Small Business Email Marketing Strategies
Effective small business email marketing strategies will ramp up your business and increase your revenues in a matter of months. All you need to do is employ the right strategies and be consistent in following through with your plan. Small businesses have the benefit of catering to a select customer base. They don’t have the logistical problems of big businesses and are therefore more capable of adjusting to their customers easily. Part of these small business email marketing strategies will focus on this strength of small business and explain how to turn small businesses’ size into strength.
Find out your goals
Before starting an email marketing campaign, you need to establish what your goals are as a small business. Are you trying to increase your customers or are you simply wanting to retain the loyalty of customers you already have? Do you plan on growing your revenues by additionally selling to your customers online or are you merely using email as a means to inform your customers when you have a new product out? Knowing what your goals are will help you design a program that will be more responsive to your goals.
Personalizing your emails
Because small businesses are small, it has a relatively small customer base. Because they cater to a smaller number, profiling can be done in a much easier manner. Likewise, a small business with a niche will find offering products to email subscribers will be easier. That’s because niche customers are more often predisposed to whatever it is small businesses are selling as opposed to regular customers subscribing to big conglomerates. Personalize your emails and target your emails to specific subscribers.
Tracking your small business email marketing statistics
It is important that you track all stats concerned in your email marketing campaign. You need to know how many of the emails you sent out were opened, how many bounced, how many were forwarded to others, and how many were simply deleted without being opened. You need to know which subscribers answered the call to action and which didn’t. You need to know a lot of things in order to make the correct decisions in marketing.
Always provide for a way for readers to get additional information or help
It is important that your emails always contain a link for additional information and for customer service. You will want to add value-added services to your email campaign. One way of doing this is by providing subscribers with links where they can get supplementary information for products they are interested in. Likewise, a ubiquitous link to your company customer service section will help those who can’t find what they’re looking for to locate it by approaching your business directly.
Victor Green is an Account Executive at EliteEmail.com, the award winning email marketing program used by companies who need the top email marketing software. Try the complete small business email marketing solution today for free!
Benefits Of Nonprofit Email Marketing
Just like any organization or business, nonprofit organizations need money to survive. Most NPOs or nonprofit organizations do this in the way of grants or trust funds. Others operate thru donations, while still others run fundraisers to keep their organizations alive. Whatever the method, what is apparent is that no NPO will survive if they can’t raise money for their organizations. That’s why nonprofit email marketing is emerging as one of the cheapest solutions for NPOs to raise money and keep their organizations running on a day-to-day basis. Here are the reasons why nonprofit email marketing works, and works extremely well.
There’s practically little to no costs running an email marketing campaign
What’s remarkable is that with a few clicks of a button, an NPO can reach virtually thousands to millions of subscribers to ask them to help in the organizations cause. The reach of email is virtually limitless. And it doesn’t cost the same ghastly amount if your organization would have run an ad on TV instead. The difference on savings alone is huge. Email marketing saves NPOs money. And it does this while raking in money from the opposite side of the fence.
Inform your supporters and subscribers about your events easily
With email, you can let your organization’s supporters know immediately when you have an activity or a fundraising event scheduled. You can raise more awareness about your organization without having to spend much in the way of commercial advertising. What’s more, with email, your subscribers will have the choice to spread your organizations message and help you grow your contacts and supporters. You can also send your subscribers with your organization’s monthly calendar of activities and fundraising events.
Raise funds quickly
The speed and reach of email allows you to raise funds quickly and on short notice. And it doesn’t require you to shell out money in turn to reach your supporters. Use email to appeal to your supporters for more funds.
Increase your supporters
With nonprofit email marketing, you can ask your current subscribers to share your emails with their friends and relatives and hope many of them also subscribe to your organization’s emails. Subscribers love sharing and forwarding emails of nonprofit organizations, especially if they’re ones that have a touching and convincing message. People feel the need to show others they are compassionate. Even if it is just sharing your email, they get a sense of satisfaction in knowing that they are being helpful in what they’re doing.
Promote your cause
There’s no better way to advance your organization’s cause than to send emails. But send only to those who ask for it. In that way, you’re getting subscribers who are predisposed to your cause.
Victor Green is an Account Executive at Elite Email, the award winning email marketing program used by organizations that want robust email marketing reports to boost results. Also the leader in nonprofit email marketing.
How To Make Your Email Newsletters Engaging And Consumer-Friendly
If you want to make your email newsletters engaging and consumer-friendly, you need to include in it a couple of things that will help make it engaging and consumer friendly. The following are some tips on how to make your newsletter readers interested not just in reading your newsletters but also in patronizing your business or the products you are pushing in your newsletters.
Establish a regular date of delivery
One thing you must do early on is establish consistent delivery of your newsletter on a particular date. If you’re going to send it out every first of the month, then do so. Don’t send it on haphazard days. You can even let your subscribers choose how often they want to receive your newsletter and on what day they would like to receive it. What’s important is that you establish a pattern so that your subscribers know when to expect your newsletters. By knowing when your newsletters arrive, your subscribers will be trained to expect it and in some way will be waiting for it eagerly every time that day arrives. It’s subtle, yet it works.
Always send something of value
When you send your email newsletters, always put in something that readers will find useful. Be it information they will value or perhaps a new product offering they will be interested in, always include items of special interest for the readers. This is why email grouping is important in email marketing. You need to group your subscribers into certain categories so you are able to send newsletters selectively.
Always include only ONE call to action
Including a call to action is important in any newsletter. Whether you’re advocating a cause or simply selling a new product, it is important that your email newsletters contain a call to action upon which your reader is invited to act on. Just as important is including ONLY ONE call to action. By doing this, you make sure your readers are not confused by having too many choices . They are asked only one thing to do, and if that thing is relatively simple to do, then the more they are likely to do whatever it is being asked of them.
Make all you call to actions as simple as possible
It makes sense that if you want your readers to do whatever it is you’re asking of them, you’ll want to make it as easy for them to do it rather than making it harder for them. Studies show that the lesser the steps needed in a call to action, the more people follows through on it. If you want people to claim coupons, make it as easy as just clicking one link and that’s it.
Victor Green is an Account Executive at EliteEmail.com, the trusted email marketing solution used by companies who need the best email marketing program. Try the complete small business email marketing solution today for free!
Four Simple Ways To Make Your Email Marketing Campaign Successful
Email marketing, when used right, can boost your business revenues by a lot. The secret is in knowing the right steps to make it work for you. Below are four simple ways you can use to make email work for your business instead of against you.
Only send email to those who want it
It’s quite easy right? Send only to those who want or requests it. Yet many companies get this wrong by sending unsolicited email. It’s spam, and in the CAN-Spam Act, sending unsolicited emails is considered spamming. Don’t do it. Not only will you get your company in trouble, but you will singlehandedly destroy whatever good reputation your company has by sending unsolicited emails.
If you really need to grow your email subscribers, utilize your website to add to your list. Start contests or events that require participants to join your email list with the caveat of always including an opt-out clause once the contest has ended. Some may leave once the event ends but many may continue to choose receiving your emails.
Use a compelling SUBJECT line and an identifiable FROM name
You want your subscribers to know you’re the one sending the email. You don’t want them unintentionally deleting your email because they wrongfully thought you were someone else. Use a name that your customers recognize.
A great subject line also functions as a great headline. Use words that would capture their attention. A subject line that says “SALE. All bags at 50% off” will attract readers who love bags.
Make your email’s design clean and its contents interesting
Include images in your email, but not too many. One or two images will be enough. And format your email marketing in such a way that the important message you want to convey is always at the top and is noticeable. You want your readers to be able to see at what glance what the email is all about. Yet you also want them to continue reading. The secret is providing a great hook and then writing engaging content. Do that, and you’re one step away from a successful conversion.
Make it easy for your readers to take action
If you’re asking them to sign-up for something, include a link that will bring them to a page where all they have to do is click for a confirmation. If you’re asking them to buy a product, give them a link that will bring them to your company’s check out page with the product you are selling already included in their shopping cart. The most successful email marketing campaigns are those that make it the easiest for their customers to buy their products or answer their calls to action.
Victor Green is an Account Executive at EliteEmail.com, the award winning email marketing program used by companies who need the top email marketing software. Try the complete small business email marketing solution today for free!
How To Make Your Company’s Email Marketing Solution A Success
So you’ve decided your company or business should develop an email marketing solution that you hope will increase your revenues. You’ve signed on to an email provider and even started organizing your email subscribers list just to get the ball rolling. Then after a few dozen emails and some marketing promotions later, you’re still as lost as you were the first day you started and you have no idea if what you’re doing is doing any good. Here are some great tips on how you can get that email marketing solution you’ve started into high gear.
Personalize as much as possible
You want your customers to feel warm and welcome . You want them to feel as if they’re corresponding to a real person, not to a robot or to a pre-generated message. Use your customer’s first names, or if possible, ask them how they would like to be addressed. Then, use conversational language in your email. Stilted and robotic language that looks like they’ve been generated by a soulless machine won’t work. Be warm and friendly in your emails. But don’t be too chummy either. Inject a sense of professionalism in your email too.
Correct FROM names and identifiable SUBJECT lines
Most people don’t open an email unless they can identify who it’s from and what the subject of the email is. Make sure your customers recognize the email is from your company and not from some random spammer. If your customer knows your company as JBC Market, use that instead of your real name Joe B. Carter, a name your customer might not know if they don’t know you’re the owner of JBC Market. Just as well, use subject lines that are pertinent and informative. If you’re giving away free tickets to a concert, use “free tickets to concert” instead of “JBC promo.”
Do not act like a spammer
Provide easy ways for your customers to unsubscribe. Set up your email marketing solution so your customers receive emails only on deals they are interested in. Do not send emails of the same deals repeatedly. And do not, in any way, send every minute details of your company’s activity to your customers.
An email a month is tolerable traffic. An email weekly is also okay. But an email from your company every day or every other day is enough to push your customers to include your company’s email address in the SPAM folder or in their blocked list, no matter if your company has a legitimate promo or deals every day. Continuous, almost daily emails are still spam, no matter if they have valid content. Never make the mistake of making your customers regret subscribing to your emails. Limit your emails responsibly.
Victor Green is an Account Executive at Elite Email, the complete email marketing program used by organizations that want the best email marketing service provider. Get more tips by visiting the Elite Email Blog.