When it comes to growing your business, email marketing can be an important tool in your armory. Yet in today’s day and age, social media and mobile marketing seem to get all the headlines… and some people even claim that email marketing itself is dead.
However, the reality is far different. If you have strong content, know how to engage your readers and come up with compelling headlines, email is more powerful than ever before. Why? Because if it is combined with social media it has the potential to make your business stand out from the crowd. The more people who view your site, the greater the potential for growing your business… and isn’t that what ever start-up dreams of?
Don’t believe us? Or still skeptical about the benefits of email marketing? Well read on for five ways how email marketing can help grow your business.
1 – Email marketing is cheap
Compared with the more expensive marketing options, such as printed flyers, posters, leaflets and newsletters, email marketing is incredibly cheap. For a start-up business, keeping marketing costs as low as physically possible is essential. According the the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing has a return on investment of around 4,300% – now that’s impressive.
Another beauty of email marketing, is that, unlike direct printed material, you can choose to pay only for what you use. Rather than shelling out on 10,000 leaflets for example (plus the cost of postage) you can choose to buy ‘credits’ – a fixed cost per email sent. By segmenting your lists into male, female, or age group you can be sure you’re only spending what you need to and ensure your message is only seen by who you want.
2 – Email is easy!
Many new businesses shy away from email marketing because they think it’s tricky, technical and too time consuming. In fact the opposite is true! There are a number of email marketing software companies out there which help you create a simple email in minutes – using templates and themes you can tailor to your business colors and logo. They offer simple tutorials should you get stuck and lead you through the basics before you click send.
Even better, once your email is delivered, you’ll be provided with reports in real-time on how many people opened it, how many remain unopened, how many click-throughs you got to your site and how many people chose to unsubscribe. You’ll be a master in minutes.
3 – Getting subscribers
For email marketing to work well, you need subscribers. But as a new business, how can you convince people to sign up to receive your alerts if only a handful of people know you exist?
Believe it or not, it’s incredibly simple.
First off, you need to demonstrate that your content is valuable. Using testimonials in your sign-up area, highlighting your number of Twitter followers or Facebook fans, or even offering certain special offers to subscribers will encourage people to hand over their email address. Make them feel like they will be joining part of an exclusive group and be honest about how often you’ll be contacting them. If people trust you, they’ll be more than happy to hear from you.
4 – Getting viewed
The most important part of a successful email marketing newsletter is the subject line as it’s the reason why people will open your email. If you can create a headline which asks a question, is intriguing, offers a solution to a problem or is personal, you can be sure your email is opened. If you get it wrong, then all of that hard work you put into creating your email will have been for nothing.
Once you start writing your content, break it up into short, manageable chunks – and always make the most important points at the top in an inverted pyramid style. You need to engage attention early and build trust, so creating a strong call to action is a must. Include links where relevant (don’t use “click here”), and try and be as personable as possible. Finally, always share on social media because if you have a hot offer, or provide priceless information, your subscribers will want to tell their friends.
5 – And don’t overlook other types of email!
Although your email marketing newsletter will be your main form of communication, it’s not the only email campaign you should be doing. There are other types of email marketing you can do to help boost your sales and grow your business. For example, if you are able to speak to potential leads directly (in a way which is different than your normal subscribers) you can encourage them to become future customers. If you are an e-commerce business, if you have data on where customers abandoned their shopping cart you can try and re-capture potential missed sales.
To sum up…
So there we have it. Five simple ways in which email marketing can help grow your business. If you have a well-targeted, timely campaign, optimized with great, shareable content you’ll reap the rewards and be planning the expansion of your business sooner, rather than later.