Email Marketing For Small Businesses
Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy that involves sending commercial messages, typically in the form of email newsletters, to a group of people who have opted in to receive communication from your business or organization. The goal of email marketing is to build relationships with your customers or potential customers, promote your products or services, drive traffic to your store or website, and ultimately increase your sales.
As a small business owner, email marketing can be a cost-effective and efficient way to reach a large audience and build relationships with customers.
Here are some ways you can use email marketing for your small business:
- Build and maintain relationships with customers: Use email to communicate with customers on a regular basis, providing them with relevant and useful information about your business, such as promotions, sales, new products or services, and industry news.
- Increase brand awareness: Use email to promote your business culture and educate customers about your brand, mission, and values.
- Drive traffic to your website: Use email to encourage customers to visit your website, by including links to relevant content, promotions, or products. You can also promote your social media channels.
- Boost sales: Use email to promote sales, discounts, or special offers, and to provide customers with product recommendations based on their past purchases or preferences.
- Ask for reviews: Boost your reputation management by asking your customers for feedback and to leave you reviews.
Email Marketing Software For Small Businesses
There are several software options available for small business owners to use for email marketing. These can vary significantly in cost as well as available features, so be sure to do your research before jumping in. Popular options for small business owners like yourself include Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, AWeber, and GetResponse. If you use any type of Point of Sale (POS) system, there may be an email marketing feature included in this.
Building Your Email Marketing List
One of the biggest questions that we hear is "how can I grow my email marketing list?" The answer is both simple and complex at the same time. Growing your list is simple - there are hundreds of ways that you can get someone's email address. Growing your email marketing list can be as simple as offering a coupon in exchange for them signing up on your list. Host a giveaway or contest. Heck, even the old "fish bowl for business cards" thing can grow your list. The complex part comes in what you do with those email addresses once you have them.
Develop An Email Marketing Plan
Keep in mind that email marketing is about a lot more than just sending an email. We all receive a ton of emails every day - and most of the time, we delete them without ever opening them. You need to implement your email marketing plan correctly to ensure your emails aren't the ones going in the trash (or worse, the spam folder).
To use email marketing effectively, it is important to have a clear strategy and to focus on providing value to your customers. This means segmenting your email list based on customer preferences and behavior, and providing relevant and personalized content that meets their needs and interests. It is also important to comply with email marketing regulations, such as the CAN-SPAM Act (in the United States) and CASL (in Canada), which requires businesses to include opt-out options and accurate sender information in all commercial emails.
If you are interested in implementing an effective, efficient, and low cost way to grow your small business, we'd love to help you develop and execute on an email marketing campaign that will actually work for you. [thrive_2step id='208']Get in touch.[/thrive_2step]