Email marketing remains one of the most effective digital communication channels, despite being one of the oldest. According to recent stats, around 99% of people check their emails daily, and 73% of millennials would prefer to communicate with businesses via email than any other method. If that weren’t enough, almost 60% of people claim that marketing emails influence their purchasing decisions.
If you own a small business and haven’t mastered the art of email marketing, there’s never been a better time to start. Whether you own a restaurant, florist, salon, medical facility, or plumbing business, targeted and compelling marketing emails could supercharge customer engagement, increase sales, and enhance profitability. Don’t believe us? Here are just a few of the benefits of email marketing for small businesses.
1. Deliver personalized content
Did you know that 60% of shoppers are inclined to become returning customers following a personalized retail experience? Or that 70% of millennials feel a sense of frustration when they receive emails irrelevant to their needs? Targeted email marketing allows you to deliver personalized content that builds trust among your customer base and incentivizes them to invest in your goods and services. You can personalize marketing emails in several ways, including:
- Segmentation: This strategy involves dividing your mailing list according to location, job, gender, age, purchase history, or any relevant customer segment interested in a specific deal or service.
- Personalized greetings: Something as simple as including a recipient’s name or job title in an email increases their likelihood of opening it by 50%.
- User preferences: Use automation software to send personalized purchase suggestions based on a customer’s browsing history.
- Behavioral triggers: Set up automated emails triggered by specific user actions. Abandoned cart emails, for example, send a gentle reminder to customers who have added products to their cart but left your website before completing the purchase. Such emails could give customers the little nudge they need to spend money on your fantastic products.
- Surveys and feedback: Gather helpful intelligence from your audience by setting up regular surveys. This strategy allows you to tailor future email content in line with their preferences, lifestyles, and interests.
By following these strategies, you’ll develop a loyal base of customers who’ll ensure your business remains viable over the medium term and potentially scalable over the long term.
2. Follow up leads quickly and easily
Gathering leads through landing pages, pop-up forms, opt-in forms, promotions, partnerships, and surveys allows you to build extensive mailing lists to promote your brand. However, it’s vital you follow up leads quickly and consistently. Did you know, for example, that sending up to three follow-up emails can boost sales by over 80%? Or that it takes up to eight follow-up communications to generate a single conversion?
While this may sound like hard work, one of the best aspects of email marketing is that you can automate follow-up emails using personalized triggers. For example, you can automate a message that hits someone’s inbox as soon as they provide an email address – a tactic that will ensure your brand remains at the forefront of the customer’s mind. If the lead remains cold, you can warm them up by sending a reminder every week or so. Just remember to avoid spamming your leads, as this could harm the reputation of your small business.
3. Boost customer retention
Sending regular emails to your customers reinforces your mutual relationship and encourages regular engagement with your brand. Of course, you’ll need to keep content fresh if you want to keep open rates high. Such content could include:
- Educational content sharing information your customer will find genuinely valuable. If you offer plumbing services, for example, your clients will likely appreciate an email about how to protect their pipes during winter.
- Practical updates about your business, such as revised opening times or additional services.
- Newsletters celebrating achievements both within your small business and in the wider community. This strategy will make your customers feel valued and connected to your business.
- Drip campaigns that encourage ongoing engagement when customers hit certain milestones. Say, for example, you own a fitness club. You could send emails celebrating their 10th visit to the gym, rewarding them with bonus workout time or the option to bring a friend to their next fitness class.
- Personalized reminders informing customers of their next appointment or upcoming subscription renewal.
4. Easily organize referral promotions that promote loyalty
Referred customers are incredibly valuable for small businesses. As well as bringing a 25% higher profit margin than other customers, referred clients are four times more likely to refer even more of their friends to your brand. Of course, building an effective referral strategy is easier said than done. Here are a few tips for gathering those all-important email addresses:
- Determine what incentives you will offer both the referrer and the new customer. Overly generous rewards could dent your profit margins, while unattractive rewards could fail to attract new customers in sufficient numbers. Common rewards include free trials, exclusive access to discounts, loyalty points, and small monetary gifts. Remember to budget carefully before launching a referral program and ensure rewards align with your audience’s interests.
- Create a landing page that describes the key benefits and rules associated with your referral program, including a handy Q&A section.
- Ensure your promotion complies with relevant data protection regulations, spelling out how you will obtain, store, and protect customer data.
5. Build brand loyalty through analytics
Finally, email marketing platforms contain valuable analytics features that can reveal much about the efficacy of your marketing efforts. A range of key metrics could help you hone and improve your communications, including:
- Open rates
- Click-through rates
- Conversions
- Open rates according to location and other factors
- Time-of-day (or week) analysis
Over time, tracking these valuable metrics will help you develop email campaigns that create a real buzz among new and existing customers.
Embrace Email Marketing Benefits With Townsquare’s Business Management Platform
At Townsquare, we know finding the right email marketing software can be tricky. Fortunately, our comprehensive business management platform is perfect for small businesses looking to make the most of email marketing benefits. Contact us today to get started.