Why Email Marketing is a no brainer!!

We love email marketing because it is a brilliant way to contact potential or existing customers in a targeted and measurable way.  It can often feel with social media that you are putting content out there with no real knowledge of it’s impact but email marketing can often feel like less of a shot in the dark!

We love email marketing because

Love email

It’s easily accessible

email mobileEmail marketing is one of the most effective ways of getting to customers who are always on the move. In our experience over 50% of messages are opened from a mobile device.  It gives the opportunity to interact with customers in real time.

It allows you to retain and cross sell to existing customers

Email marketing is a great way to keep in touch with existing or previous customers.  Once someone has used your products and services you don’t want to lose contact with them.  Hopefully you have made a great impression and you want them to buy from you again.  Email marketing is a way of letting customers know what deals you have on, what is new with your company and any new products or services you have.  With previous customers you have done the hard work of making them buy from you, don’t lose them now!  Make sure you take email addresses from your customers as part of your selling process.  Think about the ways customers who bought one product may benefit from another you offer.

Email marketing can be highly targeted

womens-groupPeople on your mailing list can be categorised in a number of ways meaning you can have one list that covers a lot of different groups, with people falling into more than one category.  This means you could send one mail to people who bought a particular product for example. Or target another email to people who have not used you for a certain amount of time or a particular demographic.  It doesn’t have to be a one size fits all mailshot.  By being targeted in your approach you can feed the right type of content to the right people, thus improving the chances of getting a positive outcome.

It’s measurable

analyticsUsing a mailing system such as Mailchimp or Freshmail allows you to monitor who opens each campaign you send and see how many times someone opens your email.  You may find that someone opens it a number of times and therefore could be interested in your product of service.  It might be wise to send a follow up email to that person giving them more information.    You will also be able to see what links they have clicked within the email, so for example, if someone has clicked a link about ‘Ideas for Mother’s Day’ you can follow up with an email about a special offer for Mother’s Day. It will also tell you which emails have bounced so you can keep an up to date mailing list rather than having email addresses that are no longer valid.  You will be able to monitor who has contacted you as a result of the email and also how many people visited your website as a result of the mailshot.  This is all vital information to plan further communications.

It’s inexpensive

Compared to traditional marketing the costs are low.  The main time and cost is in the set up of the system, this involves template design and the creation of your mailing list.  You may want to create different segments of people who will be targeted by different mailings and this will take some time.  The on going costs depend on how much help you need to create the ongoing emails.  Copy needs to be written for each mailing and the mailing list organised.  Also reporting on the campaign needs to be monitored and analysed to inform you of where to go next.

Despite all it’s benefits many small businesses do not have the time to implement mailing campaigns.  This is a wasted opportunity.  Mailings can not only increase sales but also increase awareness of your brand and increase the engagement of your customer base.  Newsletters could point people in the direction of your social media and website outputs and increase your visibility across all your communication strands.

If you think your business would benefit from email marketing but don’t know how to get started, get in contact.