Is email marketing effective? As a small business owner, you might be asking yourself that very question. You've read countless stats and case studies that have supported the enormous growth companies can experience with email marketing, but you are yet to taste this success yourself.
All you have to do is to build an e-mail marketing strategy. Every first-time small-business owner makes mistakes, but those can harm your business if they lose your customers or sales.
The below article is created to help you to skip those mistakes. Instead of figuring it all out by hit-and-trial methods, we've researched 10 email marketing growth hacks that every startup and small business owner should use.
These tips are easy to carry out and will drive the desired results. Whatever your goal is be it a higher open rate, click-through rate, or more conversions these e-mail marketing hacks will always work.
The following hacks are well-researched and will help any small business owners who have low and no budget at all. This is why these hacks are important because not many start-ups have a lot of investment for growth, yet everyone wants more sales and revenue.
These tips are particularly designed for the above-mentioned business owners but anyone can use them as well.
Use EmailAutomation
Being the owner of a small business means you have to perform many tasks by yourself. You're probably in the process of hiring a well-rounded staff, but you're not quite there yet.
This is why email marketing automation can be such an asset to your growing business. This hack will give you maximum results.
While you will have to invest some money in a business email marketing software but it will pay back dividends with time. According to data, 64 percent of marketers use automated email tools.
With the help of automated customer onboarding and welcome sequences, you can take care of your growing customer relationships. Automation can also help you personalize your emails, create templates for tailored messages, and send emails around the clock.
You have enough to do right now to make sure your business succeeds. Email marketing automation is like another employee. It does a lot of important jobs for you with little input needed on your part. It's time to have one for you.
Cut the DeadWeight
We know that you are concerned with building an email list that is as big as possible, so the thought of cutting anyone off your list is a surprise to you. But before we move forward, there is something that you should ask yourself.
Do you want 2000 people in your email list with only 500 of them interacting with you or do you want 700 people in your list and all of them are engaging with you?
Engagement and interaction are more important than the size of your email list. Those numbers don't guarantee anything so it is better to cut the dead weight. You might have a smaller one, but you can ensure the people who receive your emails want to receive them.
Well, there is a possibility that those dead customers might return so you can create a separate list for inactive emails. You can use automation to trim your email subscriber list.
Alternately, you can give inactive users the option to unsubscribe themselves, but if they're not opening and reading your emails, they might not do that as well.
Use Social MediaPlatforms
Socialmedia and email go hand in hand. Let's assume that you have a great following on any of the social media platforms so you can use that following to gain more email subscribers.
You might be wondering how? You can attract your audience by offering discounts or freebies on social media that only your email subscribers can take advantage of.
You can share parts of your most successful subscribers on Facebook, Twitter, and the like. This shows people what they're missing out on by not subscribing to your email list. You could even add an email list subscription button on your Facebook Business Page or Instagram account.
This works and vice versa as well, now let's say that you have a strong email list but your following on social media is not that great.
By ending your emails with a request of following or liking your social pages, you could get more engagement. You can even make it easier for your readers to follow you on social media by adding share buttons for each platform you use.
Always Get Your Subject Line Right
This is the most effective way to get maximum conversion from an email. It's all about your email subject line. We are aware that you already know how important the subject line is.
It's your first and sometimes the only chance to make a stellar impression on the reader. Personalization can be effective, as can emojis in some instances.
Interesting statistics
Little-known facts
Jokes and puns (as appropriate)
Announcement-based
List-based
Commanding ("sign up," "join us," "act today," etc.)
Deadline-centric
Question-based
Short but sweet
Mobile OptimizedEmail
Almost 60 percent of the world's population check their mailbox right after waking up in the morning. Still, even before they've had their daily tea, most people would notice a badly-formatted email that's not optimized for mobile.
As the majority of people access their emails on their smartphones, if your messages aren't mobile-optimized, you need to change that accordingly.
Well, more than half of the population is using smartphones to check their emails but some people are still using PCs. So the content should be optimized according to that as well.
Offer Discounts or Something Free
Freestuffs are positively irresistible. It's hard to turn down a discount or free thing. A solid coupon or discount could finally be enough to push that potential customer into checking out.
Even if you don't have something as tantalizing as a product to sell, you can still attract leads with a discount. You can even give a free e-book on any topic related to your customers. You just have to make sure the item you're discounting is
Targeted to your audience
Something people want.
It can be scary to discount anything during your first few months as a small business owner. But if you have a product that has the potential to gain engagement then you should go for it.
Tell an engaging story
Your customers are always busy. If they open your email, what's going to motivate them to read it through to the end? You can't always be offering things for free or offering discount codes to get customers to the end
You need to grab the attention of your reader as fast as you can, one of the best ways to do it is to tell them a story.
Crafting a story like your favorite novelist can get readers on the edge of their seats. Even if your content is a little dull, spicing it up with storytelling will make your copy sing.
You can tell any story but make sure you include emotions to that as they allow the reader to connect with your "characters."
Let's assume that, you write about your struggles to become a small business owner. You can talk about your struggle and disappointments in your journey until you finally opened the doors of your own company. Then you can talk about your feelings of triumph and excitement.
People want to read about real people. If you give your audience something interesting to read, not only will they hang on to your every word, but they will wait with bated breath until your next email.
Add Humour
Not all small businesses have a dramatic or interesting story, and that's okay. If you don't quite have enough trials and burdens under your belt, you could always try a different option for email writing. We're talking about humor.
Now, humor is not for every kind of company, that's for sure. You must have to be funny. Otherwise, your emails could come across as brash and even offensive. Humor isn't something you can force, either. That means if you don't think it's in the cards for your company, then it's probably not in the cards.
If you can harness the power of humor, a few funny stories or relatable stories inserted into your emails will not only get your subscribers reading but they'll be chuckling as well. This will also help you to increase engagement.
Send regular emails
We can understand that you're a new company, and you don't want to turn people off by sending too many emails too often. Everyone has been attacked by that one company that doesn't know when to stop.
What do we do when those emails become too much? We unsubscribe or send emails to the spam filter.
There's a balance between sending too few and too many emails. Sending too infrequently makes people forget about you. Without regular emails, it becomes an out-sight, out-of-mind situation. Sending emails too frequently can lose subscribers.
Many states show that sending two to four emails a month is best for small businesses. Well, all these are just stats, in the end, we advise you to do what works for your audience. If they want more emails, then send more emails. If they want fewer, then send fewer.
Always Put Your Email Signature
In all your email marketing efforts, have you stopped and thought about the potential power of your email signature? By including links to your website, you can generate free traffic.
Adding your phone number or other contact information could allow a customer to reach out. Including social buttons can boost your follower counts on your social media profiles.
The best part about the email signature is that it requires almost no effort on your part at all. By adding some links and text to your signature, you can market without real marketing but still reap awesome benefits.
If you are facing any issue with marketing then these 10 email marketing growth hacks will help you to gain an upper hand. We know you have a lot to do running a small business, but it's worth taking the time to better your email marketing. You'll see more growth and thus more sales.
