Email marketing for small businesses can be incredibly successful. It can help create customer loyalty, improve brand or service awareness, build that all important trust, and ultimately help to increase your client / customer base.
It’s extremely easy to implement and maintain, although like anything that’s going to be effective, it does need forward planning and structure.
But before we look into the nitty gritty more thoroughly, below are 5 reasons why email marketing should be considered by your small business, if you haven’t started using it already:
1. Low-cost marketing.
There are no print, design, or postage costs, and because there are plenty of 3rd party software options available that allow you to send campaigns for free to a certain amount of subscribers, you can keep your costs extremely low. One of these providers is Mailchimp who allow you to send up to 12,000 email campaigns per month to a maximum of 2,000 subscribers free of charge. Then as your subscriber list increases, simply upgrade your package to a monthly payment subscription – cost dependant on the number of subscribers you have.
2. Directly target warm contacts.
Your subscribers will have knowingly and proactively subscribed to your email list. This means they want to hear what you have to say. Whether they are existing clients / customers who want to keep on top of latest news or be aware of any special offers, or they are potential clients / customers finding out more about your business, either way they are warm leads that gives you the opportunity to target your message more easily.
3. Highly targeted marketing.
Now that you’ve got your subscribers you may wish to segment them into separate groups to be able to focus your message more easily. For example:
- Group 1) Existing clients/customers.
- Group 2) Potential clients/customers.
Then craft your message accordingly. You may wish to up-sell a service or product to your existing customers, or just keep them abreast of latest developments, improvements or company changes. For your potential customers, you may wish to give them a reason to use your service and perhaps offer an incentive. The great thing about email marketing is that you can direct the flow of traffic to exactly where you want it to go.
4. Measurable results.
Any time one of your subscribers opens their email, clicks on an internal link, or completes the call to action, those details are logged on the software used. So you can see what has worked and what hasn’t quickly and adapt accordingly. If no-one opened your email at all, perhaps you need to rethink the subject line so that next time round it does get opened. If no-one clicked on an internal link, you can consider why and make relevant changes. Trial and error is one of the major benefits to email marketing campaigns.
5. Immediacy.
With print or broadcast marketing, it can take weeks for any ROI to be seen. Whereas with email marketing you are able to see results almost immediately, particularly if you make your message time-sensitive.
A good email marketing campaign will help to maintain good relationships with existing customers and attract new customers so your business continues to grow.
The next article will focus on implementing your email marketing campaign.
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