Small business email marketing

Provide value to your customers

Small business email marketing can be a fantastic way to generate new business. Another form of direct marketing, it is cheap (free if you do it yourself from your own computer), immediate, and a great way to build a relationship with customers – existing and potential alike.

But with the huge amount of email traffic that accumulates these days, it is essential to get it right to avoid being deleted as soon as you pop into the inbox!

Here are some top tips to follow to help you along the way:

1. Plan your campaign well – what is the purpose of the email (to sell, increase traffic, build a relationship...and by the way – every communication you send should aim to build on a relationship), who will it go to, and how will you follow it up?

2. Segment your email list – don’t send the same mail to everyone. This way you can make the content very personal and relevant, which leads me on nicely to the next point....

3. Make the content personal, relevant...and of value! People get very bored of sales messages. Yes you can use email marketing to prompt a sale, but make sure every communication provides value.

4. Give recipients the option to opt out of email communication from you. Apart from good manners, it also helps you adhere to legislation. (Refer to the Business Link website for information about legal issues and best practice.

5. Update your email marketing list regularly. Emails go out of date more regularly than telephone numbers and postal addresses so it is important to check them regularly.

6. Give readers a call to action. Whatever the aim of your communication, make sure your prospect knows what to do next – call for further information, reply with when they’d like you to contact them, click to your site to view your product range, make a purchase by doing this ... etc)

7. Thank your clients for buying from you. Maintaining a positive relationship that delivers value to your clients is THE most important thing you should be doing. Small business email marketing is a really easy way to do this.

8. You may only have a second to capture the reader before he or she hits delete, so make sure you grab their attention in the subject line and the first line of the email. So make this about them.

9. With technology available these days it is easy to produce eye-catching emails but remember that some email systems disable images by default unless the user changes their settings. So make sure you the important stuff in text as well as graphics.

Before sending out follow this email marketing checklist.

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