If you’re a small business, the influence of email marketing should not be overlooked, especially if working with a minimal marketing budget. One of the most cost-effective forms of online marketing, email marketing is a quick and easy medium to reach your target audience, without the need to dedicate hours to each mailing.
According to HubSpot, 77% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months.
PERSONALISED CONTENT
Email marketing allows you to customize your campaign and create content specific to your audience. Helping in the growth of your business and building lasting customer relationships, sending emails to your customers with general company updates, any upcoming events taking place, sales, discount codes and more.
Personalise emails by adding a rule to address the customer by their first name, adding an extra touch to the communication and making the customer feel recognized and special to your company. 60% of retail, e-commerce, and consumer goods and services companies are personalising emails based on past purchases, versus 38% in 2019.
Looking to add an extra special touch? If you have specific information about your customer, such as their date of birth, send a birthday email. Perhaps offering a discount code or birthday promotion offer. Not only will this benefit the customer to redeem a promotional offer, but will lead to a sale for you and keep your company name in mind, positively reinforcing that each of your customers is valued by your company.
BRAND RECOGNITION
By frequently emailing your subscribers, email marketing can be utilised to build brand recognition and keep your band accessible. Regular interactions in your customer’s inbox with quality content will keep your brand at the tip of their tongues.
Have you also considered gaining customer feedback through email? Simply send a follow-up email after making a sale to ask how their experience was with your business and what can you do to improve their experience next time. This email may warrant a reaction from the customer and give you an insight into necessary improvements, gaps in the market or how your team are performing.
INCREASE WEBSITE TRAFFIC
By including any relevant links to your website within your email marketing, website traffic will increase when customers interact with these links. Get your target audience engaging with your website content, for example, include links to blogs of interest or special offers that are exclusive to your subscribers.
Include a sneak peek of your website content on your email, followed by a call-to-action button (e.g. ‘Learn More’), enticing readers to visit your website.
Top Tip: Include UTM parameters on the links within your email marketing, thus allowing you to see how much website traffic was generated from your email.
BOOST SALES
Email marketing will not only increase website traffic but can also boost sales. Did you know, that 50% of people buy from marketing emails at least once a month?
Just like the ‘Learn More’ call-to-action mentioned above, your emails can include descriptions of your product or service to really highlight why your audience should add them to their cart. Include a ‘Book Now’ or ‘Buy Now’ button to direct readers to your website and make your sale.
Of course, the inclusion of exclusive offers available to email subscribers will benefit you to drive this sale. For example, send a discount code to readers who have made previous purchases to thank them for their business and loyalty. Or tempt first-time buyers with a welcome code to drive your sales.
Top Tip: Include a time frame to redeem and special promotions or offers within your emails to entice readers to act now.
SUSTAINABLE MARKETING
Not only are email campaigns time efficient and easy to create, but by not using any paper you are doing your part for the planet and choosing a sustainable option.
While brochures, leaflets and physical newsletters can date very quickly, an online version will be able to be delivered instantly into your audience’s inbox, anywhere in the world and can be accessed by them 24/7. According to science focus, email uses about 1.7% of the energy of delivering a paper letter.
Top Tip: Create a QR code for new clients to subscribe to your newsletter, and focus on including this on your website or during client interactions.
EASILY MEASURED
Email marketing campaigns are very easy to measure, allowing your marketing department to instantly get feedback and results from campaigns. Results will clearly show what works and what doesn’t work for email elements including links used, language, time and day sent, and content that was interacted with.
Set up UTM parameters in the links in your emails which you can use to track how many of your website visitors came from email.
Top Tip: If you are new to email marketing, a simple A/B test, or split test, can be used to see what works best for you and what your audience reacts to more positively. You can randomly divide your audience into different segments and send a different email version to each segment, analyzing your results to achieve maximum impact.
CONCLUSION
If used correctly, email marketing can be a very beneficial marketing tool for small businesses, while also being cost and time effective.
Did you read our 2022 Email marketing trends blog? Check it out here.
