by RambergMediaImages
In today’s business world, there are many options for products or services to choose from, and as a small business owner, you have to remind your customers that you are still around and still want their business. One way to do that is through email marketing.
Email marketing can be used to showcase your expert status in your business field, send timely announcements that might affect your customers, concentrate on getting testimonials, or even send out customer specials to thank them for still doing business with you.
Over the years, I have tried several of the big email marketing companies from iContact to Aweber, and more recently, I have been using MailChimp. All of these services follow the no spam rules and regulations by automating the process of an unsubscribe, complaints by a recipient, as well as other tracking mechanisms such as how many people opened your email and how many clicked on a link contained in the email. Mailchimp even goes as far as to give members of your list a rating of how engaged with you they are. Most small businesses would do best to use MailChimp because you can sign up and use their service for free for the first 1,000 subscribers you have and you can send out up to 6,000 emails a month. That is a great value and a great service for small businesses. Not to mention, they are just a fun company.
You can also add a sign up form on your website for prospects that aren’t ready to purchase yet, but want more information. This will enable you to create a list just for them so you can start the dialog of providing information that they are looking for. Establish yourself as the expert in your area and help them with their research process. The best part about a sign up is you can create several emails at once and setup an automatic delivery to your list when they sign up.
So how does email marketing increase sales?
- Just by sending quality information about your business, customers are reminded why they like doing business with you and will likely remember that they need your product or service.
- When you email with a sales offer, you will typically get 1-5% response for your offering.
- Ask your customers what they want that you don’t currently offer—and then offer them that product or service.
- Use the emails to setup a referral program and reward them as well as their referral.
- Become an affiliate to other products or services that complement what you offer and get paid a commission for it.
Once you start creating your email list, you will start seeing all the different ways you can engage your customers and prospects and keep your business at the front of their minds and see the sales increase.
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