Every week, we will be answering a common question about marketing or business. This week, our question comes from a fan who entered our giveaway contest for a Fire 7 Tablet. Today, we will answer the following question: “how can email marketing help my small business?”
Why Email Marketing is so Effective Today
You’re a business owner, and you have got a long list of emails from customers over the years. Now, what do you do with it? Email marketing campaigns can serve as not just a platform to reach your current audience, but a stepping stone to grow your business.
But what if you don’t have an email list? What if you’re starting for the first time? As it turns out, there are a ton of techniques you can use to build mailing lists. In fact, this is one of the most talked-about aspects of marketing. Sites like HubSpot and Constant Contact have good guides on email list building from scratch, and this is just what we’ve found after 30 seconds on Google!
Email marketing promotes customer relationships. Solid customer relationships serve as the foundation for any business. Email campaigns allow you to reach your current audience while providing content to keep your business at the front of your market’s mind. Building that relationship will pay dividends for your business. A lot of ink has been spilled on why exactly email marketing is so good at building relationships.
As if that weren’t enough, though, email marketing is extremely cost-effective. While many marketing channels require capital upfront, email marketing can be done for free on a small scale. On a larger scale, it costs money, but not much. Platforms such as Mailchimp do an excellent job of providing both free and paid plans for email marketers-to-be.
Long story short, you can make a lot more money if you keep your customers’ attention and interest through thoughtful email marketing.
How Email Marketing Can Help You
Thoughtfully designed email marketing campaigns can provide fantastic exposure for your business. Creating a steady flow of content gives you the ability to better serve your customer. All this happens while spreading information about your business and building an air of authority. The result: you drive people to your business and keep growing from there.
Creating a good email campaign requires a delicate balance. You want to keep the message clear, clean, and simple with only one main call to action. If you can provide educational, informative, or fun content, your open rates will go through the roof. After all, you’re giving people a reason to, you know, actually read your emails.
Email marketing has a very high return on investment. Actually, that’s the understatement of the year. For every $1 spent on email marketing, $44 are made in return. That’s an ROI of FORTY-FOUR!
How do you spend money on email marketing? In addition to labor and time costs, tools like MailChimp have paid plans if you exceed a certain number of list members. Additionally, you may choose to grow your mailing list through advertising.
How You Can Start Email Marketing Today
Not sure where to start? We’ll give you a brief overview here.
Go to MailChimp and make a free account. You can email up to 2,000 people without ever spending a dime.
Create a good email template using MailChimp’s wonderful tutorial.
After that, come up with some good topics to write about. Establish a regular email schedule, say once a week. Then start building your email list!
Final Thoughts
Email marketing is one of the best ways to inexpensively grow your business. Email marketing keeps you on your customers’ minds, making it easier to sell in the long run. Sending consistent emails to your audience keeps them engaged with your business, and serves as a prompt to check out the newest things you have to offer.
