E-Mail Marketing Basics for Small Businesses

Marketing is one of the biggest challenge and a money consuming exercise for a small business. With the increase in marketing on the social medium, is email marketing still a good option for small businesses?

Yes, it’s still one of the best marketing tools available. According to a recent study by Pew Internet, 59% of adult users in the US spends time reading and sending email, 11% more than the time spend on social medium.

E-mail marketing, if done correctly, can be an inexpensive way to reach a large audience. The most important starting point is to make users want to receive your emails, or as they say have them opt-in and subscribe to your newsletter service on your website.

In this way, you can collect e-mail addresses without buying a list that may be created and/or sold illegally.

E-mailing advertisements, sent with the express permission of the recipient, can still become redundant, and therefore ineffective, unless you:

• Offer new discounted products or services regularly
• Provide very targeted mailings
• Offer some content or information which is useful to the user

Even two or three sentences of original content can give a reason to read your e-mail. It can also support the advertising that otherwise may be deleted. Short bits of information, such as five tips for saving on electricity bills by a HVAC company or suggestions for “dressing for occasions” from a clothing retailer are ways to keep your audience interested in your e-mails. Establishing your own newsletter, which may only be a few paragraphs, can draw the attention of your readers.

When e-mailing customers, you also need:

• A catchy headline
• A recognizable company name in the “from” box so they’ll know it’s from your business
• A simple one-click manner in which they can get more information on specific products or services
• A means of reaching customer service
• A link for them to un-subscribe

Since you may only have one second to capture the reader before he or she hits delete, it’s to your benefit to highlight an interesting item in your subject line or immediately in the body of the text. This window can literally give you a “window of opportunity” to grab their attention. Make this about them.

A few e-mail marketing rules of thumb:

• Make sure that everyone on the list has agreed to be there — don’t add names
• Reassure readers that their information will not be shared
• Give readers an opportunity to opt off of the list
• Keep information concise, to the point, and focused on their needs
• Don’t blitz — e-mailing more than once or twice a week is annoying
• Provide a choice of HTML or TEXT version

Landing pages are also important. Readers should be able to get more information by clicking on various places on the initial marketing e-mail or newsletter. Don’t send them to a home page and make them search for the specific information that brought them there. For example, on Amazon.com if you click on a specific book, you’ll get a page with details and reviews of that book and suggestions of similar books. That landing page provides information including pricing or purchasing and then leads to a sales page or shopping cart. Your promotional e-mails should do the same thing and give the reader an opportunity to go to your home page.

Most critical 10 email marketing mistakes

E-mail marketing has almost become too easy to execute, given the proliferation of bulk-e-mail providers. It’s critical for organizations to be strategic in this tactic and avoid these common mistakes:

1. Not having a strategy. You must have a strategy detailing reasons for the e-mail, content, audience, key messages and metrics.

2. Using an outdated list. You need a permission-based list of opt-in subscribers to increase open rates and reduce undeliverable e-mails. If contacts haven’t opted in, you may be flagged as spam and prohibited from sending future e-mails.

3. Focusing on nonrelevant content. Your message must be important to the audience. E-mails with the highest opt-in and open rates are most often thought-leadership topics or personal insights into industry trends.

4. Missing an opportunity in your top-line message. Your message may be viewed in a preview pane with images turned off or on an e-mail system or PDA that doesn’t support HTML content. Your top-line message must include a link to a Web-based version—just in case.

5. Being too text- or graphic-heavy. Adding visuals improves appeal, but you need a balance of images versus HTML text. Too much text can be overwhelming if not supported by interesting graphics to move the reader along.

6. Being “salesy”. If your readers sense a sales pitch, it will not only get deleted but they may even unsubscribe from your mailings. Worse yet, they could report your e-mail as spam.

7. Forgetting to drive your Web traffic. Editorial-driven newsletters are best developed with content directing Web site traffic. Include a portion of the story with a link to “read more” and have contextual links relevant to specific Web site pages.

8. Testing only on one browser or operating system. All e-mail systems will not display your message the same, so test it on a PC versus Mac and Internet Explorer versus Firefox. Format consistency is critical for HTML-based e-mails.

9. Sending at the wrong time. Whether your contacts are domestic or international, think about recipients’ time zones and business hours. Recent data suggest higher open rates occur on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

10. Ignoring metrics. Metrics reveal whether your message was successful. An initial report will show bounce rates so you can scrub your list. An evaluation the day after will begin to show open rates, opt-outs or spam reports.