What many small businesses fall down on is staying in contact with the people they’ve met, whether they are previous clients they’ve had, clients they’ve networked with but aren’t ready to buy, or even people who are not their primary target audience. Businesses tend to ignore these clients in constant search of new ones, but why ignore the people who have met you and know about your brand? Surely that is a lot more effort and slightly counterproductive?
Staying in consistent contact with each of these types of people is crucial for your business to grow and develop. It’s the equivalent of reminding people that you exist. Without that regular reminder of you and your brand, how do you expect customers to remember you when they want to buy your product or service?
One of the easiest and most effective ways of regularly communicating with your contacts is Email Marketing.
Why You Should Use Email Marketing
The main reason you need to be using email marketing is to potentially turn your previous clients into loyal clients. Think about it. If you’ve finished a job with a client and never contact them again, what’s stopping them from working with your competitor? You need to be actively building a relationship with these clients, not expecting them to return to you when they are ready to buy.
As business can sometimes come down to timing and circumstance, email marketing is a really easy way to stay with your clients until they are ready to work with you again. In this time, you can assure them that you are the best and that what you sell is exactly what they need. As well as building relationships, email marketing is also important to gain awareness and generate sales.
How to Use Email Marketing
The most effective type of email marketing is permission-based or opt-in emails. This is where you’ve collected business cards at a networking event or embedded sign up forms on your website, and those people know that they will receive an email from you. Advantages of this type of marketing are abundant, with the main benefit being a greater chance of a working relationship forming as a result.
So how do you successfully use email marketing? First you need to identify the needs of your audience, as this will make up the basis of your content. Then you need to send out monthly emails with all of these components:
- A Killer Subject Line – we all know that this is the first thing you see in an email. It is the difference between us opening an email or even deleting it first hand, so it has to be strong, intriguing and explanatory.
- A Creative Preheader – the snippet of text that follows the subject line also needs to evoke interest, whilst providing a bit more information about what the email offers.
- Valuable Content – you need to be providing valuable and relatable content to your customers every month, so that when you do approach them with a sales pitch they are more likely to buy from you. Keep it short and powerful with a simple message. ‘How to’s’ and ‘guides’ are always a favourite.
- Catchy Images – it’s no secret that people love images. We are drawn to them so keep them relevant and don’t let them dominate the content.
- A Direct Call-to-Action – a clear call-to-action is the only way you will get your message across and the result you want. Repeat the call-to-action, highlight it in bold, have clickable text or a button, make it as obvious as possible.
- Add an Incentive – when you can, offer a discount or a free guide. Incentives have an increased chance of emails being opened and people are more likely to remember that you gave them something of value.
By sending out monthly emails to all of your clients, you are providing value to them and therefore building a relationship and trust in your brand. As you can’t rely solely on finding new clients all the time, investing this time in email marketing ensures that you consistently stay in the forefronts of their minds. That way when someone is looking to buy, or knows someone that is, you are their first choice!
Does this interest you?
Contact [email protected] for any queries or more information.
