Email marketing for small businesses is markedly different from the email marketing used by large global corporations.
That doesn’t mean that one is better than the other; it only means that their tactics and scale are different.
How can small businesses take advantage of email marketing?
Small businesses are in a unique position to benefit from email marketing, as they have more flexibility in their image. For example, as a small business, you can build trust with local customers much more rapidly than larger corporations, who may not resonate with smaller communities as easily.
One of the most important practices to remember with email marketing today is to be as transparent, honest, and open as possible with your customers. Unsolicited or generic emails are losing ground and falling out of favor, as the modern consumer has come to respond better to more organic approaches.
In that spirit, you should be focusing on getting customers to subscribe to your newsletters, and you can build a powerful and robust emailing list by using the following tips.
Always make it easy for customers to subscribe to your newsletter. Don’t try to make it too fancy or add too many steps. Also, be sure to let potential subscribers know what to expect in terms of content before they sign up. Customers who sign up for your newsletter will lost trust in your brand if they find that the content is different from what they were led to expect.
Keep in mind how difficult it is to grow subscribers and how competitive the internet is, with so many firms vying for attention. Take care to produce high-quality, exclusive content in your newsletters that customers can’t expect to find anywhere else.
As a small business with local clout, you can use your regional expertise to promote your brand as an expert in the area. That can be achieved, both efficiently and conservatively, through the strategic use of email marketing. Developing a reputation as a local expert via your email content helps cement stronger customer relationships, which are vital to small businesses.
How to measure email marketing success in small business
Measuring the success of email marketing in small business is the key to developing more effective campaigns. Success rates can be measured with several metrics.
You should be keeping track of the number of emails that are marked as spam and emails that are forwarded. You should also compare the number of emails that were deleted before or after opening. These metrics can yield valuable insights that’ll help you plan future newsletters and email marketing campaigns.
One of the most effective things you can do to improve the efficacy of your email marketing is ensure that your newsletters are designed to display well on mobile phones. The easiest way to do this is to use a reliable email service provider that features responsive templates that can automatically optimize emails for mobile devices.
66% of emails are viewed on mobile devices.
Does it really matter?
Email marketing matters to small businesses and is capable of launching you ahead of your competitors. It can open up new markets, bring in new customer bases, and help build strong, long-term customer relationships.
These advantages are essential, especially to small businesses. With email marketing, you can deliver engaging newsletter content directly to your customer base.
Source: Campaign Monitor
What now?
Now that you know more about the importance of email marketing for small business, you can put the knowledge into action and start reaping the rewards. Remember always to tailor them around your brand. While you should seek out ways to engage customers with different subjects, the key is always to find a way to tether your brand to that subject in a way that is as natural as possible.
Take your small business to the next level with email marketing tools from Campaign Monitor.