5 Email Marketing Tips for Small Business Owners
A love letter to your customers.
Email marketing is a way to deep relationships with your customers by engaging them and providing value simultaneously. It’s also an opportunity to nurture potential buyers in your database. Email is part of our work and private life so it’s here to stay for a long time. The best you can do is either get really good at it or if you’re like most business owners and don’t have time, invest in an email marketing agency who will activate your email list.
Here are 5 email marketing tips I’ve learned over the last seven years:
Keep building your email list
Who, what and why
Landing page is critical
Email design and tone are key
Hire an email marketing freelancer or use a platform
1. Keep building your email list
If you’re just starting out your business, you most likely don’t have an email list yet to market to. That’s okay! One step at a time. If that’s your case, you need to add a sign-up form on your website immediately to start collecting emails. That’s the FIRST thing you need to do today before anything else. You’ll have to test and see where the form does best to capture emails on your website. Is it a pop-up triggered when they scroll half-way down your homepage? Is it on a blog? Or is it just embedded on your homepage? Remember, you have to offer something in return for their email. Will it be juicy blog content or a steep discount for first time visitors?
If you don’t even have a website, well. You’re missing out on a lot of potential business. Nurturing an email list is one of the main ways to grow your business. This Squarespace website is only $13 a month and my domain was $12. A scheduling tool is $15 a month. It’s affordable and so easy to build. There are a lot of website platforms out there but my recommendation goes to Squarespace. They make it so easy for the average person with minimal design skills to build a complete website within hours.
If you have a website, a sign-up form and an email list, you might be ready to up your email marketing game. Over 20% of your email list depletes annually so you must continue building your list to make up for the loss. Different offerings, advertising, and blogging are all ways to capture emails.
Be sure to book a free email review with me below to review what you’re currently doing and give you tips on some strategies. Also, keep reading 2 through 5.
2. Who, what and why
At this point, you’re writing emails and you’re trying to improve conversion like open rates, click-through rates and revenue attribution.
Next time you write an email, think of these next few steps. First, WHO is this email going to? It could be a segmented list to new subscribers or it could be to loyal customers. Think about where they are in their journey because that will determine how you have a conversation with them.
The WHAT has to be very evident. Try squinting and looking at your email. What did you see? Maybe all you saw was that one bolded word. Well, remember that is also what they will see. So, make WHAT the email is about very obvious and clear to understand in a matter of seconds with some originality. For example, headline could be “How could Fridays get any better?? Get 50% every first Friday of the Month with CODE. Go!”.
Next is WHY? Why would they care to interact with your email. Have you ever received an email that was just BLAH. It didn’t make you want to read it all, let alone click on anything. The WHY will be the reason WHY they click. Think “what’s in it for them?”.
3. Landing page is critical
Sigh. The infamous landing page. You do all this hard work to write and design this super awesome email that a lot of people opened and clicked on but when they got to the next page, the landing page didn’t convert them to do what you wanted them to do. Now, don’t think it’s a complete failure but there are lessons to learn from things that don’t work. Every audience is different so the more you test, the more you’ll learn about what they like and don’t like.
The most important thing is to create landing pages that make it easy for that person to commit. Don’t create barriers by asking them to fill out five form fields before they click submit. TIP: The less form fields the higher the conversion. Keep testing to see what your audience likes. Do they like filling out forms or do they prefer booking directly on a calendar? Maybe your offer isn’t juicy enough. Maybe it’s a price adjustment or it’s how you present it. Wherever you take them next, remember where they land is just as important as the email.
4. Email design and tone are key
Make people love getting emails from you! So that when they see your email in their inbox, they know they’ll get something juicy or find pleasure in reading it. It’s a masterful combination of creating a beautiful modern email that is attractive to the eye and a conversational tone that makes the reader feel like you’re talking directly to them. The tone starts from the subject line. Do you make them feel special? Do you make them feel like your emails are worth not deleting? Do you sound like them? Mimic their behaviors and language. TIP: If you don’t know what that is yet, you need to invest in doing customer research, interviews, and surveys to get a better understanding of who your audience is so you can use the same WORDS they use. This is a common mistake.
Next, invest money and time in a good email platform if you’re doing them yourself. FloDesk has revolutionized the email design game and has made it so affordable. They include landing pages and workflow automation so you literally have everything you need to win the email game.
Need help setting up your email game with FloDesk? Find time on my calendar below for a free email review!
5. Hire an email marketing freelancer or use a platform
This ties into what I mentioned above. There are many email platforms available if you’re considering doing email marketing yourself. Just remember it’s not the easiest to switch email platforms down the road once you get started so pick wisely. You also have the option of hiring a marketing freelancer or email marketing agency (like Pink Guava!) to help you get started, set up your workflows etc. and help you improve conversions. Writing, designing and automating emails can take hours and does require a skill to successfully convert and engage readers. If you have enough on your plate, consider booking a time to meet with me below to review your email goals.
Happy emailing,
Michelle
