More than 50% of the world’s population makes use of email. That is over 3.5 billion people. Regardless of the kind of business you run, email marketing must be a key part of your strategy. Email marketing is a very effective and inexpensive way to reach your target consumers.
For small business owners who do not have the budget for traditional marketing channels like TV, radio, printing, postage, and direct mail, email marketing is an effective way to acquire new customers, improve your relationships with your current customers, and grow a stronger brand.
In this article, we will see the top email marketing strategies for small businesses.
Let’s get started.
1. Encourage your customers to subscribe to your emails
There are simple tweaks you can add to your website that will encourage customers to subscribe to your emails. The best part is that these steps do not require any coding or technical knowledge.
Use these simple steps to encourage email signups on your website:
Use an obvious call to action button
Your call to action button must be very visible on the signup page. It is your call to action button that will urge the customer to subscribe to your emails. It shouldn’t be identical to the rest of the page.
Use a call to action button color that contrasts the rest of the page. Any visitor on the signup page should be able to easily identify the call to action button. Also, use a large font.
Tip: The phrasing of your call to action is critical too. Some work better than others. Instead of using “Sign Up”, you can use phrases like ” Get Instant Access”, “Yes, Sign Me Up”, ” Yes, I want it”, and “Send It To Me”.
Simplify your signup form
To increase conversions, you must make it easy for the customers to sign up. Avoid making use of long signup forms. Include only important information like email and name. You don’t need to ask for their address or phone number unless you want to ship something to them.
Use embedded signup forms instead of links
Avoid using links to ask people to sign up for your newsletters. Using an embedded signup form on your website will increase your newsletter subscription rate significantly.
2. Send quality emails
If you want your subscribers to regularly interact with your email, you must send quality emails. Your goal should not be to send a ton of emails. Most of your subscribers will unsubscribe if you send a lot of emails that offer no value. When sending emails, follow the “quality over quantity” rule.
Take your time to write emails that will be beneficial to the subscriber. You will increase your email conversion rate and ROI when you deliver content that adds value to the customer.
3. Place your signup boxes in prominent places on your website
If you want to increase the number of customers that subscribe to your newsletter, the positioning of your signup box is very important.
Here are some of the places you can place your registration box:
- Above the fold: It is best practice to place your signup boxes on the part of the webpage that is visible without scrolling. Most visitors might not get to the end of the page. You will increase your conversions by placing the signup box above the fold.
- Top right sidebar: If you use sidebars on your website, it’s best practice to add a signup box.
- Homepage: The homepage is one of the most visited pages on websites. Adding a signup box to your homepage will increase the number of people that subscribes.
4. Have a value proposition
Before a visitor subscribes to your newsletter, they will want to know what they will gain. A good value proposition will help convince them. It will show them what they will gain from subscribing. In your signup box, tell them what kind of information they will gain from your emails. If you are selling goods or services, your value proposition can be new offers, coupons, special deals, or discounts.
Tip: When making promises, ensure that you keep to it. Your subscribers will unsubscribe if you are not delivering on your value proposition.
5. Properly format your email messages
Most of your subscribers will spend little time reading their emails. So you must grab their attention in the first few seconds or risk losing them. This is why you should properly format your email messages.
Start with the email headline. Use a catchy headline that will grab their attention. The subscriber probably receives a lot of emails every day. To make your email stand out, use a catchy headline. The next step is to make the email easy to read. Avoid using large blocks of texts. Make it easy for the reader to scan through the email content. Make use of paragraphs and headlines in your emails.
Tip: Always add ALT tags to your emails. By default, most email clients will not show the images. The ALT tags will help the reader know what the image is about.
Check out some email marketing mistakes that could crash your campaign.
6. Have a consistent schedule
You will increase your email open rates when you have a consistent schedule. Avoid posting emails anytime you like. Stick to the same days and if possible, the same time. Your readers should know when to expect your emails. They are most likely to interact with the emails when they are already expecting it.
7. Optimize your email for mobile
The majority of your subscribers will be reading their emails from mobile devices. Research shows that mobile opens account for 46 percent of all email opens. According to Google, mobile users check their email 3x more.
These stats show why it is important to optimize your email for mobile devices. Your email should be easy to read and scan through on mobile devices. So when you are creating your emails, test it on the major mobile devices to see how it looks.
Tip: If you don’t want to go through the hassle of testing your emails on different mobile devices, use an emulator. An emulator will help you see how your emails will look like on different mobile devices.
8. Use blog content to channel subscribers to your email lists
It will be very difficult to reach your email marketing goals if you do not drive traffic to your website. One of the best ways to grow your small business website traffic is by creating content. Creating awesome content on your website will help drive traffic to your website. The more traffic you get, the more people that will come in contact with your signup box.
Tip: Make sure you create content that your target audience will read. To effectively do this, you need to research keywords that will attract the right kind of readers. You don’t want to attract readers that are not fit for your business. You can use keyword research software to help you find the right keywords to target in your content. (You can check out this comparison guide between SEMrush vs Moz to find out how a keyword research tool works).
9. Make it easy to unsubscribe
Do not try to be sneaky with your subscribers. Make it very easy for them to unsubscribe. Hiding your unsubscribe button is a very bad practice. If a subscriber can’t unsubscribe from your emails, they will add you to their spam lists. When a ton of people add you to their spam lists, your email address will be flagged. This will reduce your email deliverability rate.
10. Always ask for email verification
This practice helps ensure that you have a quality list of subscribers. The more quality your email subscribers, the higher your chances of reaching your email marketing goals. Email verification will help you reduce the number of inactive subscribers on your list.
11. Perform regular A/B testing
It’s Important that you perform regular A/B testing to find out which of your email marketing strategies are producing the best results. Here are some of the things you can test:
- Position of the signup box on your website. Which signup box placement brings the highest email subscribers?
- What day and time see the highest open rate?
- What kind of email performs best? Do your subscribers prefer plain HTML emails or emails with images in it?
- Short or long email subject titles – which one sees higher open rates?
These are some of the questions you should ask when performing A/B testing.
Conclusion,
As a small business owner, email is one of the most effective ways to engage with your customers. To take advantage of the power of email, small businesses must have an email marketing strategy. The tips in this article will help you create a strong email marketing strategy for your small business.