Email Marketing is still a very strong business tool for online businesses. People use mobile devices very often throughout the day and small online businesses should not miss the opportunity to build and maintain strong relationships with their customers through email marketing. In order to make the most of this type of interaction, here are 5 email marketing best practices for small online businesses:
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Make Them Subscribe
When people subscribe voluntarily to a newsletter there are more chances they will read the emails you send them so be sure your site offers the opportunity to subscribe to your business’ newsletter.
Make sure you use visible opt-in boxes where users can sign-up. You can add a Subscribe Box to all main pages of your website and at the end of your blog articles. Also, another good idea for those who want to grow their newsletter database is to add a pop-up box for newsletter subscription. Make sure the text on the pop-up box is funny, engaging and it explains in a few words what users should expect from your small online business’ newsletter.
Sending an email to your new subscribers is always a nice way to welcome them. You will also give them a preview of what they should expect from your emails so make sure you keep the text of the email short but interesting
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Personalize The Content Of Your Emails
In order to make a person read an email you have to make sure the subject line will make them curious. In order to make the email click worthy, you have to keep the text short and to make the recipients interested in the topic of the email. Avoid caps lock and titles that contain pretentious words.
As for the email, make sure you create a nice, responsive design for it since most people read their emails from their mobile devices these days. Keep it short and personal and make the other person feel special without exaggerating. If you want to sell products through email marketing, make sure you accentuate the benefits of your products without sounding like a teleshopping program.
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Offer Incentives
Make sure your subscribers or the people who receive your emails have more benefits than the rest of your customers. You can offer periodical discounts, coupons, vouchers, special offers and even free perks from time to time. For example, if you sell clothes online, you can send your users a guide with the newest trends and some tips and tricks on how to incorporate them in their wardrobe. On the other hand, if your small online business offers services or consultancy, you can send free e-books that will make your readers learn about your expertise.
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Do Not Exaggerate
If you promised you will send one email per week, send one email per week, don’t send more emails hoping you will sell more. Don’t overdo it and make sure you always deliver what you promised. Also, another important aspect is the unsubscribe box. Whether you built your email marketing list through your subscription box on your website or you did some online research to build a cold email list, always give the recipients the possibility to unsubscribe from your emails. Include your social networks in your goodbye message. Maybe a person just wants to have less emails in their inbox but still wants to keep in touch with your business so this is a good opportunity to make sure you will stay connected.
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Make The Email As Informative As Possible
If you are running an email marketing campaign to increase your online sales, make sure you offer all the information about your products or services in the email and send the user to your site just to make the purchase not to read additional information. In this particular case the purpose of the email is to make a sale not to increase your site’s traffic.
However, if you want to make your email readers aware of new content that can be found on your small online business’ blog, make sure you write a great intro for the articles and you explain why the users will have more benefits if they read the entire piece of content you created.