Email Marketing for Small Businesses
Have you ever received a brand email that’s convinced you to part with your hard-earned money? That’s likely because businesses know that 93% of people check their inbox every day according to a report by Cognism, which, in turn, means there’s a captive audience of customers waiting to purchase outside of social media.
But how do you successfully set up newsletter marketing for your small business?
1
Start with a strategy
Before you start sending emails, it’s key to have a strategy to make sure you’re maximising the sales opportunities. How often will you send? What content will you be including? Will you include offers?
Having a plan at least one to two months ahead will mean you have full visibility of what you need to prepare in order to be consistent.
2
Set up your system
For most small business owners, we recommend MailChimp as a good starter email system. It’s free to use (until you build up a set number of contacts) and the platform is easy and beginner-friendly to use, including tips, tricks and recommendations on how to improve your content.
3
Create a template
In order to save time as a small business owner, it can be useful to have a selection of templates across your marketing suite – email is no exception. Use your email builder of choice to draft a template that you can roll out every time you send for consistency. Include your logo or branding, make sure to have a cohesive colour palette and even drop in content blocks to give some idea of the length of your emails.
4
Build your audience
This will likely be the toughest part of your journey. There are lots of ways to encourage people to sign up to your newsletter list, including offering a discount on signup (10% tends to be standard), a free download or even exclusive access to sales and new products.
5
Make sure you’re data compliant
Yes, it’s not very fun, but being compliant with data and privacy laws and regulations is as important for small businesses as it is for big ones. Clue yourself up on what you need to do and get everything set up properly from day one. MailChimp have an easy-to-understand article on the matter to get you started.
6
Draft your content
Now we have a plan, a system and a look and feel, it’s time to start drafting those emails! There’s lots of things you can include in your email newsletters; don’t be afraid to mix and match from week to week.
A few ideas to get you started:
- Behind the scenes of running a small business
- Inspiration and mood boards for projects you’ve been working on
- Launches of new collections, sales and promotions
- Links to blog posts, social media or markets
7
Measure your content
Now you’ve sent a few emails, check in with yourself and look at the stats – how do you feel it’s going? What are your results from this (more sales, more traffic to the website etc) and how can you improve?
Email marketing can take some time to get results so keeping an eye on the numbers and making tweaks to improve will set you up for success.
