Email Marketing for Small Business

Email marketing is often cited as the most lucrative of online marketing tools regardless of business size.

Social media marketing spreads brand awareness to a new potential customer, while email marketing strengthens existing relationships and increases customer retention.

Social media's explosion in popularity has made organic reach difficult for small businesses, and paid reach to your target audience is very pricey.

As far as bang for your buck, email marketing kills it.

Many small businesses make the mistake of focusing marketing efforts on acquiring new customers while failing to recognise the potential of previous or existing customers.

New customer acquisition is roughly five times more costly than customer retention. Further, Bain & Company found that a 5% increase in customer retention could increase profits between 25-95%.

An email marketing service is a cost-effective means of achieving customer loyalty. 

Rather than hoping your content is seen, marketing emails are a direct line of communication - a golden opportunity if Forbes is right about the average person checking their email about 15 times daily.

As with any marketing strategy in a small business, it’s crucial to invest your time and coin wisely. 

Below are simplified steps to kickstart and crush email marketing.

Build a subscriber list.

Step one is to build up a subscriber list. Not a random list of email addresses; you want people who have opted-in deliberately to receive your emails.

But it won't happen overnight. 

A solid, engaged mailing list takes time to cultivate but will eventually become an enormous asset to your business. 

Feature signup forms wherever you get the most traffic, like your website (in multiple places), blog and social media. You might even add it to your email signature.

If you have an e-commerce store, allow customers to opt-in to your email list while submitting their email addresses at checkout.

You can email subscribers incentives, like discounts or free downloadables, to garner more signups.

With a database of keen subscribers, it's up to your content to woo them.

Quality over quantity.

Create emails worth opening.

An email schedule is great for consistency; consistency breeds dependability and trust in your brand. 

But don't send emails for the sake of sending emails. Subscribers will rush to unsubscribe at the slightest annoyance, or your unopened emails will bypass their inbox straight to the spam folder. 

As a small business, focus on providing valuable content to your subscribers and stick to a schedule that permits you to do that (weekly, monthly, quarterly etc.). Save time using email templates; don’t write more than 200 words per email. 

A few components of your email campaign might be:

Newsletter emails

These are a great way to show the behind-the-scenes of your business, i.e. the heart of your operation. They can also showcase your business as an industry leader by sharing relevant news and case studies.

Seasonal emails

Holidays and notable dates have some of the highest open rates of any email, e.g. Black Friday and Christmas.

Promotional emails

Exclusive offers for subscribers will keep them interested in receiving your emails. People often save offers in their inbox until deciding to make a purchase.

Personalised emails

Highly personalised emails continue to convert previous customers, e.g. birthday offer emails and favourited product discounts.

Community-minded emails

Emails highlighting social consciousness are a growing trend, e.g. appreciation for hospital workers during COVID-19 or implementing more environmentally sustainable practices.

Providing value is your primary objective here, but using a conversational or humorous (where appropriate) tone to convey that information can be an engaging approach.

Experiment with eye-catching subject lines and creative email design to see what garners better metrics, such as open rates. 

Since more than 50% of email campaigns are viewed on phones, your emails must be mobile-friendly (and ideally responsive for all devices).

Use high-quality images and include a call-to-action button, so subscribers have a conversion point, e.g. read a blog post, view new products, make a purchase etc.

With an email list and quality content, the next step is making the process exponentially more efficient. 

Automate!

Automation is the MVP of email marketing tools.

Email marketing automation is when an automated email is sent in response to a pre-determined trigger (often called a transactional email). The motivation can be prompted by customer activity, preferences or other information.

Email automation can produce massive returns because it's completely scalable and capitalises on subscriber attitudes at the most optimal moment.

It also saves (a heap of) time and energy - a necessity in small businesses. 

So, what emails can you automate?

Here are a few of the most commonly used types of transactional email:

• Welcome email: The first email someone receives after subscribing to your mailing list.

• Abandoned cart email: This email is sent when someone adds items to their shopping cart and doesn't complete their purchase. Statistically, a person receiving one is three times more likely to purchase.

• The birthday email: This email is generated upon a subscriber's birthday and usually contains a discount or offer.

• Feedback Email: This email is prompted upon interaction with a business to gain information about a product or customer service experience.

• Back-in-stock email: Used in e-commerce to notify subscribers when products they have browsed or their favourite item is back in stock.

• The reminder email: This email can be triggered by various activities, e.g. a reminder to use a limited-time offer or discount.

• Order update emails: These are sent to notify customers of changes in their order statuses, such as confirmation, shipment and delivery.

Email marketing software to automate your campaigns also helps you analyse their performance by keeping track of metrics like open rate, click-through rate and conversion rate. 

Email marketing software also makes it easy to conduct A/B testing; you can segment your subscriber list to test which subject line, content or call-to-action results in better metrics.

Use these insights to inform and improve future email campaigns continually.

Think email if you're a small business looking for a cost-effective marketing channel with significant returns.

Small business email marketing is all about investing in your existing relationships.

Customer retention often provides far greater mileage than new acquisitions in long-term success.

So charge your email marketing campaign in three steps: build a database of like-minded subscribers, provide them with valuable content, and automate for efficiency.

Or, as a small business owner, jumpstart an email marketing strategy with West Coast Content.

Our digital marketing experts know how to maximise the value of your existing customer base with an email marketing campaign geared toward your objectives.