work well for exclusive offers, appointment reminders and renewal reminders.
The latter two can also be useful as automated messages, so customers receive timely reminders without you having to send them manually.
SMS doesn't need to repeat everything that's in your email. Use it for short, timely messages where getting the information in front of someone quickly is useful.
How long should a marketing text be?
Keep your SMS short and concise. Longer messages can be split into multiple parts, which can use additional SMS credits.
Transpond shows a character counter as you write, so keep an eye on the length of your message. Merge tags can also affect the final length, particularly if you're using fields that could contain longer values.
What rules do I need to follow?
Make sure you're sending marketing messages to people who have given the appropriate permission to receive them.
For marketing SMS, Transpond requires a sender name and an opt-out link. Sending is also limited to 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. by default.
SMS in Transpond is currently available in the UK.
Posting on social media
How do I adapt one post for different networks?
Start with one piece of content, then adapt it for each network.
Transpond’s AI Content Assistant can help adjust the copy for different platforms. LinkedIn, for example, can accommodate more detailed posts, while X generally calls for something much shorter.
Transpond can also flag images that don't meet a network's requirements and let you crop them before posting.
Should every channel get the same offer?
Not necessarily. Think about who you're speaking to on each channel and what they're likely to respond to.
For example, existing customers could receive an exclusive offer by email or SMS, while a wider social media audience could receive a different promotion.
If you're offering something exclusive to existing customers, consider giving them access before promoting a wider offer publicly.
The important thing is to keep the core message consistent while adapting the offer, format or call to action to suit each audience.
How do I keep track of everything?
Use the Campaign Calendar. It brings your email, SMS and social campaigns together in one view, helping you see what's scheduled and avoid competing or overlapping offers.
It also gives you a clearer picture of your marketing activity as a whole rather than making you manage each channel separately.
Reporting on results
Which numbers should I check after a campaign?
For email, start with key metrics such as opens, clicks, bounces and unsubscribes.
Then look more closely at engagement and conversions to understand what happened after people received the campaign. The click map can show which links were clicked and where, while engagement data can help you understand when people interacted with the email and, where available, where they were based.
Don't worry about tracking every available metric. Focus on the numbers that relate to the goal of your campaign. If your goal was bookings, for example, clicks and conversions are likely to tell you more than open rates alone.
Read our marketing metrics guide for more information on what to track across email, SMS and social media.
How do I read social media results?
Compare reach, or how many people saw a post, with engagement, or how many people interacted with it.
These figures don't always move together. A post can reach a large audience without generating much interaction, while a smaller audience can be highly engaged.
Looking at both measures helps you understand not just how widely your content was seen, but how people responded to it.
Can I compare campaigns over time?
Yes. Aggregate reports let you pull results from multiple campaigns across a selected date range, and you can download the results as a spreadsheet.
You can also include your own contact fields, allowing you to compare results using information such as location, event attendance or other details you track.
Over time, this can help you identify patterns in the types of campaigns, audiences and messages that generate the most engagement.
Can AI help me make sense of my data?
Yes. You can upload a report to an AI assistant and ask it to identify patterns or highlight areas that deserve a closer look.
Transpond's MCP is currently in private beta and can connect supported AI tools to your Transpond account. You can ask questions about campaign data, get suggestions for improvement and create campaign drafts or automations for review in Transpond.
That means AI can help with more than analysing what you've already done. It can also help you turn those insights into your next campaign.
Get started with multi-channel marketing campaigns with Transpond
You don't need to be a marketing expert to run campaigns across email, SMS and social media. The key is to start with a clear audience, choose the right channel for your message and use your results to improve what you do next.
Create a Transpond account here, or if you use Capsule, sign up using the Marketing button in the left navigation.