5 Email Marketing Tips For Small Businesses

Email marketing has always been the most powerful marketing channel for businesses across various industries and sizes. Even with the popularity of social media, email marketing remains the favourite pick for marketers, as 60% of them believe it produces a positive ROI. Not just for marketers, but studies also show that 72% of consumers prefer email over other communication channels.

For small businesses, email marketing is the best way to begin a marketing campaign simply because of its cost effectiveness and mass outreach. Apart from this, there are some compelling stats to help you understand why it’s necessary to optimize your email marketing techniques.

According to Adobe – 70% of Americans check their mobile device while watching TV, from bed (52%), on vacation (50%), while on the phone (43%), from the bathroom (42%) and even while driving (18%). Email is the least intrusive way to reach people on their mobiles.

With more than 1,000 billion emails being sent every day, you need to learn what it takes to do business in your contacts’ inbox by driving traffic and making some really good conversions. Keeping this in mind, we have gathered some of the best practices of email marketing that have proven results in increased ROI, especially for small businesses.

#1. Building A Strong Email List

Your email marketing requires a strong database. No doubt!
Successful email campaigns are backed up by a quality and targeted email list. When you have a list of potential customers, this is a sure shot to increase customer engagement, thereby resulting in higher conversion rates. Moreover, you begin to reach out to a wider audience and it’s easier to promote your brand regularly.

Tips:

 – SMBs that are beginning to build their email list can start with their known customers and prospects.
 – Provide attractive incentives or free content and don’t forget to choose a smart email service provider.

Did you know social media is an effective tool for collecting email addresses? Check out this instructional video on how to collect email addresses on Twitter!

 – Once you begin to accumulate an email list, many marketers forget to update their list. Remember, your database becomes outdated by 22.5% every year. Make sure you refresh and keep your database updated periodically.

#2. Integrating Social Media

Although social media can be a strong rival to email marketing, marketers can make the best use of social media to study customers and segment them based on their interests. Studies show that while 86% of marketers use email marketing, 72% of them use social media.

It’s a proven technique of reaching your targeted audience because your customer interactions are cross-platform. It’s a cost effective way to grow your audience by streamlining all possible channels into one.

Tips:

– One of the easiest ways you can use social media is by uploading your email subscribers. By doing this, you can track your subscriber activities to offer them more features
 – Including social sharing is another way to help your email subscribers to connect with you and make you popular.
– Retargeting your email subscribers is another great idea. For example: if you want to retarget your email subscribers on Facebook, Perfect Audience is a great tool where you need to simply install a tracking code (say, querystring) on your website.

Social media and email marketing go hand in hand. Once you start integrating both, you exceed your marketing goals and increase your conversions.

#3. Brainstorm Your Subject Line

Here’s an interesting data! Nearly 2.4 million emails are sent every second. So, what makes your email stand out? It’s the subject line!

According to studies, 35% of your recipients open your email based on the subject line. Subject lines grab the necessary attention of your customers and make them want to open your email. Deciding on the right subject line can be quite a stressful task.

Tips:

 – Ensure your subject line is short (50 characters maximum) and has something valuable to offer your customers.
 – Always check and recheck your grammar, as poor grammar will ruin your credibility.
 – Sending personalized emails works great. But when adding a touch of personalization in your email subject by including recipient’s first name can result in higher click through rates.
  – Use real-time stats and numbers.
 – Involve psychological elements, like creating a sense of urgency in your subject line so that it compels users to open it.
– Avoid spam triggering words in your subject line

#4. Stay Away From Spam Folder

 No matter how great and impressive your email content is, spam triggering words can automatically get your email flagged as spam.Earlier, only subject lines had to go through the spam filters. But now, the entire email gets scanned to ensure only clean emails land in a customer’s inbox. The best way to stay out of the spam folder is to NOT use spammy words. HubSpot has a clear and concise list of spam words that you have to check and avoid while writing your emails.

There are several factors that are linked to the spam concept. Apart from certain words (mentioned in the list) that can flag your email as spam, you also need to,

    – Avoid using caps in the subject line, large images and special characters.
    – Never use purchased or non-authenticated email lists.
    – Provide an ‘unsubscribe’ option for users to conveniently stop receiving your emails.
    – Never compromise on your email service providers.
    – Avoid colorful fonts in your email.
    – Use double opt-in methods so that users can confirm if they want to receive your emails

#5. Send Mobile-Friendly Emails

From shopping to handling all business activities, mobile has become an important communication channel. Mobile email optimization has taken the center stage of today’s marketing goal. Customers appreciate responsive emails because according to Radicati, 80% of emails will be accesses via mobile devices by 2018. If your emails are not mobile friendly, you could be missing out on so many potential customers.

So, how can you ensure your emails are responsive?

– Display small images while using a large font size.
– Keep your subject lines as short, as possible because there are high chances that it can get cut off.
– Provide strong and meaningful pre-header text, as this can get your readers to open your email.
– Use single column templates and set your template width under 600 pixels.
– Don’t forget to add alt text to your images.
– Strictly test on all possible devices to avoid smooth readability. You can make use of tools like Litmus for better email optimization.

 Email is not dead and, similarly, email marketing still remains a strong communication channel to connect with your prospects and increase your brand visibility. As mentioned earlier, emails are cost effective and simple to execute. Because of this, several SMBs are willing to choose email marketing as their standard marketing strategy.

Follow these tips to create better and goal oriented campaigns and watch how they increase your conversions!

Source: http://www.tweakyourbiz.com
Image Credit: Business hand touch Email Marketing Concept

ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business networking association dedicated to helping small businesses and entrepreneurs develop, expand and grow. We offer affordable opportunities to help create a positive impact and advancement in your business interests and personal quality of life to take you to the next level.
Stay Connected with WNFP!