Email Marketing – Strong Word

Email Marketing For Small Businesses

Create Multiple Channels to Gather Email Addresses

A frail email list isn’t going to do any good for anyone’s efforts of conducting a successful marketing campaign. One must therefore explore more ways to grow their list. Luckily, there are multiple ways through which one could persuade current clients and prospects to submit their email addresses.

One of these would be to require visitors to the firm’s site to register for each action, from creating an account to making a purchase. Creating giveaways and contests for which one needs to fill out a short form could also work. Other tactics that could work here include offering free seminars, having a forum, posting free downloads on the site and encouraging people to read reviews and suggestions.

Maintaining Detailed Lists

A vital aspect of email marketing is proper maintenance of the current list of email addresses. When starting out, they could be kept in a detailed spread sheet whose columns can later be merged with an email program. It’s crucial that one avoids losing any address; all of them represent a valuable currency for the enterprise.

Bulk & Transactional Email Promotions

Though bulk emails can be effective, they often go unopened or land straight into the spam folder. A small firm could find success by implementing bulk mail campaigns that appeal to general audiences with transactional messages offering a pitch or a custom promotion. When sending special messages like welcome notifications, one could use the opportunity to recommend other commodities or encourage the client to participate in social media or online polls.

Testing and Assessment

Testing could offer crucial information at different levels of the campaign. Before the email prototype is finalized, one can use focus groups to gauge various aspects of the design (e.g. appeal, subject line, layout etc.). Before the messages are broadcasted, they should be sent to the staff and tried using different devices and email clients. Testing whether certain features show up in different platforms and gathering metrics on open/conversion rates could help one know what improvements would be necessary.

Email can be a vital marketing channel for a small enterprise. Due to its low cost, one could take advantage and slash their advertising costs while substantially boosting sales. It’s therefore important that one takes these tips into consideration when they’re looking to build a robust campaign.

Small Business Email Marketing Tips

Make Subscribing Easy

Have an email sign-up form on your site’s homepage, social media page, or anywhere else you find your customers the most active. Collecting birthdays and names or inviting readers to participate in groups could be considered, but tread with caution. Lengthy subscription forms are not ideal.

Make the Value-Offering Obvious

Whether you’re planning to send company president letters, business updates, daily deals, weekly tips or e-commerce sales, it is important to let your readers know in advance the things to expect – in terms of actual content and frequency. Let your sign-up form provide the maximum information possible, which should help readers determine if your list makes sense or not.

Welcome Email

Welcoming new people on-board and reminding them about the purpose of the list is always a smart thing to do. You could even provide new subscribers exclusive content or a special offer, to thank them for their patronage.

Fit the Newsletter to Your Brand

Your email marketing campaigns must match the feel and look of your brand. In case you have a template, customize it to have your company’s logo and colors included in the header. Such consistency would ensure your readers feel much more familiar and at home with your content.

Scannable

Business email subscribers are often busy, so getting their undivided attention is practically impossible. Therefore, make your emails as simple and easy-to-read as possible. For instance, have multiple short paragraphs instead of a huge single block. Include images and subheadings for guidance and make the content easier to scan. Have a teaser atop the newsletter to give subscribers a hint of what’s in store. Also, your email’s subject line must be succinct and precise. Play with different subject lines to filter out the ones performing the best.

Have a Publishing Calendar in Place

A routine newsletter campaign is no easy task. If your customers don’t hear from you through emails for several weeks or months, you’re likely to be forgotten. In fact, when your next email arrives, they’ll be reminded of your unprofessional behavior and may end up unsubscribing your list. Most would, however, delete the long pending email without giving it a brief glance. Therefore, planning, writing, designing and sending newsletters regularly are vital elements of email marketing for small businesses.

How To Get The Best Results From Email Marketing For Small Business

Create Clear Subject Lines That Inspire Action

Most consumers are inundated with email. This means that even though they have opted into your email marketing campaigns, they are not guaranteed to read your transmissions. In fact, most of these communications will be either overlooked or thrown away. This is especially true if your subject lines are overly complex or if they are not designed to incite immediate interest. Thus, tell people what you’re offering and give them a reason to look inside. You might have special discounts to offer or you may have a brand new product and limited supplies.

Incite Buyer Urgency

It is also important to give people a reason to take action right away. In addition to telling them you have limited supplies, let them know that the included special offers will only be available for a very short period of time. If you don’t encourage people to take immediate action, you can’t be sure that your transmissions or your business will still be fresh in their minds when they get ready to shop.

Remember Your Existing Customers

Many companies make the mistake of focusing solely on making conversions. It is important to remember, however, that as a business owner, your most valuable assets are the clients that you already have. This makes it important to ensure that you are regularly reaching out to people who are already buying from you and in a way that is relevant to their needs and the stage of the purchasing process that they’re likely in. The best way to to do this is by investing in sophisticated email marketing for small businesses software that will allow you to generate targeted transmissions for specific demographics.

Link Your Email Marketing And CRM Campaigns

Customer relationships management is an ongoing effort to know more about your customers and their wants and needs. Collecting data that expands your knowledge of these individuals will allow you to streamline your marketing campaigns for optimal results. This is another way in which marketing software can come in handy. When choosing a program to use, make sure to look for options that allow for targeted list creation and can draw data from your CRM to help you comprise relevant and timely messages for each of your subscribers.