Do you clean out your email, just to find that weeks later it's full once again? How in the world did that happen? It happened because great marketers understand the benefits and usefulness of email. While on the consumer end it can be exhausting sorting through the useful and the trash, on the business side of things, it is a WINNING SOLUTION. The cost, benefits and endless potential make email marketing an ideal tool for marketing your small business.
It’s an offer YOU can’t refuse
Email as a marketing tool has an amazing return on investment. While various sources and of course, varied industries differ on the exact return on investment, most estimate the return on investment of email marketing to be anywhere from $44.00 to $55.00 for every dollar. Where else can you get that kind of bang for your buck in terms of marketing your business!
Something else that makes email marketing a great tool for your toolbox is that it will help you to garner more new customers. Let’s get one thing clear - no one likes junk email and no one likes SPAM. But everyone loves something with value - if you produce helpful, relevant, and useful, then customers will rush to subscribe and they’ll keep opening the emails, week after week. I sign up for email lists on a daily basis to get the latest and greatest updates on my favorite companies and brands. I don’t want to miss out and neither will your new and old customers.
Make them an offer THEY can’t refuse
With great services, products, and now awesome consistent email content in their mailboxes, you will be able to retain your current customers and hopefully, encourage them to make purchases on a regular basis. Provide them with promotional offers and discounts, information that they have asked for and consider a loyalty program! (We all love our loyalty programs.) Share what’s new: services, products, opportunities. Just make sure that your emails provide value because no one needs another piece of junk mail. Your emails need focused, engaging and ultimately, encourage a call to action.
Turn a good idea into reality
Now that you know you want to use email marketing, it is important to put an editorial calendar together or hire someone to do it for you. Remember: don’t bombard your customers, instead enrich. (Too much of anything is a bad thing.) Start with one email every two weeks and see what kind of response you get. You may then want to bump it up to one a week. (Do you have the inclination but not the time? Hiring a digital marketer to create the calendar and content for you; you will get the ROI you are looking for, and we will help you move your vision into production.)
Determine what the purpose of your emails will be, the call to action you want, and what and how the content will meet that purpose.
Add a subscribe button to your website so that people who are interested can get added to your subscription list.
Use your current database to introduce the emails and their purposes and encourage customers you have face-to-face interactions with to subscribe to your emails.
Now, let’s get crackin’.