Email Marketing for Your Business, Explained

Are you looking to grow your business?  Try email marketing.  It’s one of the most effective ways to reach target customers, drive brand awareness and generate new leads — all at a reasonable cost.  And you don’t need a big marketing budget to start email marketing.  It can be an affordable way to introduce your business to potential customers and begin growing your brand.  It is an unending task if you are trying to build an effective Email Marketing Strategy for your company.  You will need to manage a number of tasks, from creating a list of contacts and finding the right software,  setting up alerts, content creation, black list checking, and testing delivery quality.  Here are some crucial tips that will help you lay a strong foundation for your email marketing efforts in the future.

Is email marketing good for small businesses?

While email marketing is a massive part of most B2B marketing efforts, it can be intimidating for many small businesses.  However, there are advantages to using email marketing for small businesses.  Email marketing allows small businesses to reach a wider audience than they might otherwise be able to.  It can also be relatively inexpensive and easy to set up.

As long as the right strategy and email marketing software are used, there’s no reason why any business should avoid it.  There are several ways that email marketing can help make a small business more successful:

• Helps build relationships with customers and potential clients.
• Provides a way to stay in touch with customers at specific times of day or week.
• Allows customers to be reminded of your business even if they don’t visit your website or social media accounts.
• Ability to send targeted emails based on specific criteria such as purchase history or other behavior.

Several factors determine whether email marketing is a good fit for your business.  First, it needs to be appropriate for your target audience.  Setting up an effective email marketing system even on a small budget is possible, but it takes time and effort.  Third, ensure that you’re sending the right emails, with the right message to the right people at the right time to get the most out of it.

 

 

Successful email marketing starts with setting objectives.

First and foremost, you want to ensure you set the right objectives for your email marketing campaign.  Ensure that your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.  With specific objectives and goals in place, you can better evaluate the success of your email marketing strategy and make necessary adjustments as needed.  Here are the 12 critical questions you should address before sending out a campaign:

• What are you hoping to accomplish with your email marketing strategy?
• What are the benefits of the campaign?
• How will you measure the success of your campaign?
• How many new contacts should you be adding each month?
• How many sales/leads were generated based on the campaign?
• What is the timeline for your campaign?
• What is the budget for the campaign?
• How many people do you hope to reach?
• Is your email marketing campaign relevant to your target audience?
• Are you adding value to the contacts on your list?
• What is the deadline for your campaign?
• How long does the campaign run for?

How much does email marketing cost for small businesses?

While there are several different email marketing options, you should keep a few things in mind when setting up your campaign.  One of the most important things to consider is the costs involved in your email marketing campaigns. Initially, you will find there are many FREE options for managing your email campaigns.  However, as your list and frequency of your campaigns increase the cost of these services also increases.   As your list grows you might also consider certain services like blacklist checking, enhanced analytic tools, copywriters, landing pages, and dedicated management for all these tasks … costs can quickly add up.  The good news is that email marketing when done correctly is very profitable!

How much time do you need to build your email list?

If you’re looking to build an email list, you need to keep a few key things in mind.  Use every tool at your disposal to acquire email addresses.  Set monthly goals for everyone in the organization to contribute email addresses.  Make certain that your acquisition of email addresses aligns with all CAN-SPAM regulations.  For most small businesses it might take 6 months or more to break the 10k list barrier.  Also keep in mind that each month there is a certain amount of attrition to your list, this is normal.  In order to reduce that amount of attrition, you will need to make sure you’re providing value for your audience.  This means that you should give something that people want or need.  Next, make sure that your content is relevant and valuable.  Finally, ensure that your content is delivered in a way that’s easy for people to consume.  If you do not execute well in any of these areas, your starting list will dwindle to nothing very quickly.  Each year there is natural attrition for all lists; people move, retire, and opt out for various reasons.  So it is critical to keep growing your list every day.

The top methods to grow your list

• Add multiple contact forms to your website
• Implement an “exit” popup
• Offer unique content and discounts to subscribers
• Offer giveaways or contests.

Start with free tools like MailChimp or AWeber to help build a list of email subscribers.  Once you have that foundation, you can increase your investments as your email marketing list grows.

Start building your list…like NOW!

You will need to focus on growing your database when you are just starting.  On average, we recommend you have at least 500 people on your list to start.  Why?  It is all about time and money.  Check out this little bit of math. If you have a list with 500 people and have an average open rate of 20%, only 100 people will have read your email.  Of that, let’s say that 3% clicked on your call to action, which means three people will come to your website or offer…25%, if you are lucky, might react to the offer.  In other words, you spent time and money and got very little in return.  However, if you are new to email marketing starting small is smart.  There is a lot to learn and it is always better to make mistakes with a small list vs a huge list.  No matter, our advice here is to build your list as fast as you can…it is hard work.

 

 

 

Find the right email marketing tools.

Now that you’ve figured out the basics of email marketing, started your list, and set the right objectives for your email marketing campaign, it’s time to find the right tools to help you achieve them.  There are many different email marketing software options, and selecting the right one for your business is essential.  Email marketing tools vary in features, ease of use, and the amount they charge.  If you are a small business on a tight budget, you may want to avoid more expensive software that offers extra features you don’t need.  There are many free options if you are on a tight budget but still want to set up an effective email marketing strategy.  Some popular free email marketing tools include Mailchimp, AWeber, and Constant Contact.

Emails need to be transparent and educate your audience.

Email marketing builds relationships with subscribers and educates them on your products and services.  Being honest about yourself and what you do is essential.  Always be transparent in your emails.  Avoid being overly salesy and use calls to action to educate your audience and encourage them to take the next step.  For example, if you want your audience to sign up for your email list, include an exclusive offer to subscribers.  A primary goal should always be about educating your audience, this will help you build trust and brand awareness, and it will also help you set yourself apart from competitors who are too sales-focused.  A clear and informative approach will help your contacts feel comfortable enough to engage with your company and even lead to sales.

Email marketing is an effective way to reach potential customers.  However, businesses need to be strategic when creating email campaigns.  There are many different types of email marketing, and it can be challenging to know where to start.  Trying to figure out what works best for your audience if you’re new to email marketing can feel overwhelming.  There are several different types of email marketing available, including transactional (such as emails related to purchasing), informative (like newsletters or product updates), and promotional (things like giveaways or discounts).  You can use any combination of these different types depending on your goals.

Don’t forget to measure

As we mentioned above, it’s crucial to track the success of your email marketing campaign.  The best way to do this is by setting up a proper email marketing analytics system.  With an appropriate analytics tool, you can track how many people are opening your emails, how many people are clicking on links within your emails, and how many people purchase your products based on the information in your emails.  You can also see which headlines and calls to action attract the most opens and clicks.  Knowing this information will help you adjust your email marketing strategy and improve your click-through rate.  It will also help you determine which emails are most effective and which need to be changed.

Email marketing takes time.

Email marketing takes time and effort to see results like all marketing strategies.  However, the sooner you get started, the better.  We recommend that you begin to lay out the basic blueprint at least three months before your campaign will start is a good rule of thumb. This will give you time to gather contacts and plan out your strategy.  Remember that email marketing doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes time to build a robust list of subscribers and engage them with your brand.  Be patient, follow these tips, and be well on your way to growing your business with email marketing.