As a small business, if there is only one digital marketing thing you can do invest all your time on-building email lists. When digital marketers talk about creating marketing strategy nobody talks about email marketing as much as they should.
Why, is email marketing dead?
If anybody tells you that they could not be any further from the truth (also run away from the person that tells you that) Email marketing is probably the strongest and best possible strategy available even today. Now if you are thinking how could I possibly say that! Here are the facts :
Based on 2018 data, E-mail marketing is proven to be the most popular of all marketing channels. Even beating search advertising, social media and all other new trends. It is also proven that email marketing brings in the highest conversion rate.
If you think about, it actually makes sense, you get access to their most personal inbox. They have given you permission to send information. You are not interrupting them ( like video ads) or showing up unwanted (social newsfeeds and display ads). And the first thing people do in the morning is check their emails.
Now that we have established that email marketing is important how do we set it up. There are just 3 basic steps
1) Building your email list
2) Delivering quality content
3) Analyzing and segmentation
1) Building E-mail list
There are numerous ways to build a good email list. Without a good list, there is no point in getting started on email marketing.
You could start by collecting emails of all your existing customers and organizing them. And for collecting emails of new and prospective customers make it really easy for users to subscribe.
Give them a reward for subscribing to your list. It could a special purchase offer or a copy for a how-to guide in the field of your expertise or a fishbowl method- where you collect business cards (at your storefront or event or exhibition) and pick a winner to give off a special voucher. Whichever method you use, make sure it is attractive for your customers.
If you are just beginning to experiment with email marketing I would recommend MailChimp. It is free for the first 2000 subscribers and allows a certain level of automation. It is also very easy to integrate to your website and social media and the templates are easy to build.
Once you have established a good strategy for collecting emails the next step is to deliver quality content.
2) Delivering quality content
Now, take a look at your inbox and see the number of e-mails you get every day. What kind of emails do you open what kind of emails do you despise? That should give you an idea on the content you should be sending.
Make sure you are consistent with your emails. I know most small businesses are busy and do not have much time to create content every week but to the least try sending an email once every month. Remember your customers are judging you every single time you send an email. So do make just about you and your sales. Provide some value to the readers.
One way to get around going dark is to use autoresponders and schedule your emails.
Often times, companies will plan their emails weeks and months in advance and schedule them so that they remain consistent and maintain the brand presence. When you have a new product launch or sale you have already warmed them and feel connected to your brand.
3) Analytics and Segmentation
Analytics is important for any digital marketing campaign, and email marketing is no different.
Though there are a lot of factors to consider the 3 most important are open-rate, click through rate and unsubscribes.
First, your open rate explains how many people open your emails. It’s based on a single invisible tracking pixel that loads when someone clicks on your message.
Open rates will tell you-you how well you’ve built your relationship with readers. Ideally, people are excited to read your emails and open them quickly. If your open rate is low, it usually means you have a lot of unengaged subscribers. You need to work harder on providing value and managing expectations.
Next, your click-through rate, or CTR, shows how many people clicked on a link (if any) in your email. If your CTR is low, it means that your message is either not targeted enough, or simply not getting through.
Finally, the unsubscribe rate tells you how many people have clicked the “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of your email. If your unsubscribe rate is high in relation to your opt-in rate, then you’ve passed the point of redemption. You should revisit your email marketing strategy.
Building E-mail analytics is critical in that if you’re paying attention, they’ll give you very specific clues as to what is going wrong.
4) Conclusion
If you’ve been ignoring email marketing, it might be time to reevaluate your strategy.
Today, email marketing is delivering huge returns for marketers willing to get started with it. It doesn’t have to be too complicated.
First, remember you’re a guest in the inboxes of your subscribers. Your emails are always just one click away from losing their interest forever. Be polite, respectful, and deliver value.
There’s no formula for this—it’s all about what works best for you and your company’s voice and style.
And finally, you can move on to segmentation and analytics once you’ve mastered the basics. Start sending separate types of emails to different groups of people and always be improving.
Have you tried email marketing before? How was the experience? Please let me know in the comments. Also, Feel free to send me an email with any queries about email marketing.
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