Email marketing is one of the best ways for small businesses to communicate with customers. Once email marketing required time and money and was only accessible to large businesses but there has been a dramatic shift and small businesses are now able to compete with large businesses at a fraction of the cost.
Please see below 10 reasons why your business should be using email marketing.
1-Getting started is easy
Taking your first steps into email marketing requires minimal resources. All you need is a laptop/PC/mobile device, an internet connection and an account with an online email marketing provider. Creating an account on an email marketing provider such as Mailchimp.com, iContact.com or Constant Contact.com is simple.
2-Email Marketing is Cheap
The various email marketing providers offer free trials or restricted free accounts. MailChimp offers free access for users to a maximum of 2,000 email addresses. Users are allowed to send an unlimited number of emails to this database.
In a comparison with direct marketing, direct marketing costs can be up to 100 times more expensive than email campaigns. In some situations the only cost involved in email marketing is time.
Advertising in traditional media incurs creative and media costs and requires media and creative agencies to handle the work, this process also takes time. An email marketing campaign can be created and sent within minutes at a minimal cost.
3-Consumers Prefer Emails over Social Media
A recent study which surveyed consumer preferences when it comes to communicating with brands/companies has found that consumers prefer brands/companies to engage with them through email marketing over social me
The study also showed that more consumers had made a purchase as a direct result of receiving an email than from engagement with social media or deal sites.
4-Emails Can Be Personalised
One reason to explain why consumers prefer email marketing over social media is that email allows for a level of personalisation which social media cannot match. Consumers are receptive to the personalised touch.
The information you have collected on your subscribers will allow you to personalise your emails. Instead of sending a generic email you could segment your database and create variants of the email which appeal to specific groups (based on age groups, gender, etc) by altering the content and design to suit each segment.
5-Your Emails Can Contain Multimedia
You can bring your emails to life by adding videos, photos, music and games into your emails. Email marketing providers like MailChimp.com allow you to easily add multimedia into your mails in a few steps.
6-Privacy & Customer Feedback
Another reason why consumers prefer to engage with brands/businesses through email is the privacy of the medium. There are generations who have not grown up with social media and do not feel comfortable asking questions or providing feedback on social media forums which are viewable by anyone. They may not even have a Facebook account or Twitter account. Email marketing provides a private one to one channel between a business and a consumer.
7-Builds Relationships with Your Consumers
Communicating with your customers on a regular basis is one of the best ways to maintain relationships. This can be facilitated through email marketing. Email marketing involves minimal costs and allows you to send emails on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. By sending regular, personalised emails to your customers they will feel connected to your business.
8-Immediate Response
Unlike other media the first responses from an email marketing campaign could be immediate. These responses could range from engagement with the email to transactions. Businesses can monitor the results from their website’s analytics and email marketing analytics.
Traditional media advertising is not able to offer this type of response and engagement with brands could take days.
9-You Can Measure Performance
Email marketing providers offer a range of analytics on the performance of email campaigns so you can measure the success of their campaigns. Some of the most common statistics include:
- Emails opened
- Emails unopened
- Number of clicks
- Unsubscribers
- Engagement with content
- Engagement with social media integration
- Forwarded emails
Email marketing providers allow you to see which recipients who opened, clicked, unsubscribed etc and thus identify potential sales lead.
10-Easy to Share
If a recipient likes your email they will forward your email to their friends and spread your message beyond your subscriber base. If you like an offer in a TV or radio ad it is very difficult to share that ad with friends.
A MyPlace Connect WiFi hotspot you will allow you to collect your customers registration details (name, gender, age & email address) which you will be able to use for email marketing activities. Click the button below to see our price plans and features.
