WHY USE EMAIL TO PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS?

I often hear small business owners and sole traders say they don't consider email marketing when it comes to generating leads and promoting their business. However, to ignore this aspect of marketing is to miss out on a huge opportunity to reach potential new clients and build trust with existing ones.

While email marketing may be considered as "traditional" in comparison to social media it offers the best return on investment and puts you very much in control. When you post on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin you are at the mercy of their algorithms. Something that you post may reach thousands one day but fails to hit the mark a few weeks later because something has changed within the platform. Then it's back to the drawing board trying to figure out what went wrong, taking up more time than any return you will ever get.

 In comparison to other digital marketing methods, email marketing has remained pretty stable, despite GDPR. The rules of engagement with emails compared to other methods are pretty straight forward and the only big change over the past few years is that now people are opening their emails on mobile devices 24/7 so the opportunity for business has grown.

The other huge difference between social media and email marketing is that your audience is mobile and I don't just mean in the literal sense but that you can take your list from one piece of software to another. If you don't get on with one program just use another. In comparison, if you fall out of love with Facebook you can't take your friends and followers to Instagram you have to start again.

Social media marketing works when your target audience is active on the platform that you have used for promotion and provided the algorithms are in your favour. How often have you missed updates from people because you were not on Facebook or Linkedin that day? Social media is fast-moving so to have a presence you need to spend an increasing amount of time engaged with it each day. In comparison, emails sit in the inbox waiting to be discovered. They may not be opened immediately, some might never be opened but your brand will have been seen, your catchy headline will have been read and your reader will have been reminded that you are there for when they are ready.

Get Intimate

Emails enable you to connect with your audience on a more personal level. You can send out a campaign to all on your list but when someone replies you can start to build a one to one relationship with that customer which can convert to a sale or different level of engagement.

Look after your assets

Your email list is an important part of your marketing strategy and should always be thought of as a business asset.

People buy a product or service for many reasons but the key ones are because they have a problem to solve, a pain point that needs addressing or because they have an emotional reaction to what you are offering, in other words, it makes them happy so they want it. We have all bought something on a whim for no other reason than it made us feel good! By sending out regular emails you effectively drip-feeding your readers with a reminder that you can either solve a specific problem they might have or you can make them happy, hopefully, both at once!  

How do you get going?

You will need to use an appropriate platform such as Mailchimp. Do not ever use things like Gmail or Outlook for mass emails, not only are you likely to get your account shut down but you cannot be GDPR compliant as you are unable to offer the reader the option to opt-out. Guidance on how to be compliant can be found on the Information Commissioner's Office site.

Software such as Mailchimp have so many benefits, here are some of the key reasons to use email marketing software:

 Mobile friendly

With the majority of emails now being opened on a mobile device if your message does not fit a mobile screen, it won't get looked at. Mailchimp enables you to do that exactly that.

 Hit your target

You can send out specific information to different sections of your list, ensuring that people only receive information that is relevant to them.

Analyse

You can analyse the detailed reports which help you improve future campaigns, send your message out at the right time and see which links were clicked, which weren't and who opened your message and loads more besides.

Automate

You can create automated messages which save you loads of time and creates engagement. You can also create automated welcome emails, giving you a further opportunity to engage with your customer and build trust.

Visual

You can create visually engaging content with the ready-made templates and also set up our own branded templates easily.

Get personal

Providers such as Mailchimp enable you to fully personalise your message which helps create engagement and build trust, not to mention grab attention

 NEWSLETTERS

Before you start you need to decide what you want to send out. Newsletters are a good place to start. They are a powerful communication tool for creating engagement and building trust with your readers, whether they are new to your list or existing customers.

 A regular newsletter will help you:

• Keep your customers updated with your latest news.
• Enable you to share helpful information to solve your readers pain points.
• Promote your products, services and offers.
• Generate regular traffic to your website, page or blog.
• Share video content

What is your goal?

Each newsletter should have a clear goal and be part of a larger and planned email strategy. The strategy does not have to be a long and complicated one, it could be as simple as a plan to send out one email a month for 12 months.

Who is it for?

Decide who you are sending it to. It could be an email to your whole list about a new offer or it could be a segmented email to a specific section of your list. It's not always easy to find a subject to send to your whole list so aim to find contacts that have similar interests and send out segmented emails with the content tweaked to suit the reader group. If you have yet to collect this type of data then consider things like age, geographical area, gender, purchase history). Mailchimp makes it very easy to add tags to your contacts so that you can group them together based on different variables.

What do you want to achieve from each newsletter?

It could be to generate sales, foster customer relationships, increase traffic to your website, more followers etc. It doesn't matter what it is so long as you have decided before you start to create your newsletter.

Content

Your content could be a product update, editorial content about a specific problem that you can solve, sharing a new blog, explaining a new product or service, news about your business ……whatever you choose make sure that it's not just a sales pitch.

What's the frequency?

Decide how often you plan to send out your emails and let your customers know. You can do this in the welcome email, the initial newsletter and also on the sign-up form which is used to collect new subscribers.

Don't end up as Spam!

To ensure your newsletter is not banished to the spam folder by your subscribers you need to ensure that your content will add value to your readers. It's not all about you, it's mostly about them! Make sure you offer value and deliver what you said you would when people signed up to hear from you.

Send it out at the same time each week/month.

Check out your competitors and be better than them.

Get noticed

Create a template that your customers will recognise, use your logo and colours to give it your brand identity so that people will want to open it.

Use a verified email domain rather than something like Gmail. Hotmail, email service providers like Mailchimp can penalise these domains.

What's your value proposition?

How will your product or service improve your customers lives? Why should people buy from you rather than your competitors? Keep this at the forefront of your mind when writing your content.

Attention

Once open you need to get your message read so position the most important information first, above the fold, that way readers don't need to scroll down to see it.

Most people have a short attention span and little time to read your message so you need to catch the readers’ interest very fast. Your first opportunity to do this is with the subject line and second the preview text. A subject line can make or break a campaign so make sure yours is eye-catching. The use of humour is always a good way to get attention as are questions. Personalise the subject line, our eyes are always drawn to our own names! Mailchimp enables you to personalise your subject line, your preview text and your content very easily.

Call to action

Have your Call to Action (CTA) prominent and also above the fold. The CTA is a prompt (usually a button) which aims to get your reader to perform a certain action such as visit your website, place an order, download a document etc. Make your CTA button bold and where possible use your brand colours. Use words that encourage action and that have a sense of urgency. Mailchimp has a very easy method of creating a stand-out and customised CTA button.

Use images but not too many that it detracts from your core message. Make sure that you always add an alt-tag to your images as some providers such as Outlook turn off images in the preview mode. Alt tags will be displayed in place of an image if an image file cannot be loaded.

Finally, always link your campaigns to your social media profiles. Design a template so that you only have to do this once. 

Before you send your email make sure you preview it and check all the links are working. Also, do a spell-check (Grammarly is a good free tool for this).

Once you've sent your email you should analyse your reports. You can learn a lot from this data which helps improve future campaigns. Mailchimp can tell you who opened your newsletter and who didn't, when the email was opened, how many times, what was clicked and so much more. As you send out more campaigns you will begin to build up a picture of your audience and their habits which will help you with future newsletters. Compare the results of each campaign and see if you can identify trends and things like the best time to send based on when it was opened etc.

 Email Marketing offers the best return on investment and 81% of small to medium businesses say they rely on it for their customer retention. All the big companies are doing it so why not you?

WORKSHOPS

I run group and 1:1 Mailchimp and email marketing workshops for beginners aimed specifically at sole traders and small businesses who know they need to be using email marketing but don't know where to start.

The 3 hour 1:1 sessions are ￡99 and are tailored to your business. Please email or call me to arrange a suitable date. One to one sessions run from either Gloucester or Tewkesbury Growth Hub.

Email Sam Johnstone at [email protected] or call on 07815 498137

There are currently also group workshops available in Gloucester and Stroud.