Email Marketing for Small Business Owners: Why Aren't You Doing It Yet?

Wazzup Pilipinas!

There’s an immense amount of data that supports how helpful email marketing is, particularly for small business owners. Marketing expenses are no joke, and it’s important to carefully determine where to spend your dollars.

Email marketing is one of the most cost-friendly tactics that establish your presence and help you reach customers where they go every single day: their inbox.

Most companies might tell you that the best way to promote your business is through social media, where everyone is constantly consuming content. The difference here is that when people check their Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram feeds, they do so out of habit, almost a reflex that happens when they look at their phones in the morning.

On the other hand, we all make a conscious decision to check our emails for important updates. This is what makes email marketing more personal, and therefore more effective, in helping your business acquire new customers.

Yahoo! Messenger may be obsolete now, and even some social media platforms have disappeared or lost its appeal through the years (does anyone remember Multiply? Plurk? Friendster? MySpace?) but email is here to stay.

If you are a small business owner, then chances are you have a limited budget to spend for marketing, and you know you have no leisure to spend this budget on tactics that do not appeal to your target market, or on advertising platforms that have become too saturated, like social media.

WHY SHOULD I INVEST IN EMAIL MARKETING?

Email not only provides a more direct channel through which small business owners can connect with their customers, but it is also more efficient and simpler in format, which can turn leads into customers, and eventually, into organic promoters of your brand or business.

Put yourself into a consumer’s shoes. Do you not engage with brands that you trust? More than looking at brands that look “cool,” or brands that have gone viral, smart consumers will look at your reviews, and sniff around your content to see if you are genuinely offering something valuable.

Email marketing is personal, and signing up for a newsletter is a conscious decision that people make because they think your content is informative and your authority is something they can trust.

People can read your email newsletter and can tell right away if your business is the right fit for their needs.

It has also become so accessible, much like social media! You can open your email right on your phone, or your tablet, which is something many people find incredibly convenient. They can scroll back to a previous email you sent about discount or coupon codes, pull it up on their screen, and redeem your special offers in a click.

Through email segmentation, you can also forge closer bonds with your consumers. Every single day, we are all flooded with information, most of which we don’t need or care for. Email marketing and email segmentation allows you to personalize your message and send specific content for a specific set of consumers on your list.

Email marketing also allows your business to offer last-minute deals, and instantly get the word out about these offers without spending hours creating promotional videos or posters like you would have to do on social media. It saves you time, resources, and has a great return on investment.

WHAT DO I PUT ON MY EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGNS? 

Unlike social media advertising, email marketing does not overwhelm its subscribers. Ideally, people prefer to receive emails from a brand once a week, and they generally sign up for emails or newsletters that tell them about:

• Reward programs
• Contests
• Sales and discount promotions
• Free content like e-books or guides
• Information about a new service or product
• Exclusive access to a premium service before anyone else has tried it
• News and updates about the company/ brand

When done at the right time and with the right offer, email marketing can generate leads. A

well-timed campaign is essential to its success.

HOW DO I KNOW A CAMPAIGN IS SUCCESSFUL?

For email marketing, key performance indicators (KPIs) should track the following metrics:

• Open rate
• Click-through rate
• Conversion
• Bounce rate
• Spam complaints
• Unsubscribe rate
• Time spent on site
• Time spent before making a purchase
• Cost per lead (pay per click)
• Brand growth and awareness

It’s important to look at what content you published before your readers decided to unsubscribe to your newsletter. It tells you what kind of content does not work. On the other hand, open and click-through rates are metrics that tell you when your email’s subject line is eye catching and sparked the reader’s interest.

HOW DO I GET STARTED? 

You’re probably wondering how to roll out your first email marketing campaign. First and foremost, it’s important to start with an eye-catching design!

Don’t worry, you don’t need to be a master at Photoshop in order to do this. In fact, you can have all your email marketing needs addressed through just one platform. Start with Email Designer, a drag and drop feature that allows you to customize an email template and fill it with personal images and text that you need for your campaign.

As you toggle around with the email designer, you can actually enjoy the live editing feature, and see all your changes reflect on your screen right as you make them. The email designer also saves you the time from worrying about responsiveness - whether you view it on mobile, tablet, or on a smartphone, your emails will always look their best.

If you want to include images on your email design, there’s also a built-in Photo Editing feature, so you don’t have to download Photoshop to tweak a photo. You can customize your email design by color, and if you have a knack for HTML, have fun experimenting with our Code Editor.

After you’re done designing your email newsletter, you’re ready to distribute it to your audience! Try out the Marketing Automation feature, wherein you can set triggers, like when someone clicks on subscribe, or add to cart, or checkout, and an automated welcome message will be sent to your consumer’s inbox. If they didn’t respond, you don’t have to worry, because all you have to do is set a schedule for when a follow-up email should be sent.

The simple steps of our marketing automation will welcome your new subscribers, convert your leads into customers, and help you confirm purchases, and you don’t have to do a thing. Just let us do it for you, so you can focus on other important aspects of your business!

If you’re ready to get started, check out here!

Written By: Joy Aspacio