by Marketing a small business can be a tough task to juggle for any owner.
Even if you have a person whose job is dedicated to today’s many marketing tasks – website management, social media, search engine optimization, advertising and more – the various strategies and methods can seem overwhelming.
Owners have to know which of those tactics works best for reaching their customers and target audiences. Email marketing is one strategy that is not mentioned above that every small business owner has to at least consider adding to his or her marketing toolbox.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing has been around almost as long as email itself. It’s a reliable method of reaching customers directly through their inbox.
Email has stuck around this long, even after blogging and social media arrived, because it’s an easy way to deliver personal, customized messaging to audiences.
Why email is so powerful
Email is a powerful marketing technique for any business because once you have a customer or client’s email address, you essentially have been granted permission to contact them because they are already interested in your products or services.
By building off this existing interest, you can more easily transform these people into new or repeat customers.
Plus, you get your money’s worth with email. According to The Blueprint from Motely Fool, businesses can expect a $42 return, on average, for each $1 dollar spent on email marketing.
So, let’s get into more on how you can make email deliver real results for your business.
Easy sign-up forms keeps your audience growing
You can’t hope to grow your email list if nobody knows how to sign up. If your email list isn’t always growing, then you’re not going to see better and better results from email campaigns.
That means you have to know how to create sign-up forms that are easy to find – always on your website, often on social media. You may also want to consider writing content that persuades people to sign up. Consider telling people what they will get out of being on the email list.
Finally, don’t ask for too much information. People don’t want to take up too much time signing up.
Email lists can be segmented, messaging personalized
Here’s where email shines brighter than many other digital marketing tactics. With email, you can segment audiences in your email lists to make it an even more personalized experience for your audience.
A few segment ideas are people who recently made a purchase, people who open your emails frequently, people who don’t open your emails, repeat customers – the options are practically limitless.
Segmentation offers that personalized feeling that helps your customers feel as though you are writing to them, not at them. This helps build relationships and loyalty to your business.
Frequent, consistent communication is a must
Businesses need to get in front of their customers as much as possible for their marketing to succeed. Email has the advantage of arriving directly in an email inbox rather than within a busy, sometimes off-putting social media feed.
Now, take that advantage and run with it. You should be communicating with your audience on a somewhat frequent basis. Monthly seems to be a popular choice for some businesses, but is that frequent enough if your goal is to drive sales or increase awareness of your brand? Probably not.
Consider moving to a weekly or bi-weekly newsletter. Even more important than becoming more frequent, though, is staying consistent. You want readers to grow to expect your emails on a specific day around a specific time range.
By being a consistent, positive presence in inboxes, you’ll develop even stronger relationships with customers both new and existing.
Stand out in crowded inboxes with strong subject lines
If your email inbox looks like ours, then it’s likely that it can get a little crowded sometimes. The same is very possibly true for the people in your email list. How then, you might ask yourself, would an email newsletter break through all that clutter.
For an answer, think about how you choose which emails to open, which to skip and which to send directly to the trash. If you recognize the sender, then you’re more likely to open the email, right? The other factor that probably draws your attention is when you notice a strong subject line.
By crafting an enticing subject line, you can increase the number of people who open your emails. This is called an open rate.
Think of the subject line as a headline. A subject line should be written in a way that both states what messaging the email contains and also creates some curiosity. This can be a delicate balance to strike, but it’s necessary if you want more successful email campaigns.
Why your business should use email marketing
With all of those tips, your business can get started developing a strong email marketing campaign. For such a cost-effective way to reach customers, email boasts a ton of other advantages that prove why it has to be a part of your strategy.
We have already touched briefly on how easily email is personalized, but it’s also an easy process to automate, meaning once you have developed strong messaging, you can devote less time to actually writing the emails and more time to running your business.
Email campaign success is also very easy to measure if you know what type of data you are looking for. From open rate, to clicks to direct sales results, you can see for yourself whether your strategy or messaging needs adjustments or is running along just fine.
Take email marketing to the next level
At Emagine, we are experienced in creating, operating and measuring the success of email campaigns for businesses in a wide variety of industries.
If you are looking to grab the attention of your customers through email marketing, or want to better retain existing customers with a more personalized message, then let’s work together and put together a strategy that will deliver sales and brand awareness for your business.
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