Small businesses are in a unique position to benefit from email marketing, as they have more flexibility in their image. For example, as a small business, you can build trust with local customers much more rapidly than larger corporations, which may not resonate with smaller communities as easily.
One of the most important practices to remember with email marketing today is to be as transparent, honest, and open as possible with your customers. Unsolicited or generic emails are losing ground and falling out of favor, as the modern consumer has come to respond better to more organic approaches.
In that spirit, you should be focusing on getting customers to subscribe to your newsletters, and you can build a powerful and robust emailing list by using the following tips.
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That’s where online directory listings come in. Simply put, a local listing is an online mention of a business (citation) that details the essential information of a business. If a local business doesn’t have any local listings, there are big rewards it’s missing out on.
What is an Email List?
An email list is simply a list of emails that businesses have gathered from visitors/customers that would like to receive information, updates, discounts, and other details about your business in a digital format that is sent to their email inbox.
Email lists are important because email marketing is the best way to connect with customers vs. social media. In fact, you are 6x more likely to get higher click-through rates through emails instead of tweets. Also, email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter.
What is email list building?
In order to take advantage of connecting with customers through your compiled email lists, you need to work on email list building.
Email list building is the act of getting more people to subscribe to your emails. If you have a CTA on your homepage, that would act as a source to build up your email list. The more ways you can encourage visitors to subscribe to your email, the stronger your email list will be.
Why small businesses need to grow their list
Right now, you already have an audience for your business.
When you have events, people show up. When you hold a sale or introduce a new product, people are there to buy. And when you open your doors each morning, you know you won’t be spending the day alone.
Your phone rings, your website gets traffic, and over time your business grows.
But if you’re not giving this audience a way to stay connected with you when they’re away from your business—you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to build relationships with these customers and accelerate the growth your business can achieve by driving action around the things you’re already doing.
Social media alone isn’t enough
Sure, you could set up a Facebook Page or get started on Twitter but at the end of the day you don’t really own those contacts—you’re renting them. You can put days, weeks, and months into building a fanbase but if one day Facebook decides to limit your ability to deliver your message, you’ll be no better off than when you started.
On the flipside, by growing your email contact list, you’ll be able to take control of your message and communicate with your audience on your own terms. You’ll be giving the people who are actually interested in attending your events, buying your products, or signing up for services the ability to opt-in to receive information that’s relevant to them.
A simple strategy for growing your list
Growing your list really breaks down to two things: covering your touch points and remembering to ask.
You want to make it easy for people to join your list and the best way to do that is by making your list available at all the places people are interacting with your business. Whether it’s on your website, Facebook Page, or blog; at your store, restaurant, or office; or at your events—covering your touch points will guarantee your audience will grow and won’t require much heavy lifting from you or your staff.
You also need to make asking people to share their email address, part of your regular routine. Most of the people who walk through your door, call your business, or connect with you on sites like Facebook or Twitter will be happy to hear more about your business—all you need to do is ask!
To encourage them even further, you can provide an additional incentive for signing up or simply tell them what type of content they’ll receive after their information is added to your list.
Conclusion
Now that you know more about the importance of email marketing for small business, you can put the knowledge into action and start reaping the rewards. Remember always to tailor them around your brand. While you should seek out ways to engage customers with different subjects, the key is always to find a way to tether your brand to that subject in a way that is as natural as possible.