Email Marketing
As a small business owner, you know just how important it is to stay in the front of your customers’ minds. And what’s the easiest way to do that? Running a successful and well thought out email marketing campaign, of course!
Get a jump start on the competition by following our eight email marketing tips for small businesses.
1) Make it easy to subscribe.
This seems obvious, but you would be surprised how many small companies–from consulting businesses to corporations–have a regular email newsletter but do not have a place to subscribe for emails on their website. But not having a place to subscribe isn’t even the worse mistake a company can make. Two of the most common mistakes I’ve seen are having a broken subscribe link and requiring too much information upon sign up. People want a quick and easy newsletter signup. Instead of requiring their first name, last name, address, phone number, and email, simply ask them for their name and email. This is an instance where less is more.
2) Create a newsletter that matches your brand.
Email newsletter templates are great for one reason and one reason alone—they’re easy to use. Instead of using a templated newsletter, we recommend custom designing (or at least as much as possible) the template to ensure that it matches the look and feel of your brand. You should be aiming for consistency between your email marketing campaigns and your website. Subscribers could be puzzled when they receive an email newsletter that seems to have no tie to the company website they subscribed on.
3) Make it easily digestible.
How many emails show up in your inbox on a daily basis? If I had to guess, I’d guess a lot! I feel like everything I open my email there are 15 new emails waiting to be read. Because of this, you need your content to be engaging, but not only that, it needs to be easily digestible as well. Users aren’t going to spend minutes reading through every detail in your email newsletter. It’s like that they are going to open it, and skim through until they find the section that interests them the most. To ensure users can find what they want, when they want it, make sure your email newsletter has a clean design and is broken up into sections. (You can even include bulleted lists if you’re feeling crazy!)
4) Don’t forget about mobile.
According toMarketing Land, nearly 68 percent of emails are opened on a mobile device—and that number is only expected to continue rising. So, is your email marketing campaigned optimized for mobile devices? Or do you only look at it from a laptop or desktop computer? If you don’t design your email for mobile devices—regardless of how relevant your message is—you could find yourself dealing with minimal conversions!
5) Test your newsletter on different devices.
Before you start send out your email campaign, send a few test emails to different devices, such as an iPhone, iPad, Android, etc. These tests will help ensure that the user experience is top notch across all devices. You may just have a few easy fixes like making some cosmetic or template changes, but you could find out that the template is completely distorted on one device. Testing is one of the most effective steps you can take to avoid mistakes like this—possibly saving you from sending out a poor converting email simply because people couldn’t access the information.
6) Include links to social and review platforms.
If users have already subscribed to your small business email newsletter, it’s likely that they enjoy receiving regular updates from you. If you are active on social media, it’s a great idea to include links to these profiles in the email. Your newsletter subscribers might not have realized you had a Facebook where you post different specials, and are probably willing to “like” your page since they’ve already committed to your newsletter. It’s also likely that the newsletter subscriber has previously engaged with your company for a product or service. Because of this, providing links to review platforms like Google+ and Yelp is crucial.
7) Make the unsubscribe button accessible.
We know you don’t want to lose readers, but opt-outs will happen. And nothing frustrates newsletter subscribers more than being unable to unsubscribe from an email newsletter. Don’t try to trick the user and hide the unsubscribe button—white text on a white background is just plain old mean. Instead, make it accessible in the footer so if a person should decide that they no longer want to receive your email, they can easily unsubscribe instead of sending you a (probably mean) email asking you to take them of your list.
8) Monitor your competitors.
If you want to make your email campaigns more successful, it could be helpful to see how your local competitors are handling their email marketing campaigns. Subscribe to their email lists and see what type of content they’re including, promotions they’re offering, what kind of emails they said, how often they send a newsletter, and what elements they included in their email template design. Don’t take this tip the wrong way—we are not saying to copy what other small businesses are doing! Instead, use this tip to ensure you are sending emails that are different and more engaging than the competition.
Small Business Email Marketing
Although we service all industries, we have extensive experience helping small to medium sized home services companies get more leads and sales from the web, including email marketing.Contactone of Blue Corona’semail marketing specialists today at: 800.696.4690
8 Email Marketing Tips For Small Businesses
Get a jump start on the competition by following our eight email marketing tips for small businesses.
1) Make it easy to subscribe.
This seems obvious, but you would be surprised how many small companies–from consulting businesses to corporations–have a regular email newsletter but do not have a place to subscribe for emails on their website. But not having a place to subscribe isn’t even the worse mistake a company can make. Two of the most common mistakes I’ve seen are having a broken subscribe link and requiring too much information upon sign up. People want a quick and easy newsletter signup. Instead of requiring their first name, last name, address, phone number, and email, simply ask them for their name and email. This is an instance where less is more.
2) Create a newsletter that matches your brand.
Email newsletter templates are great for one reason and one reason alone—they’re easy to use. Instead of using a templated newsletter, we recommend custom designing (or at least as much as possible) the template to ensure that it matches the look and feel of your brand. You should be aiming for consistency between your email marketing campaigns and your website. Subscribers could be puzzled when they receive an email newsletter that seems to have no tie to the company website they subscribed on.
3) Make it easily digestible.
How many emails show up in your inbox on a daily basis? If I had to guess, I’d guess a lot! I feel like everything I open my email there are 15 new emails waiting to be read. Because of this, you need your content to be engaging, but not only that, it needs to be easily digestible as well. Users aren’t going to spend minutes reading through every detail in your email newsletter. It’s like that they are going to open it, and skim through until they find the section that interests them the most. To ensure users can find what they want, when they want it, make sure your email newsletter has a clean design and is broken up into sections. (You can even include bulleted lists if you’re feeling crazy!)
4) Don’t forget about mobile.
According toMarketing Land, nearly 68 percent of emails are opened on a mobile device—and that number is only expected to continue rising. So, is your email marketing campaigned optimized for mobile devices? Or do you only look at it from a laptop or desktop computer? If you don’t design your email for mobile devices—regardless of how relevant your message is—you could find yourself dealing with minimal conversions!
5) Test your newsletter on different devices.
Before you start send out your email campaign, send a few test emails to different devices, such as an iPhone, iPad, Android, etc. These tests will help ensure that the user experience is top notch across all devices. You may just have a few easy fixes like making some cosmetic or template changes, but you could find out that the template is completely distorted on one device. Testing is one of the most effective steps you can take to avoid mistakes like this—possibly saving you from sending out a poor converting email simply because people couldn’t access the information.
6) Include links to social and review platforms.
If users have already subscribed to your small business email newsletter, it’s likely that they enjoy receiving regular updates from you. If you are active on social media, it’s a great idea to include links to these profiles in the email. Your newsletter subscribers might not have realized you had a Facebook where you post different specials, and are probably willing to “like” your page since they’ve already committed to your newsletter. It’s also likely that the newsletter subscriber has previously engaged with your company for a product or service. Because of this, providing links to review platforms like Google+ and Yelp is crucial.
7) Make the unsubscribe button accessible.
We know you don’t want to lose readers, but opt-outs will happen. And nothing frustrates newsletter subscribers more than being unable to unsubscribe from an email newsletter. Don’t try to trick the user and hide the unsubscribe button—white text on a white background is just plain old mean. Instead, make it accessible in the footer so if a person should decide that they no longer want to receive your email, they can easily unsubscribe instead of sending you a (probably mean) email asking you to take them of your list.
8) Monitor your competitors.
If you want to make your email campaigns more successful, it could be helpful to see how your local competitors are handling their email marketing campaigns. Subscribe to their email lists and see what type of content they’re including, promotions they’re offering, what kind of emails they said, how often they send a newsletter, and what elements they included in their email template design. Don’t take this tip the wrong way—we are not saying to copy what other small businesses are doing! Instead, use this tip to ensure you are sending emails that are different and more engaging than the competition.
Small Business Email Marketing
Although we service all industries, we have extensive experience helping small to medium sized home services companies get more leads and sales from the web, including email marketing.Contactone of Blue Corona’semail marketing specialists today at: 800.696.4690
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Email Marketing
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