As a business owner, you have probably heard of email marketing as a viable way to increase revenue and even gain new customers. But what is email marketing actually?
What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is essentially sending promotional materials and messages via email to a list of leads. Some of the more common uses include offering coupons or special offers to customers for a limited time, create relationships with potential customers and updating subscribers to the products or services you provide.
Email marketing is a form of direct marketing and over the years has proven to be a lucrative way of growing your business and brand. Since emails are paperless, email blasts are flexible and inexpensive compared to letters, mailers, and flyers. Along with local SEO, email marketing is one of the many forms of digital marketing to grow a profitable business.
At this point, you may be thinking to yourself, “I typically never open marketing emails, isn’t that outdated?” Contrary to popular belief, email marketing is more effective than ever before. 95% of retailers say email marketing is one of the most effective means of customer acquisition methods out there!
Why do Email Marketing?
Consider some of the following information to prove how effective email marketing can be:
- 94% of consumers check their email every day.
- 59% of marketers say email is their biggest source of ROI
- Marketers who used segmented campaigns noted as much as a 760% increase in revenue.
As you can see, crafting email campaigns to reach out to your customers can be a profitable way of growing your business.
Benefits of Email Marketing
So what are the actual benefits of email marketing as opposed to other forms of marketing? When you take in to account the actual number of people who are on their email every day, email marketing can allow you to reach a wider audience than social media or other traditional advertising channels. Not to say that there are no advantages to utilizing other marketing methods, but there is more than enough evidence to prove that email marketing is a must among the different platforms.
One of the best benefits to initiating email campaigns is that it is unbelievably easy to track your ROI. Especially with the rise of email marketing software, it has become easier and more effective to track and analyze revenue than ever before!
With email marketing, your ROI tends to be high because your messages are already in front of people who have voluntarily given you their email address. You may already be spending money on ad platforms like Google and Facebook, so the relative cost of delivering promotional content to your customers makes email marketing one of the cheapest forms of advertising available.
Another stark difference between email blasts and advertising is that most of the people signed up for emails typically want to see promotions and updates for your business which usually converts to more sales.
Email Marketing Guidelines and Ethics
No one likes spam. Spamming and other forms of email abuse can not only prove to be ineffective but also negatively impact your company’s reputation. On top that there are laws in place that make it easy for email providers to spot and filter spam. There are also options for the recipient to unsubscribe if they feel they are being spammed. Keep these factors in mind when you are writing subject lines or considering increasing the frequency of your emails. By not adhering to these guidelines, you may actually lose subscribers which is not something you want.
Getting started with Email Marketing
Now that you equipped with the basics of email marketing it is time to get started! Here are the 5 steps to implementing an effective email strategy.
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Define your audience
You need to tailor your emails to your buyers’ needs. Take the time to understand their wants and desires. You can also create subgroups within your email list to send more specific types of content to the customer who will get the most value from it.
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Establish your goals
Gather information and context for your industry by doing a little research on typical email marketing success and then create the appropriate benchmarks.
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Make it easy to sign up
Building an email list takes time and you are going to need a few processes for acquiring new subscribers. By treating every new lead like gold you are going to grow your list organically, with people racing to signup for your newsletters and promotions.
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Choose a campaign type
As discussed before, there are different types of email campaigns that serve unique purposes to achieve the desired objective. By creating sublists you can begin to identify which emails are best for which audience.
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Make a schedule
Make a schedule for consistency, for this cultivates trust with your audience and doesn’t allow them to forget you!
You’re All Set!
Now that you’ve learned the fundamentals of email marketing you are ready to reap the rewards of the most affordable means of marketing to your customers. One of the only potential cons to email marketing is the time it takes to craft effective email campaigns. You may have to hire someone or take the time out of your schedule to do so yourself. As a business owner, you may want to consider hiring a digital marketing agency to take care of all your email marketing campaigns.
Sources
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/email-marketing-guide
https://blog.aweber.com/email-marketing/email-marketing-101-6-ways-it-can-boost-your-business.htm
