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How Your Small Business Can Use Email Marketing to Drive Revenue
As a small business, you need simple, cost-effective ways to drive revenue. While many marketing channels promise easy-to-use tools and impressive ROI, few compare to email marketing.
With a reputable email service provider at your side, you can create and send emails that deliver $38 for every $1 spent.
If you’re ready to boost your revenue with email marketing, here are four actionable tips you can use to get your register ringing:
1. Create mobile-friendly emails
To drive revenue, subscribers have to open, click, and buy. To get subscribers to complete this three-step process, the first thing you need to worry about is how your message looks on mobile devices.
Ensuring that your emails look just as good on a smartphone or tablet as a desktop or laptop should be a given. An estimated 66% of all emails are now opened on mobile devices, according to Marketing Land.
What happens if your email marketing campaign isn’t optimized for mobile? BlueHornet reports that 80% of your recipients will delete the email.
You need an email service provider that offers responsive templates that automatically adapt your emails to mobile formats. Today’s easy-to-use templates don’t require a lot of design experience. A simple drag-and-drop editor lets you add content blocks, images, and social buttons. You can customize the template with your company colors and logo to create a fully branded email marketing campaign.
You should be able to get a mobile preview of your email too, so you know how your message will look on small screens.
2. Personalize your email
It’s tempting to send the same email to every subscriber on your list, especially since small business owners are strapped for time. However, you can personalize your email marketing campaigns with just a few clicks.
Seventy-four percent of marketers say targeted personalization increases customer engagement. When you have an engaged list, you’re more likely to drive revenue.
Here are a few personalization techniques you can use that won’t take a lot of time:
- Add a subscriber’s first name to the subject line
- Add a personalized detail, like a name or job title to the body of an email
Flight Centre, a Campaign Monitor customer, added the subscriber’s name, Lisa, to this email. (Red box)
For a slightly more advanced personalization technique, you could try dynamic content. With dynamic content, you create one email, but a certain part of the message changes automatically based on the subscriber receiving it.
For example, if you want to feature a new clothing line, you can use dynamic content to change the product images in the email. Men see a picture of their latest fashions, and women see theirs. Interested? You can read more about dynamic content and how it works on the Campaign Monitor website.
3. Segment your contacts
Although personalization with a custom greeting is easy, it’s difficult to personalize every email in terms of content. One way to hone in on the relevancy of your email marketing content and provide personalization at-scale is to segment your list.
Segmentation is a method of breaking down your email list into groups based on demographics or behavior. You might break your list into groups based on sex, location, age, or income. You could also break your subscribers up by behavior, like products they’ve purchased in the past or their Internet browsing activity.
With contacts segmented, you can create emails for each group. If you segmented by location, for example, you can send discounts to customers based on which store they live closest too.
Creating specific emails for each segment does take a little more time, but remember, you don’t have to email every contact every time you create an email. In fact, sending fewer emails that are more relevant to your subscribers can increase revenue by 760%. (Yes, 760%.)
Use segmentation to create more personalized and effective email marketing campaigns.
4. Automate certain emails
Reclaim your time by automating a few emails.
Email automation has a lot of applications, which is why some small business owners stay away from it. However, if you use automation on a basic level, you can deliver stunning emails without even being at your computer.
To get started, we suggest automating two kinds of emails:
Welcome email
When a subscriber joins your list, they’re showing interest in your product. There’s no time to waste. You need to connect with this potential customer quickly. Rather than monitoring your new subscriber list and sending a welcome email manually, automate the process.
Log in into your account, make a welcome email that every new subscriber will receive, and set up a trigger to deliver the email automatically. The trigger, in this case, is a subscriber joining your list.
Here’s a great example of an automated welcome email from Campaign Monitor customer, RINGLY:
Transactional email
You should also automate a transactional email. After a subscriber makes a purchase, email a receipt. The email might confirm a purchase or provide shipping information. Transactional emails like this have high open and click rates. Open and click rates hover around 114% for transactional emails, compared to 14% for bulk mailings, according to Experian.
Since these emails have such a high response rate, it’s a good idea to include a little extra content inside. Maybe you add a link to a similar product, encourage the subscriber to follow you on social, or add a video like this company does in its transactional email.
5. Monitor metrics and adjust
When it comes to email marketing success, metrics show you what’s working and what’s not. Which metrics should you keep an eye on? Here’s a quick list of metrics small business owners should watch:
- Open rate
- Click rate
- Conversions
These three basic benchmarks give you a lot of information. At a glance, you can see how many subscribers are opening your emails, how many are clicking on links inside, and how many are completing your desired action.
As you get a handle on your metrics, you may want more in-depth statistics. Consider syncing your email account with Google Analytics. Most email service providers have an integration to make this a simple process.
Wrap up
If you’re looking to connect with customers and drive more revenue, email marketing is your answer. Campaign Monitor offers an intuitive platform for time-strapped small business owners who want to create stunning emails that customers respond to. Watch a demo of Campaign Monitor today.
