As a small business, you may have heard this advice at almost every digital marketing conference/seminar you have attended. “Email marketing can help grow your business exponentially”. But you keep wondering, where do I start, how do I grow my small business with email marketing
If you have a small business and these are questions you ask every day, or you already have an email marketing strategy for your business but looking for other ways to make it work, you should find answers here.
Here is what you will find in this guide
- Introduction,
- Email marketing Definition
- Email marketing Facts
- Successful Email marketing strategies you can adopt for your small business
Introduction
The email channel of communication isn’t anything new. In fact, businesses have been using emails to reach their clients over the past few decades.
However, despite its longevity email marketing remains one of the most sort-after marketing channels for businesses. According to data from Statista, email marketing is expected to grow by 4.6 billion users in 2025.
If you want to grow your small business with a little effort, add email marketing to your strategies. This is because email is easily scalable and profitable. For every $1 invested in email marketing, a return of $42 investment is expected according to DMA.
What is Email Marketing
SendinBlue defines email marketing as a direct marketing channel that lets businesses share new products, sales, and updates with customers on their contact list.
Because customers intentionally sign up to receive email updates from your business, you are able to send a highly targeted update to your customers which is crucial to your business’s inbound strategy.
For example, an eCommerce store can choose to send coupons or deals to customers who still have items in their shopping cart. This is to remind them to complete the purchase and push them down further in the sales funnel.
Email Marketing facts
- 81% of small businesses rely on email as their primary customer acquisition channel; Emarsys, 2018.
- Email marketing delivers a high ROI(For every 1$ invested in email marketing you can expect an average return of 42$. DMA 2019.
- 9 out of 10 Marketers use the Email channel to distribute content organically to their clients. Content marketing institute 2020.
- 49% of customers say they would like to receive promotional emails from brands they love.
- By 2025, email marketing is expected to grow by 4.6 billion users (more than half of the world’s population, as compared to the 4.2 billion users in 2022).
How can small businesses get started with email marketing?
Here are 5 ways you can build a working email marketing strategy for your business.
ESTABLISH YOUR GOALS
As a business, before you begin to think about your first email, you need to set clear-achievable goals for the email campaign you are sending out.
Clear and achievable goals concerning what KPIs you want to use to measure what you call a “successful or failed” email campaign.
For starters, you may choose to track email open rates, clicks, customer acquisitions, etc.
An eCommerce site may set a target of using email to recover 40-60% of abandoned items in customers’ carts.
The good thing about setting your email campaign goals right at the beginning is to avoid landing in your customers’ spam boxes.
BUILD AN EMAIL LIST
Choosing to build an email list is where the real test begins. It involves a series of deliberate attempts to get potential customers/leads to opt in & receive updates from your brand.
There are several techniques available for you to use like adding an email newsletter subscription section on your website, attaching a form where users can use their emails to sign up for a free ebook or webinars, or adding an opt-in form on customer order confirmations on your eCommerce site, etc.
Building an email contact list should be intentional for all businesses. This makes it easy to send updates to targeted and “interested “ audiences.
CHOOSE YOUR EMAIL MARKETING PROVIDER
A lot of marketers argue this is the most crucial aspect of your email marketing strategy. Choosing the right email marketing platform for your campaigns and promotions will seemingly make your work swift and easier.
There are a lot of email marketing tools available like constant contact, MailChimp, etc. with both having their advantages and disadvantages.
Meanwhile, Email marketing providers like NALO Email provide you with affordable email service with pre-saved templates ready for use. No monthly subscription fees, No contacts limit; Just send as many emails to your clients as you want. Talk to a sales rep.
Lastly, When choosing an email provider make sure it syncs with your business’s email marketing goals and has some marquee features you need like email automation, contact limitations, the size of your audience, your budget, etc.
PLAN AND EXECUTE YOUR FIRST EMAIL CAMPAIGN
Now you’ve chosen an email partner who will make your work easier, you’ve also prepared a targeted email contact list who are already eager to hear from you.
You have also set your benchmark values for “successes and failures”, like email open rates, conversion rates, etc.
All you need to do now is to edit one of those beautifully designed pre-saved templates that will suit you. Choose a great headline and a subject (topic) that will resonate well with your customers.
REFINE AND REPEAT
There are no right ways of sending emails honestly. Most of the time marketers are looking for new ways to keep up with the changes in the email marketing industry, and also look for ways to make their campaigns highly effective and efficient.
To stay ahead and know you are not just landing in customers’ spam boxes, track your analytics data like delivery rates, open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and any other data to keep you informed.
Also be trying out new things like subject line and message tweaks, overall email design, message frequency, etc.
PROTIP: Long ago when we started sending out email campaigns, our messages were dry, A few tweaks we added were adding an emoji to our subject line and redesigning our footer for a presentable look.
Wrapping Up
Email marketing is a very powerful strategy that could help scale your business. Be sure to choose an achievable goal, find a reliable provider who will help you achieve those goals; refine and repeat the strategy that worked for you. By doing this your business can keep reaping the benefits of your new email marketing strategy.
Thanks for reading. You made it to the end of this article because you want to know more about marketing strategies. You can get more topics like this in my email newsletter. Each week i share exclusive topics like this for you to read on. Over 1000 people have subscribed. Enter your email now and join us.
Read Next:
