The best way for a business to use email marketing is to keep its customers informed by customising messages to them. This gives the customers a more personalised feeling while going through the mail.
You can Personalise Email marketing
One of the biggest selling points of email marketing is the fact that you can target individual customers or a group of customers. Offering special deals to individual customers means you can send deals on products or services they are interested in, and you can send personalised deals on your customer’s birthday. Pretty cool right?
For instance, a restaurant can send a special discount to a customer celebrating his or her birthday. This endears your customers to you and what better way to get their loyalty. Email marketing helps you maintain a strong relationship with your customers and consequently grow your business over time.
Some of the best email marketing practices include getting your list yourself, as nothing is more annoying than getting a pesky email from someone you don’t know about a subject you have no interest in. Also, make your email list opt-in based rather than opt-out, meaning it is permission-based. Finally, ensure that your emails are optimised for mobile devices as the majority of emails are read on mobile devices.
Advantages of Email Marketing
The two biggest advantages of email marketing are its ease and the price. If you are looking for an inexpensive way to advertise your business and its services and products, then emailing is an excellent choice for you. Also, you can easily set up and track a campaign, making it one of the most accessible marketing strategies, especially for small businesses.
Your email list comprises of people that provided the required information on your site, and you can provide them with news updates on any upcoming event or any special offer. It is also a smart way of saying “hey, our business is still here and we are looking forward to another visit from you.”
Email marketing is still relevant
In this age where almost everything goes through social media, email advertising is still quite relevant today. Let’s look at the results of a study by HostPapa:
- About 94 percent of internet users still use emails, while only about 61 percent of them use social media.
- About 75 percent of adult online users prefer email marketing to other marketing methods.
- Email marketing allows consent with the “opt-in” feature.
- With email marketing, you can easily target a demographic through age, income, and so on.
- Unlike social media messages, email messages have more formatting possibilities.
- There are more analytics and reporting capability with email, and some of them are open rates, conversions, bounce rates, and click-through rates.
One of the biggest advantages that email marketing has over social media is that there is a higher chance of prospects seeing your email than a social media post. Although social media has a wide reach, it doesn’t guarantee that everyone will see your social media post, as it may not even appear on your target’s stream. An email, however, will just stay in your prospect’s inbox.
The best way to use these two marketing strategies is to use them hand-in-hand. You can add your social media “share” or “like” buttons to your emails, giving your customers more options to connect with your business. You can also add snippets of reviews from your social media fans to your emails. You can encourage your fans to subscribe to your newsletters using your social media posts.
If done the right way, email marketing has the potential for increasing your profit margin. It is an excellent way to get people to visit and revisit your blog or site, and of course, we all know that more traffic equals more income.
Email marketing tips
- Build your list – One of the first things you need to get off your mind is buying email lists, it never works. All you will achieve is alienate you potential customers and become labeled as a spammer.
- Abide by the CAN-SPAM Act and the EU GDPR compliances regulations – It is vital that you abide by these rules and include adding your address and name at the end of your mails, having a method for prospects to unsubscribe, and having a subject line that isn’t deceptive.
- Don’t send your ads out every time – The aim of your emails should be to build rapport with your customers by giving them valuable tips from your expertise.
- Treat the people on your list well – You must always remember that the people that have given you consent to use their mails have trusted you with their personal information. You should, therefore, show them the respect they deserve.
- If you are sending newsletters, stick to a strict schedule. Sending your marketing emails on a regular schedule will create a level of expectation from your subscribers. Therefore, they know what to expect and when to expect it from you.