The Learning Center

Email marketing has been around for pretty much as long as the internet has existed. And yes for many of us our spam folders are filled with junk we don’t want. But despite the amount of spam we all receive each day email marketing is a huge opportunity for small businesses. The key to it for a small business is how you use it.

So the obvious question is “What is the best way for a small business to use email marketing?”

The answer is simple. Use it to stay connected with your existing customer base, both past and present. Think about it for a second. Say you own a service business such as an auto repair shop, roofing company, embroidery business, or a plumbing company. Service businesses whether b2b or b2c by their very nature are in a position of having to collect contact information from customers and that information usually includes email addresses. Which means you have the “holy grail” of email marketing at your fingertips, you have the list!

What is the Key to Email Marketing?

The key to email marketing for any business is the ability to collect contact information from customers. It used to be that you would use that contact information for snail mail marketing but with email marketing you have a much lower cost and you still have a recipient that knows your company. And if their experience with your company was a good one then you have the chance to develop a long term relationship.

But How Do You take Advantage of Email Marketing?

You’ll need to develop a plan. And to do that you’ll need to ask yourself certain questions.

Some of the questions you’ll want to ask include:

Am I collecting my customers emails? If not you need to start.

How many emails do I currently have for my list? The more the merrier.

How often should I email my customers? This will vary based on the business.

What kind of content should my emails include? This is important because your emails need to offer something of value to your customers.

What is my email strategy? For example if I own an auto repair business my strategy might be to use coupons for oil changes as a way of staying in contact with customers so that when they need a larger repair they’ll remember that they can come back to me for those repairs as well.

Just about any business can benefit from email marketing. For local businesses though the best way is to use email marketing is as a point of contact with past customers to generate repeat business. Remember the old rule of thumb “it’s easier and cheaper to keep an existing customer than it is to gain a new customer.”

If you’re interested in using email marketing to improve your sales but would like some professional help call us at 615-890-3600 or email us. Email marketing is an effective and inexpensive way to improve sales when it’s done right.