4 Ways to Use Email Marketing for Small Business Growth

One of the best ways to get and retain customers is to effectively use email marketing as a two-way communication tool. For instance, did you know that for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return on investment is $44.25?

Email offers the ability for you to deliver direct messages to your customers with personalization and hyper-relevancy more than any other marketing execution. So, before we dive in, let’s take a look at a few more reasons why email marketing should be held with high regard when it comes to growing your small business:

• Email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook and Twitter. (Campaign Monitor)
• Eighty-one percent of online shoppers who receive emails based on previous shopping habits are more likely to make a purchase. (eMarketer)
• Personalized emails deliver six times higher transaction rates. (Experian)

With that in mind, here are four ways to use email marketing for small business growth:

1) Get Customer Reviews

Leverage email as a way to communicate with your customers after the transaction to get reviews and testimonials on your products/services. Doing so will enable you to build trust and credibility, especially since 88 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

2) Promotional Offers

Make sure you segment your email lists so that you can send personalized promotional discount offers to customers who are more likely to buy again. Sending the same offer to an entire list of subscribers without much thought behind it can do you more harm, i.e. incur unsubscribes. Additionally, getting repeat business from existing customers is much easier as it is low hanging fruit versus trying to gain new ones. So, treat your existing customer base with enticing promotional offers that will drive sales for your business.

3) Contests and Giveaways

A fun and creative way to get engagement is to run a contest or do a simple giveaway. There are two ways you can do this – one being that you run an exclusive contest for just customers and second, you promote this contest via social media channels to get more participants. Not only will this help you put your brand in front of current customers, it will also help build awareness for those who have not yet heard about you.

4) Sponsored Emails

Run a co-marketing partnership email campaign by teaming up with other businesses who offer complementary products/services to yours. This will allow you to expand your reach and tap into different markets for growth. Make sure you tie in this campaign with a targeted landing page or implement URL tagging as a way to track and measure any new sales that come through.

In Summary

Make time and have patience for continual testing. Just because one email doesn’t convert, doesn’t mean you should stop your initiative altogether. Harness the power of email marketing to help you grow your business while also nurturing customers for retention.