In this day of digital marketing, anything that’s not new and shiny may get overlooked as a way to grow your small business. While social media marketing and other online strategies have their advantages, email marketing for small businesses is still one of the most effective (and cost-effective) ways to increase sales and profits.
At Select Funding, we work with small businesses every day, providing them with the working capital they need to achieve their growth goals. That includes providing funds to fuel effective marketing campaigns. Since email marketing is highly effective and affordable, here’s what you need to know to implement an email marketing campaign for your small business.
Why Would You Invest in Email Marketing as a Small Business?
Email marketing might not be the latest arrival in the world of digital marketing, but it’s still something that every small business should consider investing in.
Email Marketing Statistics
Let’s start with some email marketing statistics for 2022 that illustrate just how powerful and profitable email marketing can be:
- 77% of marketers say they have seen an increase in email engagement in 2022.
- 37% of brands say they’re increasing their email marketing budgets.
- Email marketing revenue is projected to exceed $11 billion by the end of 2023.
- Email marketing is the most common way that consumers find coupons from their favorite brands.
- 59% of Millennials and 67% of Generation Xers use their mobile devices to check email.
- Single-message autoresponder emails have a 98% open rate and an impressive 37% click-through rate.
- The average ROI on email marketing is $36 for every $1 spent.
- The most successful email marketing strategy is list segmentation.
There’s no denying what these numbers reveal. Email marketing for small businesses is hugely effective while also being one of the least expensive marketing channels to use.
Email Marketing Benefits
While the numbers are impressive, there are many other benefits to email marketing that small business owners should know:
- Increased brand recognition. You have probably heard the statistic that it takes between six and 10 “touches” from a brand for a consumer to make a purchase. Having an active email list is one of the best ways to increase brand recognition and encourage subscribers to buy from you.
- Small budget. As we mentioned above, email marketing is one of the most affordable types of marketing. By investing in email marketing, you can get a big bang for your buck even if you don’t have a huge marketing budget.
- Build trust and authority. Email marketing can be a good way to establish yourself as an authority in your industry or niche. While a lot of marketing emails provide coupons and information about sales, adding your personal expertise to your messages will make your subscribers trust you as an authority.
- Personalized marketing. Once of the best things about email marketing is how easy it is to personalize content. Even something as simple as including a subscriber’s first name at the top of the email can make a big difference in how they perceive your company and segmenting your list to provide relevant content can take your connection with your customers to the next level.
- Increased website traffic. Including relevant links to content on your website in a marketing email is an effective and inexpensive way to attract more traffic to your website. People who visit your website are also more likely to buy from you, so it’s a win-win situation.
- Create excitement. Email marketing is one of the best ways to build excitement about a new product, service, or location. Using a drip campaign lets your subscribers in on the exciting news earlier and you can increase the urgency and excitement as your launch day (or opening day) approaches.
Adding email to your marketing list is a way of staying connected with your customers even when they’re not in your store or on your website. You’ll be a constant presence in their lives and for very little money compared to other marketing strategies.
How Much Does Email Marketing Cost for a Small Business?
Since we understand that most small businesses have limited funds to work with, we want to make sure to address the cost of email marketing. Knowing it has a better ROI than any other type of marketing doesn’t help if you can’t afford the cost to get started.
The most affordable way to incorporate email marketing into your marketing mix is to subscribe to an email marketing service. Some of the most popular examples include the following companies:
- Constant Contact (as low as $9.99 per month for 500 subscribers or less; 60-day free trial)
- MailChimp (there’s a free plan and the least expensive paid plan is $13 per month for up to 5,000 emails)
- Zoho (there’s a free plan for up to 2,000 contacts and you can get unlimited contacts for $3 per month)
- GetResponse (there’s a free plan for up to 500 contacts and paid plans start at $15.58 per month)
The good news about these costs is that all of these email marketing tools include free email templates for you to use. They also offer other features that can help make your email campaigns successful, including the following:
- Email segmentation
- Email automation and scheduling
- A/B testing
- Analytics
You should keep in mind that free plans may not offer as many features as paid plans, but you can get a robust paid plan with all the features you need for about $15 per month or less.
How to Create (and Use) Your Small Business Email Marketing Strategy
Here are the steps to follow to create a workable email marketing strategy for your small business.
Define Your Ideal Subscriber
Your audience has to come first, so the first step is to create a customer persona for your ideal subscriber. You may need more than one persona depending on your business.
Each persona should include primary characteristics including age, gender, and location, as well as interests and needs.
Establish Goals
The next step is to establish some SMART goals for your email campaigns. We encourage having several goals and then creating campaigns designed to achieve them.
For example, one goal might be to add 1,000 followers on social media in six months and another might be to increase sales by 10% for the first quarter of 2023. Remember to be specific and keep your targets achievable for the best results.
Build Your List
It’s possible you already have some email addresses from your customers, but list building requires intention and effort.
We suggest coming up with a standard way to request email addresses, or possibly more than one. You might put an opt-in form on your home page, ask customers for their emails when they check out, or create a free lead magnet that you promote on social media.
Segment Your List
List segmentation is incredibly important because it is undeniably effective. Ultimately, you don’t want to send emails unless your customer is engaged in what the email is saying and likely to buy from you as a result.
You can segment customers based on their past interactions with your brand, but you may also want to consider self segmentation. A lot of brands send emails giving email subscribers a choice of email types to receive.
Create an Email Campaign for Each Goal
Now that you have a list, it’s time to create a unique email campaign for each marketing goal that you’ve identified. Here are some types of campaigns to consider:
- Brand awareness campaign
- Web traffic campaign
- Social media following campaign
- Lead nurturing campaign
- Revenue increasing campaign
For example, a web traffic campaign would include emails with relevant links to content on your website. Its purpose is to increase traffic. If you chose a revenue increasing campaign, you would want to link directly to products for subscribers to buy, and that might include upgrades and add-ons as well as your core products.
Write Emails
While every provider we listed in this post offers free email design templates, you’ll still need to create the emails you intend to send. That means writing the email content and selecting images and graphics.
For many small businesses, the best option is to outsource the writing. Your marketing emails need to be engaging and unless writing is your strong suit, you’ll get the best results by hiring a writer. You can find lots of royalty-free images online, but you may also want to hire a graphic designer to create infographics and other visual content to include in your email design.
Test Your Emails
Email testing is a must if you want to maximize your ROI. Most marketing email providers include A/B testing (also known as split testing) in their paid packages; if you’re not familiar with the term, A/B testing involves splitting your list and testing each element of your emails to see which option is most effective.
Elements to test might include your email subject line, greeting, images, calls to action, email personalization, and more. Never test more than one element at a time because doing so muddies the results. So, you would do one test for your subject line, pick a winner, and then create a new test for your greeting… and so on.
Track Your Results
The final element of any email marketing strategy is tracking your results. You’ll get free analytics from whichever email provider you choose, so make sure to take advantage of the data.
Even if you’re not engaged in A/B testing, you can still glean valuable insights from your analytics. For example, you may realize that targeted emails sent on certain days get a higher open rate than those sent on other days, or that promotional emails sent in the morning get more attention than those sent in the afternoon.
Get Working Capital to Put Email Marketing to Work for Your Business
Email marketing is affordable and also one of the most effective and rewarding marketing strategies available for small businesses. You can use the information we’ve included here to build your marketing strategy and reap the rewards.
Do you need working capital to amplify your email marketing efforts and increase your sales? Select Funding is here to help! Click here to read about our small business financing and begin the application process today.
