Regardless of the size of your business, deciding where to invest your marketing dollars is not a decision you should make lightly as a business owner. This is especially true for small businesses with smaller budgets and unique needs.
You need to attract new customers and retain the existing ones, but you can’t afford to spend time or resources on something that won’t deliver the results as you expect. That’s why email marketing is important when it comes to the small business marketing. Unfortunately, most small businesses don’t have the budget or luxury to run multiple campaigns at the same time that covers all types of media. Return on investment is key.
The benefits of email in marketing are that it is an efficient way to ensure that small businesses can reach their audience, grow their customer base and build their reputation. Best of all, managing an email campaign is easier than most people realize. This article will revolve around the benefits of email marketing for small businesses.
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is a form of direct marketing and digital marketing channel, using email as mean to promote your company’s products or services. You can help your customers learn about your latest items or deals by integrating them into your marketing automation efforts. It can also play a vital role in your marketing strategy with lead generation, brand awareness, relationship building, or keeping customers engaged between purchases through different types of marketing emails.
What Are The Advantages of Email Marketing?
Personalization of Content: Personalization is the main benefit of email marketing because no one wants to read an email that looks like it was sent to a bunch of people. With the help of email marketing, you can segment your customers into various lists based on their preferences and send them highly personalized content. From crafting the perfect subject lines to images that resonate with your customer and valuable content that helps your audience, email is the perfect channel to deliver those personal feeling messages.
Cost Effective: The costs associated with email marketing usually start very low, and most providers offer affordable marketing plans that increase as your email list grows. In terms of time commitment, email marketing can be put on autopilot with email marketing automation, but stay personalized and targeted to your subscribers on an individual level.
Increase traffic to your website: A great way to get customers to visit your website is through emails. You can include relevant links to your website within the content of your email. You can also use your email campaigns to engage customers with other great content available on your website or blog.
Brand Awareness: With email marketing, you can easily brand your emails. But brand recognition goes beyond design. By continuously providing valuable content to your audience, they will eventually begin to recognize your emails and even anticipate it.
Strong customer relationships: Email marketing can help build customer relationships by consistently delivering the information they want directly to their inbox. When you help improve the lives of your audience, whether it’s with your product or service, helpful advice, or even a “Happy Birthday” gift certificate, they’ll learn to appreciate and trust you. Eventually, they will start turning to your business for the knowledge and value you provided, thinking of you first when they need your services.
What are the Disadvantages of Email Marketing?
Spam: Commercial email or ‘spam’ annoys users. If your messages are not addressed to the right people, the recipient can delete your email or unsubscribe. You need to ensure that your email marketing complies with privacy and data protection regulations, and that it is properly targeted to the people who want to receive it.
Undeliverable Emails: Poorly designed emails may not be delivered. Internet service providers and email software are likely to filter emails that use certain spam keywords or characters in the subject heading or email content, for example, ‘£££s’, ‘FREE’, ‘Click here’. If you don’t keep your marketing lists up to date, you’ll find that your messages are not reaching to the right person.
Design issues: Your email needs to be designed to appear as it should across multiple devices and email providers. You may find a compromise between design and functionality. Some people choose to receive text only emails, consider how your message will look if this is the case.
Size issues: Size of the files need to be small enough to download quickly. Image-heavy emails can take too long to load, frustrating your audience and losing their interest.
Resources and Skills: For a successful email campaign, you need to ensure you have the right marketing copy, design and list. If you don’t have the time or skills in-house, consider outsourcing some of these items.
Let’s Get You Started!
If you haven’t started your email marketing campaign yet but planning to do so soon and looking for some guidance, then you have landed the right place!
Gather your Data
One very important task is to gather the email addresses that are correct and relevant. Most companies will have some existing contacts to start an email list. Think about clients and people you already have a relationship with. Maybe the business contacts you email regularly; maybe just start with some supportive friends and family. Even if you’re building an email list completely from scratch, don’t get discouraged. Start by adding an online sign-up form to your website, and encourage your social media followers and loyal customers to sign up.
Choose your platform
There are various platforms that offers email marketing services (list below for your help). We say check the number of target audiences you’re reaching out to at once and plan your budget. Compare the rates offered by these platforms and choose the best option as per your needs.
- Mail Chimp
- Benchmark
- Sendinblue
- Omnisend
- Mailjet
- Sender
Design A Campaign
After you have imported all the contacts to your selected platform, start an email campaign. You can choose from already present templates or start from scratch. Your first email should be a welcome email. This type of email is important because they act as your first impression and reach people at a time when they are most engaged with your business. You can expect a relatively higher-than-average exchange rate for your email, so make sure you provide value right away. Start with a friendly greeting, give an overview of what they can expect from you in the future, and offer them something useful right away. Once set up, your welcome email will be automatically sent to all new contacts.
Track Results
When sent at the correct time, your emails will yield better results. If you want to see real results from your email marketing, you need a strong understanding of how each email performs so you can make improvements and learn more about your customers and subscribers. Daily spending some time studying your email reports will give you information like who opened your email, who clicked on specific links, and what information was the most interesting to your readers. While it’s important to know how engaging your campaign messages are, make sure you’re tracking actions that happen beyond your emails.
Conclusion:
Once you start getting a hang on email marketing, you’ll see how beneficial it can prove to be for your business especially when you’re starting small. For any further queries head over to Krystosoft and get free consultation right now!
