• Email marketing is an easy, cost-effective way to reach your small business’s target audience.
• Email marketing offers a high return on investment and is straightforward way to automate your marketing efforts.
• To get started with email marketing, choose an email marketing service provider that suits your business. Next, create a compelling reason for target consumers to join your mailing list and send regular communications to your lists, tracking your analytics.
• This article is for small business owners considering implementing an email marketing strategy.

The first email was sent in 1971, and it permanently changed how we communicate with one another. Today, businesses use email to connect with their audience, build credibility in their industry, and increase sales.

If you’re new to email marketing, it’s easy to get started and start seeing results immediately.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a marketing strategy that involves sending emails to your target audience. It’s one of the best ways to turn prospects into buyers and one-off customers into engaged and loyal customers.

Your email marketing strategy can encompass sending weekly newsletters, promotional emails, and special deals for customers. It allows you to create a relationship with your audience and steadily build loyalty to your brand.

Key takeaway: Email marketing offers a direct method of communicating with your target audience.

What are the business benefits of email marketing?

For small businesses that don’t have sizable marketing budgets, email marketing can drive impressive results. Below are six of the biggest benefits small businesses can gain through email marketing:

1. High ROI

According to a study from eMarketer, email marketing has a median ROI of 122% – that’s four times higher than any other digital marketing strategy. And if you implement techniques like A/B testing, using a double opt-in, and sticking to a regular schedule, you can increase this number.

To track the ROI of your email campaigns, use the following formula: 

Net profit (Gross profits from email marketing – Email marketing costs) / Email marketing costs

For example, if you earned $2,000 in sales from one email marketing campaign after spending $150:

$1,850 ($2,000 – $150.00) / $150 = 12.33

You have an ROI of $12.33. That means for every dollar you spent on the campaign, you earned $12.33 back.

2. Appeal to different segments of your target audience

Email marketing allows you to create targeted campaigns by leveraging data about your email subscribers.

If you’re new to email marketing, creating personalized content can feel daunting and overwhelming at first. However, personalizing your content can be using a subscriber’s first name in your email. Research shows that adding a subscriber’s first name to the subject line can increase email opens by as much as 26%.

As your email list grows and you get more comfortable with email marketing, you can segment your audience based on their age, income level, gender, or how long they’ve been customers.

3. Time and money savings

Most business owners are short on time and money –  email marketing is easy to automate, and it’s cost-effective.

When you set up a new email campaign, once you set up your list, determine your offer, and design your email, it automatically sends it to your target list. You can engage with your audience and create new customers even while you’re working on other aspects of running your business.

Of course, you have to track your campaigns and tweak things from time to time, but email marketing is one of the most hands-off marketing strategies there is.

It’s also relatively inexpensive, especially when compared to other methods, like paid advertising. You can develop a professional email campaign that goes to thousands of subscribers for very little money spent.

4. Stronger relationships with customers

Marketing involves demonstrating value to consumers and showing your audience how they can take the next step with your business. Once someone joins your email list, you have an opportunity to send them useful, relevant content.

Every email you send to your customers shouldn’t involve selling them your products or service. You should provide value in your emails. When you can demonstrate to your customers the value you provide to them, they’ll look forward to hearing from you every week.

That value doesn’t always have to be a sale or offer – it can be information that you think they’ll find helpful. For example, you can create an email that links to a recent blog post you wrote.

In your emails, list your social media accounts, and encourage subscribers to connect with you on those channels. Doing this helps build your credibility with your audience and if they are intrigued by a particular email you’ve sent, they can easily learn more about your products or service by clicking on your social media links.

5. Increased sales

Last year and this year have been challenging for small businesses to grow their sales. But email marketing is one of the best ways to grow your sales, especially if traffic to your brick-and-mortar store is down significantly.

Some customers will make a buying decision if they receive a well-timed offer. Adding urgency to your offers, and offering generous sales or free shipping are excellent ways to convert a subscriber to a customer.

Furthermore, email marketing can be a great way to upsell current customers. You can also re-engage customers who haven’t purchased in a while.

By creating personalized and targeted offers for consumers on your list, you can motivate your audience to purchase from your business.

6. A strong following of subscribers

One of the downsides of social media marketing is that you don’t own your followers. If your Facebook Business page is unexpectedly shut down (which isn’t uncommon), you’ll lose access to the following you’ve spent months or even years building.

That’s why it’s important to build an email list. You have a valuable list of customers and a way to contact those customers. Even if you switch email providers, you own the list of your contacts.

Key takeaway: Email marketing is cost-effective, easy to use and boasts a high ROI, making it a great choice for small businesses looking to stretch their marketing dollars.

How to get started with email marketing

Many business owners know they should be building a list of email contacts but aren’t sure where or how to get started. These four steps will walk you through the process.

1. Choose your email provider.

The first step is to choose an email marketing service provider. When you’re evaluating service providers, consider the following:

• The provider’s deliverability rate
• Whether the provider offers templates and allows you to customize your emails
• Whether the software is intuitive and user-friendly
• Advanced features the service offers, like A/B testing, analytics and segmentation tools
• The level of customer support the company provides

Once you’ve settled on a service provider, sign up for a free trial (which most providers do). That way, you can test the software to ensure it’s the best fit for your needs.

2. Create a free but compelling opt-in.

You need to give your audience a very good reason why they should join your email list. The best way to incentivize them is by creating a free opt-in.

The type of opt-in you create depends on your customers and their needs. For instance, if you target a B2B audience, you might create an in-depth white paper around a topic they’re interested in.

Once you’ve created your opt-in, you can set up a form on your website. Your audience will sign up with their email address and, from there, they can download your opt-in. You can also promote your opt-in on all of your social media channels to drive more email list sign-ups.

3. Send a weekly newsletter.

Your subscribers want to know what they can expect from you, and the best way to do that is by sending a weekly newsletter.

Your newsletter is another way to share helpful and relevant content with your audience – again, it’s a way you can provide value to subscribers.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when creating your newsletter:

• Use a template to design your newsletter.
• Keep it brief. Your audience may lose interest if your emails are too wordy.
• Personalize the subject line so subscribers are more inclined to open your emails.
• Add a compelling call to action at the end.
• Optimize your newsletter so it looks good on mobile devices.

4. Track your analytics.

Finally, one of the most important aspects of email marketing is tracking your results. Tracking your analytics helps you figure out what resonates with your audience.

One of the first analytics you want to look at is your open rate. Typically, a good email open rate ranges from 15 to 25%.

If you have an open rate under 15%, it could indicate that your subject lines need revising. However, as your email list grows, your open rate will most likely fall.

The next analytic is your click-through rate.

There is a learning curve when you’re getting started with email marketing, but by following the tips in the article and adjusting your strategies as your list grows and you become more comfortable with email marketing (and email marketing software), you’ll find that the benefits are well worth it.

Key takeaway: Partner with a trusted service provider to send your email marketing campaigns, create a compelling opt-in, frequently update your audience with engaging content, and track your analytics to refine your future campaigns.