Email marketing is a powerful tool for small businesses looking to grow their customer base and increase sales, but only if they’re willing to write and experiment with different templates and styles. In other words, you have to be willing to get creative!
With the right strategies and tactics, it’s almost a sure thing. Targeted, relevant, and valuable email marketing can help you build relationships with your online audience, promote your products or services, and drive conversions on your website or book calls for consultations on your calendar. Does that sound like something you’d say yes to in your inbox? 
If you’re looking to improve your email marketing game, you’ve come to the right place. Keep reading for 7 small business email marketing strategies that actually work.
Email marketing isn’t as simple as just writing an email and hitting send, even if sometimes the emails you receive might make it seem that way. By spending time and being thoughtful about what to include and what not to include in your messaging, you avoid losing valuable customers to frustration and increase your chances of building a loyal brand.*
*Remember, before implementing any of these strategies, you should take a look at your analytics and see if any experiments can be thought of based on current customer behavior.
Let’s get started on small business email marketing strategies that you can use to hit your goals:
1. Personalization
Personalization is key to engaging with your audience and building relationships. By using personalization tags, such as the recipient’s name or location, you can create emails that feel more personal and relevant to your audience. This works especially well in subject lines and for discounts. Adding more information isn’t recommended, unless you’re an existing e-commerce store or have a rewards system that tracks purchases.
2. Segmentation
Segmentation involves dividing your email list into smaller groups based on characteristics such as interests, behaviors, or demographics. Create targeted and relevant emails that are more likely to resonate with your audience by actually identifying their relevant interests/industries/role. For example, if you’re sending something about manufacturing or material requests, you probably shouldn’t be sending to marketing managers.
Exclude those from your send who you know won’t be interested in your message. It seems simple, but this extra step often trips up those who take a swing at email marketing.
3. Visual Appeal
Visual appeal is critical for engaging with your audience and making your emails stand out from the crowd. Use high-quality images, graphics, and videos to create visually appealing emails that capture attention and encourage clicks.
Suggestions could include:
- Still photo shots of products or ingredients.
- Video tours of manufacturing facilities or machinery.
- Team photos, interviews, and bios that demonstrate their capabilities/story.
- Great uses of brand colors and elements to separate content and draw contrast.
Looking for some inspiration? Check out our portfolio of awesome award-winning customers!
4. Clear CTAs
Clear calls-to-action (CTAs) are essential for driving conversions and achieving your email marketing goals. Make sure your CTAs are clear, concise, and stand out from the rest of the email.
- Make sure your phone number is clickable and takes customers directly to your line.
- Utilize a primary and secondary CTA with your two most desirable actions.
- Color your CTAs with colors that complement your brand colors well, while still drawing attention.
5. Mobile Optimization
Mobile optimization is essential for reaching today’s on-the-go audiences. Make sure your emails are optimized for mobile devices, including responsive design, fast load times, and easy navigation.
Check for both Apple and Android, alongside backing your responsiveness up at least 2-3 generations. Most people don’t replace their phone every year, but many do! You should be ready as screen sizes and aspect ratios change.
6. A/B Testing
A/B testing involves creating two versions of an email and testing them against each other to see which one performs better. This allows you to optimize your emails for better engagement and conversions.
Test, test, test! Finding out which content is better is much more important than finding out if the content you like or produced last is good enough. Don’t get married to your creative ideas, instead, try and optimize them until they work. When they don’t work as well as something else…put them aside for now. You can always return to a developing concept at a later stage.
7. Analytics and Tracking
Analytics and tracking are critical for measuring the success of your email marketing campaigns and making data-driven decisions. Use metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversions to measure the impact of your emails and refine your strategy over time.
Email marketing is a powerful tool for small businesses looking to grow their customer base and increase sales. By using personalization, segmentation, visual appeal, clear CTAs, mobile optimization, A/B testing, and analytics and tracking, you can create effective email marketing campaigns that drive engagement and conversions. At Costello Creative Group, we want to help small businesses achieve their email marketing goals and reach more customers with their great products and services. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you create effective email marketing campaigns that drive those clicks!
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