If you’re a small business owner — regardless of the industry — email marketing can help you foster better customer relationships and build a stronger brand to drive conversions and growth.
Small business owners often assume that email marketing isn’t for them, isn’t effective, or is just too expensive. This couldn’t be farther from the truth!
In this article, we’ll debunk some myths surrounding small business email marketing and prove just how effective it is for businesses of all sizes.
Email marketing is frequently cited as the most lucrative form of online marketing, with an ROI of 4400%. The best part? These returns aren’t just for the big guys. Without a doubt, small businesses can profit substantially from email marketing!
To help you make the most of this important form of digital marketing, this article will cover everything you need to know to launch your own small business email marketing campaign in two sections:
How to launch a small business email marketing strategy
10 small business email marketing tips
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Launch Your Small Business Email Marketing Strategy in 4 Easy Steps
Building a successful email marketing strategy really boils down to four things:
Email list building
Planning which types of emails you’ll send
Email design and content creation
Sending the campaign and analyzing the results
1. Build your email list
A necessary first step to sending email how combining blog posts helps increase web traffic marketing campaigns is building a contact list. After all, what good is an email marketing campaign without anyone to send it to?
The best way to build your list is by creating a signup form and featuring it on your website, blog, and social media. For the best results, we recommend setting up a double opt-in sign-up form.
Double opt-in sign-up forms send new subscribers a confirmation email after they’ve submitted their email address. While this adds an extra step to the sign-up process, it is definitely worthwhile. Double opt-in helps:
Avoid deliverability issues from email address typos;
Give you the opportunity to ask what kind of content your subscribers want to receive;
Ensures your email marketing strategy is GDPR compliant.
Try placing or linking to your sign-up forms in high-traffic places, like your homepage, blog, social media bios, and even your email signature. To learn more, check out this article on how to create an email sign-up form.
2. Decide the types of email you want to send
Now that you’ve got a strategy to grow your email list, it’s time to decide which types of emails you want to send.
The types of emails you send will depend on what type of small business you have. It’s always safe to start with a monthly email newsletter. Some other examples might include:
Promotional emails for special offers or sales
Seasonal messages for holidays or special events
Personalized discounts and coupons for your most dedicated customers
Transactional emails (ecommerce receipts, appointment notifications, etc.)
For a step-by-step guide, check out our article on how to create a newsletter.
3. Create your email design and content
The next step to creating an effective small business email marketing campaign is email design and content creation.
Email design
Not a design pro? Not to worry. Most email marketing tools have easy-to-use drag-and-drop editors so that even beginners can design stunning email marketing campaigns.
The number one thing to keep in mind with small business email marketing is that you don’t need to be over the top with your designs. Email is supposed to save you time, so don’t break your back creating overly elaborate and complex emails. Instead, stay true to your brand image. You’ll come across as more familiar and relatable to your subscribers.
Another important part of email design is the call to action (CTA). Make sure you add a CTA button that corresponds with the content of the email and tells readers what you want them to do. Here are some common CTA examples:
Read an article on your blog
Browse through new products on your site
Make a purchase using a discount code
Download an ebook, attend a webinar, or access other gated content
You should also avoid having more than one main CTA. Competing calls to action send a mixed message to readers and can harm your click through rate. If you have more than one goal in mind for an email campaign, create a hierarchy to let contacts know which is the most important. Using the inverted pyramid structure is a great way to do so.
For more tips, check out our email marketing checklist.
Writing the email content for your campaigns
The most important thing to keep in mind at this stage is the customer. When designing your emails, try asking yourself what your subscribers want to see and how to provide them with value in your campaigns.
The best way to write this type of targeted content is to first segment your email contacts into smaller lists with similar interests.
When sending mass emails to all of your contacts, it’s nearly impossible to craft a message that is relevant to everyone. Instead, try grouping contacts with similar needs or interests to send more targeted and higher-quality content.
Try segmenting your contacts by:
Demographics, e.g., gender, age, location
Purchase history, e.g., preferred product categories, number of purchases, whether or not past purchases were during promotions or sales
Brand loyalty, e.g., new leads, longtime customers, VIPs
Email engagement, e.g., customers who click on all of your emails vs. those who have never opened an email
Once you break down your contacts into segments like these, it becomes much easier to craft a message that resonates with your target audience and drives engagement.
Another important aspect of email content conduit china creation that’s easy to overlook is the subject line. These few words are the first thing your audience sees from your campaign. For this reason, make sure your email subject line is eye-catching but not overly promotional.
Pro tip: A/B testing is a great way to optimize your subject lines.
4. Send your campaign and analyze the performance
If you think you’re done once you hit ‘send’, think again!
To make the most of your marketing efforts, you should always be analyzing the performance of your campaigns. Email is unique in this regard. Compared to other digital marketing channels, email provides a wealth of data and statistics to help improve your future campaigns.
Some absolutely essential metrics to keep track of include open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate. For more details on tracking your campaigns’ performance, check out this article on email marketing benchmarks and KPIs.