Every year big organizations invest thousands of dollars on marketing to reach their prospective customers, that is not the case with small businesses. If you are one, every dollar spent on marketing counts. While the benefits of email marketing for a small business might not be obvious, there are many. If your firm is still not using email marketing, here are some reasons why you should hop on the email marketing bandwagon right away.

Email marketing is not new, it has been around for a while. It is used by large-scale businesses for promotion and cultivating relations with potential customers. But did you know that it is still one of the most effective strategies with Return on Investment (ROI) of email continues to be the best among all marketing channels? With a DMA study concluding that email marketing has a 122 percent ROI that is nearly four times of social media and all other channels. 

5 Major Advantages that can Help your Business Immensely  

With the help of this article, we want to help you get started on email marketing and below are the top 5 benefits of email marketing for small businesses:  

1) Targeting Your Audience The Right Way 

Email marketing enables you to reach your target audience on any device be it mobile or desktop users. Segmentation is a powerful tool used in targeting customers. Basically, it is segmenting your contacts into smaller lists based on various parameters like demographics, engagement status, past purchases, etc. All this is done for specificity and relevancy as it gives you control over who sees your mails. 

The popularity of email on mobile devices makes emails the ideal tactic for businesses who want to reach their customers on mobile devices. Campaign Monitor states that about 53 percent of emails are opened on mobile devices. 

This ensures that your audience receives content that is relevant to them as it is next to impossible to create content that is relevant to everybody. When you segment your lists you can customize your message for each customer depending on their segment to promote a higher conversion rate. 

Tip: The rule of thumb is to start with a monthly email newsletter and then gradually move towards promotional emails, seasonal messages for holidays and special events.

2) Grow Brand Awareness

Email marketing is an effective way to reach new customers and increase brand awareness.

It lets you instantly send a message to thousands of people across the globe. Sure social media helps you spread the word to a large audience but there is no control over who reads your message. With segmented lists, you can even target the local audience.

Once you start providing valuable content, for example, ebooks, it will help you get an edge over the competitors. With relevant and consistent communication with your customers through email, they are more likely to think of your business when they are looking for services or products.

Tip: Following a brand theme with a consistent tone, style, image, and content will help cement your brand’s identity with every mail you send.

3) A Cost-effective Method

Compared to the benefits in terms of ROI with other marketing channels, email marketing comes out on top. Statistics suggest that email marketing generated 44 dollar ROI on every dollar spent.

Sending emails is virtually free!

For small businesses, every dollar spent on the marketing budget must be worth it. They need to ensure that they see several benefits at once on a tight budget. Email marketing is very cost-effective as it takes very little investment to get started. Also, it is relatively inexpensive to maintain in the long run.

Tip: The overhead costs might include buying an email automation software but compared to investments on other channels emails are the most economical.

4) Easy Tracking and Smooth Integration

Tracking helps you to know what works great. Email marketing provides lots of metrics Or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which assists you to review how well your strategy is performing relative to your business goals. Some of the best email apps for android, for example, Mailchimp even let you track your email marketing progress on the go.

You can test and optimize your strategy to learn what resonates with your audience. This helps you target your customers according to their profile, improve upon your existing campaigns and find better ways to craft a new one.

Email marketing also integrates well with other tactics like social media. Once you have the insight of what works best you can transfer the same content on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook for maximum engagement.

Similar is the case with CRM (Customer Relationship Management Software), integrating it with email marketing is akin to linking your sales with marketing. With actionable triggers and segmented lists that let you build customer loyalty by sending birthday cards, holiday greetings, etc.

Tip: Analyze what your customers like and what they respond to, which helps you make improvements in every aspect of your business.

5) Highly Versatile In Nature

Emails provide a versatile means of communicating with your customers you can send images, videos, attachments along with texts in personalized messages. You require a great email that converts efficiently.

How to create such an email?

The answer is that awesome content makes subscribers come back, it is simple as that.

Assuming you run a small business, you can start by creating content that has value to the customer for e.g. how-to or informational Demos of your products. Include Call-to-actions (CTAs) that correspond to your offer in the email and tells the readers clearly what you want them to do.

Think of CTA as a button that sends users to your website to :

• Read an article.
• Purchase a product.
• Download an ebook or
• Avail a discount coupon.

Make sure you have clear CTA’s on your emails, for your readers, to implement the best practices, have a look at some call to actions examples to get inspiration. Using good CTAs will help to improve your click rates as well as conversions.

Tip: Keep it brief (100-200 words), use images when necessary and don’t overcrowd your readers with CTAs.

Wrap Up

So, these are some of the best ways a small business can implement an effective email marketing strategy, the main point being that email marketing is a cost-effective strategy, while still delivering exceptional results.

No matter your level of experience, you can quickly create an effective email marketing strategy without breaking your marketing budget. Once you start sending the emails look to optimize your strategy.

We hope this helps you in creating the right marketing strategy, reach a larger audience and grow rapport for your small business through email marketing.