Email Marketing Guide For Small Businesses

 Marketing to customers via email is an art, but it’s one any small business can master and use to grow and retain customers. All businesses need to grow but small businesses struggle to afford traditional marketing channels. Direct mailers can cost up to $1 per target, while billboards could run you $14,000 apiece in major cities. And television commercials can run into the millions, once you include the cost of production and placement.
What if I told you there was a way to grow and retain customers for much less? It’s not magic, you just need to harness the power of email marketing.

Why Use Email Marketing For Your Small Business? When it comes to reaching new audiences, heating up cold leads, or staying top of mind with existing customers, there’s nothing quite like email marketing – and not just because it’s cost-effective.
The main reason you need to be using email campaigns is that they’re extremely effective. The average open rate for marketing emails in 2023 was a whopping 21.5%. That makes it by far one of the most effective ways to advertise.
Professional marketers know it works – that’s why 41.5% consider it a very critical factor in their company’s success. In 2023, email marketing provided a return on investment (ROI) of an unbelievable $52 for every dollar spent. That means you can’t afford not to use it.

While price and effectiveness are two key selling points for running email marketing campaigns, one that tends to appeal to busy small business owners is that it’s something you can do in-house.
You don’t have to outsource your email campaigns to an agency or hire more staff.
With a little elbow grease and the information you gain here, you’ll be able to create and launch your own effective campaign in no time.

How To Start Email Marketing For Your Small Business1. Choose The Right Email Marketing Platform For YouHaving the right tools is an essential part of any job, whether it’s carpentry or marketing. And for business marketing, that means selecting the right email marketing software.
You could forgo this step and build all of your lists and campaigns manually in Gmail, Outlook, or whatever other email service provider you’re using, but you have a business to run.
Manual list building is a tedious, time-consuming process that takes your attention and energy away from other areas.
Plus, an email platform gives you the opportunity to personalize your messages while collecting performance metrics. These things alone make it worth the investment.
When deciding between the dozens of programs available, you need to find one that has the right functionality for you.

Some features you should consider are:

• Personalization features – Targets are 26% more likely to open personalized emails. Look for a platform that can parse your list for names and automatically insert them into emails.
• Custom branding – Your customers associate your small business with certain colors and a logo. The software you choose should make it easy for you to customize your emails with your brand.
• A/B testing – Version testing is one of the pillars of modern marketing. You should select a platform that allows you to try different subject lines and other content to find what works best for your field.
• Drag-and-drop – If you don’t know how to code, you’ll want software that lets you create great-looking emails without a thorough knowledge of HTML or CSS.
• Responsive design – 81% of emails are opened on mobile devices; Make sure your email builder automatically scales them to different screen sizes.
• Segmentation tools – To get the best results, you’ll want to target different groups with different messages. Look for a platform with a segmentation tool that allows you to divide your list into smaller groups.

Some of the most popular email marketing platforms include:

• Constant Contact
• HubSpot
• MailChimp
• Mailerlite

Over the past decade we’ve found that most email service providers (ESP’s) give you similar functionality. The real difference comes down to ease-of-use, support and price. And, ESP’s tend to raise their prices and limit support in line with their growth. No surprise that newer, hungrier ESP’s provide greater value. Right now we’re recommending Mailerlite to most of our small business clients. All of the four listed are excellent email service providers however, Mailerlite offers a fantastic balance of functionality, ease-of-use, support and price.

2. Build Your ListThis is the most challenging barrier to overcome for most clients. Why, because you must grow your list organically. In most cases this takes significant time and effort.
To build your list:
First add a signup form to your website and connect it to your ESP. This makes it quick and easy for interested visitors (who are hopefully hot leads) to subscribe and automatically be opt-in to your mailing list.
Second, add an interstitial or pop-up to your site with an incentive to subscribe. You’ll be shocked by how many new emails you can generate just by adding an interstitial to your site offering a 10% discount in exchange for an email address.
Third, add your current contacts and existing customers to an email list and offer them an incentive to subscribe. Go through your contacts, pull out the business cards you gathered at industry conferences, and comb the internet for the contact information of the people you want to reach. While time-consuming, this is an invaluable investment because these are the people most likely to subscribe, share and help you reach new customers. When they subscribe, send them a substantial reward of at least 20% on their next purchase.
Fourth, leverage the power of your social media accounts to generate subscribers. Offer them incentives for subscribing.
Never buy a list. Sending people emails without their consent is SPAM and it’s illegal. Yes, lists are for sale and unethical organizations deploy them. Beyond the ethical question of sending SPAM, there is additional risk that your sending domain will be ‘blacklisted’ by the major email service providers. So if you send SPAM from an email with your organizations primary domain, you run the risk of all email being identified as SPAM and blocked from delivery.

3. Plan Your CampaignNow that you have your targets assembled, it’s time to start figuring out what you want your email campaign to achieve.
What are your goals? Do you want to send promotional emails promoting sales and special offers? Do you want to send transactional emails like abandoned cart messages or upsells? Are you soliciting referrals or reviews from existing customers?
Once you have decided what you hope to accomplish, it’s time to create your campaign. There are five common types of emails that will suit most of your needs:
Blast emails – used for general announcements to a large audience.
Monthly newsletters – to keep your business top of mind and update your audience about new developments.
Welcome emails – For new subscribers or customers.
Promotional emails – offering sales, benefits, or incentives to encourage transactions.
Reminder emails – encourage targets to complete purchases or make another.
One of the more common sequences consists of a welcome email after initial signup, one or several promotional emails enticing sales, followed by promotional emails or reminder emails.
Create interesting, relevant content that will attract the right type of people. Include a link to subscribe. Communicate value with content that’s valuable from their perspective.
Re-engage past customers or warm up leads who have gone cold with email marketing. A typical sequence for this consists of a reintroduction email, reminding them of your brand, followed by a “we miss you” message that offers a discount or other incentive to use your business again.
There are many other uses for emails, too. Perhaps you’re hosting an open house and want to invite the recipients. Maybe you have a monthly newsletter that helps establish your credibility and authority. The beauty of this medium is its versatility. All you need to do is customize your messaging to your goals.

4. Create Your EmailsThis is where your emails become reality. Keep it simple and straightforward. A common mistake many inexperienced marketers make is wanting to add too many bells and whistles. Not only does an overly elaborate design distract from your key message, but it also confuses customers.
Keep your design clean and simple. Some businesses opt for plain text emails, which contain no graphics aside from maybe a logo in the signature.
This may be too extreme for you, however.  It’s okay to brand your emails, just make sure you keep them simple.
Once you have settled on a design, it’s time to focus on messaging. Again, keep it simple. Communicate one idea only.
The first battle is getting your message opened, and that means a compelling subject line. Try to inspire curiosity or offer some other motivation, e.g., “You won’t believe this deal,” “25% off sitewide,” or “Mistakes that can cost you.”
Now that you have your reader’s attention, it’s time to make your case.
Avoid overwriting and keep it simple. Explain what you’re offering or hoping to achieve, then include a call to action (CTA). Any salesperson worth their salt will tell you, you have to ask for the sale. CTAs in emails and other collateral are the marketing equivalent.
Some people find it helpful to imagine writing to a specific customer they know well.
Avoid jargon and colloquialisms – what may be obvious to you can be confusing or make them feel ignorant. Use simple, common language to get your message across.

5. Send The Campaign And Analyze The ResultsThe email platform you selected back in step one should provide you with all the information you want about how your messages are performing – and this should give you an idea of where you can improve them in the future.
Are you not getting enough opens? You could have a bad list or maybe you need to try a different subject line.
Are you getting opens, but no conversions? Try changing your content.
Are you seeing a lot of unsubscribes? You could be sending too many emails that lack value from the readers perspective. Avoid being a pest.
If your results are poor, don’t worry. Email marketing is an art and no one gets it right the first (or second, or third) time. That’s why you want to take advantage of A/B testing.
But if you put in the work, you’ll get a feel for what does and doesn’t work in no time and start generating the results you want.

Bonus Tips
Here are some additional ideas to help you maximize your email campaigns:

• Focus on quality, not quantity.
• Encourage signups wherever it makes sense (social media, on your website, etc.).
• Segment your list so your messages are more targeted.
• Automate messages where you can. This includes welcome messages, purchase confirmations, and re-engagement emails.

Get Started
Email marketing provides the opportunity for a massive ROI, without a lot of upfront costs. But it takes focused effort to drive consistent results.
Plan your strategy, do the work, track your results and tweak your messages (in other words, follow the tips provided here), and you’ll find your campaigns getting great responses in no time.
Hopefully this guide armed you with all you need to get started. If you find yourself struggling, reach out. The Grey Partners team is ready to help you build your brand and grow your business.

About Grey PartnersBe found fast & impress. At Grey Partners, our objective is simple: grow your business. We are your force multiplier delivering website design, search optimization and lead generation solutions for small to medium businesses. We help you reveal your most critical opportunities, focus with purpose and achieve extraordinary growth outcomes. Learn more at GreyPartners.com