Email marketing is exactly as it sounds… a very effective digital marketing strategy that allows you to deliver your message to inboxes around the world. Having the power of email marketing in your back pocket gives you the ability to control what message goes to what audience at what time.
Why is email important for business in 2021?
Everyone is doing it.
Why is email marketing a no-brainer for businesses? Because consumers prefer to be contacted via email over other marketing channels. Email is familiar territory for consumers, as it has been around for almost 50 years. Can you believe it? Almost 50 years.
Different generations lean towards different online markets and social media channels, but it still holds true that just about everyone uses email on a daily basis. Work. Personal life. Promotions. 294 billion emails are sent around the world every day. And with approximately 4 billion people using emails for communication in the world, 99% of them using email every day, this is something you can’t afford not to be using.
While social media has become a powerful communication tool, email marketing continues to be the leader in converting leads into customers.
What is good Email Marketing?
Reaching audiences with messages that win.
At its core, email is about connecting with your audience in a cost-effective, targeted way. You may already be saying to yourself, I get so much spam already, how can I really cut through the clutter and know I’m not wasting my time? You can probably name a handful of businesses that just blast you constantly with promotional coupons and think this week is going to be any different (looking at you “20% off” weekly coupon company).
Effective email marketing has a clear and concise messaging and strategy. Plus, email marketing has a huge ROI—some research even suggests that for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you get an incredible $38 in return. So maybe it does work better than you think.
Remember: People must choose to open an email, unlike online paid advertising. For that time (however brief), you have their attention.
Email marketing is about building value and generating credibility for your business. Introduce new events and services, remind of seasonal scheduling, helpful tips and tricks, and communicating with your clients. While this conversation is just one-way at this point, you are building a relationship with people and you need to be speaking to what is important to them, not just to you. Authentic and real communication will help develop more loyal customers and advocacy over time. ESP (email service providers) can be invaluable tools to help you track and personalize that message. No one wants to open an email not intended for them, make sure they count.
Already working with an ESP or CRM? check out Developing High-Converting Email Marketing Campaigns
What is an Email Service Provider (ESP)?
While services like Gmail are technically an email service provider, if you are a small business and still relying on organizing your growing customer and audience list through a service like Gmail, you are missing out on many features and benefits. While Mailchimp is still the go-to standard, other providers like Constant Contact or Benchmark are also typically used.
Major Advantages of an Email Service Provider
- Bulk Email Campaigns – tired of repeating the same email to a group of people? These services allow you to send massive amounts of emails instantly. You can even set these on future schedules to make sure your emails go out at the best time.
- Audience Development – software like Mailchimp can help you define audience groups. Audience Segmentation strategies allow you to break your audience into different groups which can be a great way to cater your messaging. Mailchimp’s latest user data showed that segmented campaigns get 14.37% more opens and 64.78% more clicks than non-segmented campaigns.
- Automation – not only does this save you time, but has become the standard in the 21st century. Automated email sequences are the greatest advantage of these ESPs. There are several different types of automation including nurture, conversion, onboarding, and abandon cart. Each of these would be dependent on the user journey and business type.
- Tracking & Analytics – the great part of these softwares is they can provide valuable information about your email campaigns. How many people open your email? How many people click on a link to a product? Want to run two side-by-side offers to a small group and then send the best performing one to the rest of your audience (A/B testing), they can do that.
- Support & Training – many of these services also offer internal insights and even training courses. While most of them are intended to get you to dig deeper into their software (customer nurturing tactic), they can be super helpful for you to be more efficient and effective.
However, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to best communication practices with your potential customer and current customers. There will be a variety of other metrics that will be helpful to have at your fingertips. To fully integrate Google Suite analytical information, contact records, email marketing performance, sales data, and much more, you will need a high-quality Customer Relationship Management (CRM).
Don’t have a CRM? Check out our list of the best CRM’s for Small Businesses. Our business development team has over a decade of working within a variety of CRM and welcome to examine your sales process to find the best fit for your business.
Make Email Marketing Work for You
Whether you’re just getting your feet wet or you’ve never dipped your toes into the pool, BUHV is here to help you with your email marketing needs. As a Certified Mailchimp and Hubspot CRM Partner, we are equipped to build you a high-value campaign. Work within another platform? No problem. We have been in this industry for a long-time – learn what makes BUHV different. Get in touch with us today so we can unleash the power of email marketing for you and your business.
