Email Marketing is the Easiest Way to Grow Your Business

One effective and popular method of marketing a brand today is the so-called email marketing. You may think it’s more effective compared with other tools like mobile marketing and social media marketing. Unfortunately, email marketing can be the easiest and the fastest method of delivering a brand directly to your customers. Companies just need to learn how to do email marketing the right way.  The ROI or return of investment using other methods can be doubled through this type of marketing.

Similarly, email marketing doesn’t have an exact flow or formula for success. How you use it for the growth and development of your business is what matters. It can even make or break your brand depending on a few certain things. Before learning further about email marketing, find out first about the factors to consider in achieving success in email marketing.

Factors Affecting Success in Email Marketing

• Permission from the Audience. Customers should always have the free will to choose when, how, and what messages they want to receive. Customers who did not subscribe should never receive an email no matter what. Marketing emails are different from transactional emails and are thus not included. The same thing goes with customers who are subscribed to newsletters but not actively connected to your business. In short, you can only send emails about your product and service to those who are users that want to get updates. Remember, it is very unethical and a complete no-no to force visitors to your website to subscribe to your newsletters.

• Useful content. Avoid wasting your time and that of the customers whom you will send the emails. The information included in the email should be relevant to them and the services or products they are looking for. You must know your customers’ interests to personalize your message better. They should not have subscribed to you if they are not interested. Also, having the same sender name each time is helpful to catch the attention of customers. Your company must have a logo as part of its design that has to be consistent. Doing so is like making customers get the idea that they are just reading content from the same magazine or newspaper.

• Proper segmentation. Only when you’re able to segregate your customers according to their needs and wants can you make things work effectively for your business. It helps increase your company’s revenue and the total percentage of customers opening the emails you sent. This way, they will feel that your message to them is especially constructed for them. Other important bases for proper segmentation are the information about their demographics, location, and behavior. Likewise, sending the same message to all your subscribers or customers in bulk will create a negative effect.

• Proper timing. Sending your marketing emails, reminders, and updates on a scheduled time and day makes a big difference. This is why timing is everything when it comes to trust and loyalty development. It doesn’t matter if you’re sending the messages daily or weekly. What matters is that you be consistent in sending them at the same time. Some customers like to wait for newsletters and emails which is easier if they know when they will come just like waiting for their favorite TV show to begin. Being on time makes an image of reliability and professionalism.

• Ability to be delivered. Your marketing email should be valid and not supposed to go to the Spam folder of your customers. This is one way of ensuring that they can be seen and read as soon as you send them. Messages sent as spam are those that contain errors either in the content or some technical issues. It also has to do with the colors found in your content. You must avoid using very bright colors like red and green in any part of your content. Other things you should not use are all capital letters and too many special characters. When it comes to the text and image, there has to be a minimum of 50% ratio.

Ways to Grow Business Through Email Marketing               

Now that you’re already aware of the things that make an impact on your success in the business using email marketing, it’s now time to learn how you can use it. Below are the top 10 ways to do so.

1. Promote products and services

- Just like how flyers and pamphlets were used in the old days, an email is just as powerful in reaching a bigger group of customers. In an email, you can include everything about your product and service such as its benefits, top qualities, and more. Customers are likely to take action if they see a special discount coupon included in your message which will be invalid within a specific time. Make sure to put only one offer in one email to avoid confusion.

2. Build loyalty and trust among customers.

- One effective way to build loyalty and trust among your customers is to always remind them of your presence. Sending emails to them on a daily or monthly basis is very helpful. This can be done through greeting cards or monthly newsletters.

3. Educate customers.

- Customers will often have the same questions that thus require the same answers, too. Businesses have the FAQ or the frequently asked questions part on their websites. When questions are not answered immediately, some customers would call the customer service team and add to your manpower. Whereas, other customers will be turning to other companies and websites for a more prompt response. To solve this issue is by creating blogs and webinars regarding such concerns from customers.

4. Marketing automation.

- Automating means producing a uniform response to certain customer concerns. This way, juggling a wide range of tasks without worrying about the time constraint. Marketing automation makes these responses done in just a few minutes.

5. Provide testimonials.

- Asking for feedback and comments regarding a product or service purchased from your company is very important. This is a direct way of checking for customer satisfaction that you can use to improve your product and service.

6. Cross-promotion with other companies.

- Partnering with another company can bring so much ease to promoting your product and service. If you own a school and you are partnered with a bookstore online, using their books for your online classes will benefit both you and your partner.

7. Improve your product logo or image.

- An attractive logo is almost equivalent to successful marketing. Customers become more familiar with your brand through the image they see in the packaging of your product or the shirt worn by the employees. In the future, your brand will be easily remembered when purchasing something.

8. Do upsell and cross-sell.

- With previous customers, it is easier to tell which product or service they will purchase in the future. In such cases, related products become faster to be sold. For instance, if your customer bought a microwave oven this week, you may offer another appliance in the next few days.

9. Turn visitors into customers.

- Having a lot of visits each day is already a good sign. However, if they are just visiting your website and not making any purchases, maybe you need to do something else. Adding a registration form for signing up customers will be great. This can give you vital information on how to reach them further for the offers of products and services that you may have.

10. Welcome new and prospective customers.

- Who doesn’t like to receive a warm welcome? Electronically, it is best done through an email. It’s automated with a greeting, especially to new and prospective customers. Because it is personalized, an automated welcome message instantly attracts attention that later on turns into a possible purchase.

Benefits of Email Marketing

As you begin to try marketing your business through email, knowing about its benefits, in the long run, may help motivate you more as well. Here are some of the good things to expect from efficient email marketing.

- Helps create personalized content.

- Helps improve sales and revenue.

- Makes better communication with customers.

- Provides more leads.

- Creates cost-effective campaigns.

- Provides own media and list of contacts.

- Enables reaching out to the right people at the right time.

The Bottomline

Other than the information about email marketing found here, there is so much more than you can try and discover. Grow your business and make your products or services known to everyone in the virtual world. No matter what product or service you offer, make sure you send only the most relevant content in your message. This way, you are not just making things clear in words but you are also making your customers feel that you are concerned about their needs and wants, too.