If you’ve just started a small business and you’re deciding how to get the word out about it, email marketing is your best friend. While social media is an acceptable platform to promote your brand, email marketing allows you to run a more holistic and effective campaign, especially if you’re using the right email marketing software.
According to one study, 72% of consumers prefer checking their emails for new offers and deals, as opposed to social media platforms or websites. This essentially means that you’ll have more luck with direct email marketing than you would with a generic online or offline marketing campaign.
In case you’re still confused about the efficacy of email marketing, we’ve listed down some key benefits of using email to promote your small business. We’ve also put together a list of things to do to ensure an email marketing campaign that will knock the competition out of the water.
Let’s take a look.
1. Market directly to your target audience
The great thing about email marketing is that it weeds out a lot of people who’ll engage with your promotion but won’t be buying your products. People typically sign up to receive email promotions voluntarily, which means that you’ll be marketing directly to people who are heavily invested in what you have to offer.
To that end, email marketing using PosterMyWall’s email marketing software allows you to reach your target audience in a much more meaningful and effective way. Recent studies have shown that people spend 30% of their time at work looking through emails, while 91% of US citizens really like receiving good promotional emails from businesses they like.
So as long as your emails are well-written and look good, they will generate results among your target audience. And with PosterMyWall’s email marketing software, you can create something truly spectacular in no time.
Case study: Poppy Barley
As an example, take a look at this welcome email created by shoe company Poppy Barley. The great thing about this email is that it is written with the target audience in mind i.e. people who are interested in fashion and who are a part of the fashion world. The colorful pictures and clean font makes the email easily readable, which resonates well among all audiences. Something like this would reel your target audience in and compel them to engage with you instantly.
Check out these free business email headers to find a template like Poppy Barley’s, and start reaching out to your audience.
2. Build stronger relationships with your customers
Not only will email marketing help you reel in new customers, but it will also make your customers more loyal to you as a business. Why? Simply because an email is a much more personalized way of engaging with your audience, than say, social media.
You can address the person you’re emailing directly. You can give them a seemingly unique insight into your brand, and you can talk to them in more detail than you would be able to with a generic campaign on a billboard.
Case study: Nonna Live
For instance, take a look at this promotional email sent out by Nonna Live, a company that offers online Italian cooking classes. At first glance, the email gives out a very wholesome and comforting vibe, which is exactly what the brand is trying to portray.
In just one email, you find out more about who Nonna is and what her students have to say about her, and you get pictures showing her at work. It’s hard to do all of this with a traditional marketing campaign. Therefore, with more words and creative space, you can truly connect with your target audience. If you’re not sure how to structure your email like Nonna has, you can use the PosterMyWall email marketing software.
3. Promote your business in a cost-effective way
Compared to other forms of marketing, email marketing is incredibly cost-effective. Especially if you use PosterMyWall’s Email Maker to do it. Think about it – no printing costs, no fighting for premium ad space online or offline, and no postage or other associated costs. What’s more, email marketing brings in way more money than it uses up. According to a study by the Direct Marketing Association, businesses make about $40 for every $1 they spend on creating or sending an email. And with the PosterMyWall Email Maker, you don’t even have to spend too much time preparing your campaign.
Case study: Brightland
Take a look at this email from food company Brightland. You’ll notice that their email does a great job of not just displaying their products on sale, but also explaining why investing in their products is a good idea, thereby giving their audience an opportunity to make an informed choice about their purchase.
If the same campaign was run on social media or offline, you would need multiple promotional graphics to convey all these messages.
4. Email marketing allows you to increase brand awareness
What better way for your customers to get to really know you than through email? As we’ve seen with the campaign examples above, you can say so much via email and allow your customers to learn more about your business before they buy from you.
Of course, to show people what kind of brand you are, you need to be authentic in your emails and you need to provide content of value. Your emails can’t be too salesy. They have to be informative and interesting, so people look out for them again.
Case study: Fable
A good way to keep your audience interested while getting your brand message across is through newsletters. Like this email newsletter by Fable, a retailer for dining essentials. In their round-up email, they tell their customers what they have achieved and how they intend to grow in the coming year. An email like this is the perfect way to show, in tangible ways, what your brand stands for and what its mission is.
If you want to create an effective email newsletter, check out these email newsletter templates and create your own story in minutes.
5. Improve sales with targeted calls to action
While social media and website marketing also allows you to add call-to-action buttons to guide people to a certain landing page, emails do this in a much more effective way. How? You can get more specific with your CTAs in emails and add multiple instead of just one or two. You can do this because emails stay in people’s inboxes for them to find whenever they need them. By comparison, people come across social media ads only once or twice and these eventually disappear.
Case study: Marine Layer
This email by apparel company Marine Layer demonstrates how you can get more people to buy from you through specific, targeted calls to action placed strategically throughout the email content.
6. Build an air of exclusivity with email marketing
People love feeling like they belong to a special, exclusive club. With frequent and valuable emails, you can make them feel like that. Through email, you can offer exclusive discounts or “top-secret” information about new arrivals or your brand in general. When you do this, people will automatically feel important and will therefore be more likely to engage with your content.
Premium Plus subscribers can also use their custom email addresses with their email blasts, which is crucial for maintaining that exclusivity in every facet of your business.
Case study: Immi
Food company Immi takes advantage of this benefit through the email shown below. They do this in a couple of ways. First, you’ll notice that they address the person they sent the email to by name. This automatically makes the recipient feel special. Second, they’re offering a year’s worth of free food, an offer which makes receiving the promotional email worth it. And third, the header text “welcome to the family” sends out a message of exclusivity right off the bat.
Ready to start your email marketing campaign?
With these benefits in mind and examples to get inspiration from, we’re sure you’re eager to start your own email marketing campaign. After all, it’s easily one of the best ways to promote. Before we can help you get started, here are some quick and handy tips to keep in mind when creating your promotional emails.
1. Always add a call to action
Your email is incomplete without a call to action that guides people to the platform through which they can buy your products. A good call to action will follow a small description or image that tells people why they should buy from you. If you’re not sure how to add a call to action to your email, PosterMyWall’s email marketing software can help you create one easily.
2. Open with an intriguing subject line
Your subject line can be the reason someone opens your email or the reason they ignore it. So make it catchy and intriguing. The point of the subject line is to get the viewer to open the email so add a word or two that builds their curiosity. But remember, keep it short!
Here are a few examples of catchy subject lines that work:
- A surprise gift for you!
- Don’t miss out on the biggest sale of the year
- Get this NOW before it’s gone
- You’re in, let’s begin!
- We’re here to help you get started
3. Add lots of colors
You might have noticed in the examples mentioned above that none of the emails looked boring. They were filled with popping colors and eye-catching graphics. Based on your brand, pick colors that reflect who you are and that will grab the most attention. Then use one of these email templates to add the right colors.
Get started on your email campaign
If you’re not sure how to get started with email marketing, don’t worry. PosterMyWall has incredible email marketing software and an extensive library of ready-to-use email templates. You don’t need any design skills to edit the templates. Simply use PosterMyWall’s email maker to create your email content in minutes.
Once you’re done with the content, you can use PosterMyWall’s all-new email marketing platform to add your email list and publish or schedule emails in a completely hassle-free way. You don’t need to worry about nitty-gritty details either, because we’ve got it all covered. The recipient will get desktops and mobile optimized emails, “unsubscribe” options, and see appropriate graphics, whether those are images or videos as GIFs.
Once you’ve sent your emails, you can track your email campaign within PosterMyWall easily. Collect insights from your campaign and improve targeting seamlessly.
So what are you waiting for? Start using PosterMyWall’s all-new email marketing services designed specifically to ease your marketing process. Your next big email marketing campaign is just a click away.
Qasim is a senior editor at PosterMyWall. Qasim is a reader and writer during and after work, and likes to explore a wide range of topics and niches. Outside of work, he likes to meditate, listen to good music and journal.
