Email marketing is a perfect way to nurture your current customers and future prospects. So why don’t more small businesses take advantage? They worry about what they are going to send and how to make it look good.
Two essential pieces to your secret weapon are content and design. The content has to be relevant and interesting. The design needs to naturally take the reader to a strong call to action. Otherwise you have missed a perfect opportunity to engage them.
If you are currently using email marketing and it has not been the big boom for your company, then there might be some issues with your content’s message. Email service providers make it possible for you to address your message directly to each customer making it one of the most personal ways to reach a prospect. Your content should reflect this opportunity by using content to build trust and using your branding to remain consistent.
Content
- You can find content on your FAQ page and in your email inbox. This is the exact information your audience is looking for.
- Education: Show your customers and prospects how to get the most from the service or products you are providing. Help them see the value of what you offer.
- Newsletters are for educating first. Promotions come second or in a separate email.
- Use emails to build relationships such as thank you for new business and celebrating milestones like anniversaries as a customer or birthdays.
- Give your subscribers information or offers they cannot get anywhere else. This rewards them as subscribers and encourages them to pass it on to colleagues and friends. You’ll build your list and your customer base with people who are engaged.
Design
How does your design look? Is it a wall of text that looks daunting and rambling on and on? Or is it a visual feast leading the customer down to a strong call to action?
- Design your emails with consistency. The coloring and branding should match your website to reinforce your brand. Email newsletters and promotional emails should be consistent as well.
- Graphics: Just as you use them on your website, be sure they are relevant to the content and quality of your company standards. Cheesy clipart does nothing to enhance your image. Be strategic in your placement and use as few as you really need; less is more.
- Make the mobile experience engaging, not frustrating. Think of leaving enough space around buttons and links so they are easy to touch on smaller screens. Consider font sizes that aren’t too small to read on a phone.
- Since your content needs to be concise, use links to go back to your main website for longer articles and deeper explanations.
- Always end your email with a call to action which may be a button or similar link.
- Watch for background colors and text colors. Make sure the colors don’t affect legibility.
- Add a ‘share bar’ for social media sharing. Even if you’re not on social media, your readers can link to your email online.
Email Marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to reach existing customers and prospects. The opportunity is perfect to build relationships and encourage referrals as long as you respect the audience’s invitation to enter their inbox. Sending hard core sales messages is not something people want. They want to control the information they get and how it’s delivered. Providing valuable, interesting and relevant content on a regular basis helps to nurture your customers and reinforce know, like and trust so that they will become your biggest fans.
About Rosie Taylor
Rosie Taylor is a marketing consultant specializing in working with small businesses, and a digital public relations practitioner with extensive experience as a webmaster. She has highly developed technical skills and an education in graphic design combined with a passion is for writing and teaching. With this diversity of experience and education she can help clients create sound business decisions that are innovative. Her love for writing has become a very valuable asset for content marketing and she is fascinated by the magnitude of communication made possible by Internet Technology and Social Media. Rosie has professional speaking and training experience especially on topics of technology, marketing and social media. She holds a CIW designation (Certified Internet Webmaster) and recently received a Certificate in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts. Rosie has a Bachelor's Degree in Business & Information Systems where she focused on Marketing. In 2011, she completed training to become an Authorized Duct Tape Marketing Consultant. Personally speaking she is a tame adventurist. She will take risks to follow her dreams, but always remembers to wear a helmet and have a Plan B on hand. She met the love of her life who was in Australia at the time and now they are happily married in the US. But that's a story for another time...
Lately I have been busy speaking in front of groups of business owners just like you. Although the topics varied from email marketing to social media, the one thing that stood out for me was the number of business owners who struggle with communicating value for prospects and clients in order to build and maintain TRUST.
