Email Marketing the Right Way

What comes to mind when you think about email marketing? Your overflowing spam box? Newsletters you don’t remember signing up for? Messages from companies you’re sure bought your email address from some other company? It’s true, email marketing doesn’t have the best reputation. And that’s unfortunate because when it’s done the right way, email marketing can be a powerful tool for local businesses.

Depending on your line of business – especially if you’re in the service industry – you may not even be collecting email addresses from your customers. But you should! Everyone has an email address these days and a lot of people actually prefer email communication to phone calls, particularly for routine things like appointment confirmations.

Don’t let the opportunity for email marketing pass you by. Check out these simple, effective, and non-spammy ways you can use emails to grow your business.

Nothing makes a customer feel more welcome than a quick note thanking them for their time. Whether you’ve already booked a big project or you just met some folks who are thinking about spending their money with you, take the opportunity to send a quick email thanking them for their time and inviting them to contact you with any questions.

The small amount of effort it takes to send a follow-up greeting to your new customers is worth it. You’re making a connection, building trust in your company and brand, and best of all – you’ve opened up another line of communication with your customer.

A potential customer – one that hasn’t made a purchase or is still shopping around – may not be as willing to share their email address with you. That’s why it’s so important to make good use of those email addresses when you’re lucky enough to get one.

Reach out to your prospective customers with a simple message to touch base. Ask if they have any questions or need help with anything. If you’re in the position to offer an incentive to get their business, do it! No one wants to be bombarded with sales pitches, but an occasional reminder that your company is there and willing to help may be all the push your potential customer needs.

Everyone knows how important customer reviews are ,especially for small businesses. When you have a customer’s email address on file, you have a direct line to invite them to leave your business a review. It doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact,you should make it as simple as possible.

Send an email to your customer asking for feedback after their purchase or after you’ve completed their project. Don’t be shy. Let your customer know you appreciate their business and value their opinion. Make it easy for them to share by including links to one or more of your preferred review sites, like Google My Business,Yelp, or Facebook. For good measure, be sure to offer any follow-up assistance the customer might need.

Just because your business doesn’t have a “semi-annual sale” or a “summer clearance event” doesn’t mean you shouldn’t update your customers about what’s going on.

Use email to notify your customers of important events or changes to your business. For example, a landscaping company might reach out to their customers in late winter with a reminder to schedule lawn services early, before the busy season. Or a kitchen and bath remodeling company might update their customers on a new cabinet line that’s available.

The goal is to share important news, information your customers care about and can use.

There is a definite line between effective email marketing and spamming your customers. The rules for staying on the right side of that line are simple.

1. Never, ever send emails to people who didn’t expressly give you permission, i.e. people who didn’t give you their email address directly. Aside from being annoying and intrusive, sending commercial or promotional material to people who didn’t agree to receive your emails can have regulatory and legal consequences.
   
   
2. Don’t email your customers too often. Unfortunately, there’s no rule of thumb here,but common sense should prevail. Consider your line of business and your customer base. Should you email every single day about your muffler shop? Probably not. If you don’t have a good reason to send out an email to your customers, don’t do it.
   
   
3. And finally, make your emails count. Send good information that your customer care about. Make it worth their time and energy. Take a step back and think,“Would I want to read this email?” If the answer is no, don’t send it.

By now you’re probably thinking, “This is great, but who has time to send all these emails?” That’s a fair point. Small business owners are busy people and neither they, nor their staff, have time to draft and send emails all the time.

The good news is, you don’t have to sink a ton of time into email marketing. Autoresponders and other email marketing applications are made just for this purpose. There are many to choose from, ranging in price from free to fairly expensive. These tools allow you to gather your customers’ email addresses, collate and divide them into lists like, “potential customers,” or “returning customers,” or “all customers.” You can then spend a few minutes drafting a few quality messages that get personalized(using the email tool) and set up some parameters. The email marketing tool takes care of the rest.

Email marketing applications allow you to tap into a wealth of opportunity while saving you a lot of time.

Ready to learn more about how email marketing can help grow your business? Reach out to Locallogy, the digital marketing experts.