Regardless of how big or small the business is, it is important to strategically allocate the marketing dollars, particularly so for small businesses with unique needs and smaller budgets. Every dollar spent on marketing has to be worth it, and small businesses in particular need to be sure they are reaping the benefits all at once. Unfortunately, many small businesses do not have the luxury or budget to implement a number of campaigns covering various platforms concurrently.
Email marketing is an effective and efficient way for small businesses to reach out to their target customers, expand their customer base, and boost their reputation.
Benefits of Email Marketing for Small Businesses
1. Reaching the right audience at the right time
One of the biggest advantages of email marketing for small businesses is that it allows you to reach your target customers wherever they are. People have a higher tendency to ignore printed promotional materials, disregard billboards, and skip the commercials. Email is another story. With email marketing, it is much easier to reach people as they will always check their email and can do so at any time and on several devices.
Research has shown that people spend almost half of their time working from home on checking through their email. This translates to a significant amount of time spent in the inbox. Email marketing software will help you to ensure that your email reaches the people who are willing to open it and read your message.
2. Consistent outreach
Email marketing is a great and easy way to stay connected with your network of customers regularly. Consistent outreach will essentially translate into customers thinking of your brand first when they require your products of services. Consistency is key. If you are planning to only send emails to your network a few times a year to promote your brand, the engagement will likely be low.
It is important to focus on communicating with your target audience regularly through relevant and interesting content. Ensure that your contact details are easily accessible for people to reach out to you quickly if they feel compelled to.
3. Build brand credibility with expert content
For small business owners, positioning the brand as an expert in the minds of consumers is important.
Email marketing does not have to be only offering sales information and coupons. Other than emails created to drive more traffic to your website, you can also leverage email marketing to deliver fresh and unique content your target audience will enjoy reading. Including videos in your email marketing campaign will add value to every email sent.
4. Cost-effective
One of the most attractive advantages email marketing has for small businesses is the efficient use of budget and time. Statistics has shown that the return on investment in email marketing has been increasing every year. In a 2016 study done by Campaign Monitor, it was found that for every $1 invested in email marketing, there was a $44 return on investment.
Hence, for small businesses who have a limited marketing budget, email marketing is the way to go. Traditional campaigns like printing flyers are expensive ways of marketing your brand. Although there is value in them, many small businesses may not have the budget to do it regularly. On the other hand, creating a professional email marketing campaign is not time-consuming or complicated. Your emails could potentially reach hundreds of people with only a minimal cost.
If you are a small business owner who wants to make the most of a limited marketing budget, you should consider the Aspire Business Account. It is a smart business account that allows you to earn 1% cashback on selected software (SaaS) subscription services and online marketing spend.
5. Personalized Content
With email marketing, you can design targeted content and customize your campaigns. When it comes to personalization, it can be as simple as having the contact’s name included in the email. In fact, it has been shown that emails including the recipient’s first name in the subject line will have a much higher clickthrough rate than the ones without.
One of the biggest benefits of email marketing is having the flexibility of creating individualized content that is highly personalized to the needs of your target audience. For instance, your emails may have variations with different subject lines or images to boost the engagement levels.
Best Email Marketing Software
1. Hubspot
HubSpot offers a feature-packed and reliable email marketing tool ideal for small and growing businesses for free.
With the easy-to-use drag-and-drop email builder, you can design professional marketing emails that are engaging and help to grow your customer base without having to rely on designers. The best part about HubSpot is that it allows you to create beautiful emails and achieve amazing marketing results with minimal effort.
In addition, you will also be able to send more optimized and relevant emails to your customers with HubSpot’s email reporting analytics.
2. Zoho Campaigns
Zoho Campaigns is a great choice for small to enterprise-sized businesses. With the free plan, you will receive access to several features such as reports, A/B testing, and templates. For those who are currently using the Zoho CRM already, it will be ideal to check out Zoho Campaigns to get a sense of how the CRM and email can work together.
However, it is important to note that although the free version offers many features, most of them have restrictions. In addition, it can be more challenging to get started with this tool as customization is needed to send emails.
Frequently Asked Questions
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