Email Marketing: Best Ideas for Generating Sales in Small Businesses

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Email marketing is one of the fastest and most effective services to implement for customer acquisition and retention in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Today, even small businesses have the ability to launch an email campaign. Much more affordable than direct marketing or media buying, let’s see how to achieve the best results from email campaigns.

Email Marketing: What are the Advantages for My Business?

Accessibility of Tools

Developing an email campaign is within reach of the smallest business. As long as it has internet access, no particular skills are required. Most tools like AcyMailing are intuitive to use. Once your software is selected, many resources are available to help you: tutorials, examples of strategies to copy, and articles to provide advice and best practices to achieve your marketing goals.

In practice, just a few minutes are enough to launch your first campaign. For example, during slow periods in a dry-cleaning business, the owner can dedicate some working time to building email campaigns.

Affordable Cost

The launch budget for an email strategy necessarily varies depending on the chosen sending frequency and the size of the email list available. However, most email-sending tools offer a free trial version. There are numerous possibilities for very small businesses to start their email marketing campaigns for free or at a very low cost.

For instance, a tool like AcyMailing allows a dry-cleaning business owner to send bimonthly email campaigns for free to their 200 clients.

Targeted Reach

There are several types of audiences:

Cold audiences: People who have had no contact with your brand (prospects in your catchment area, your clients’ circle, customers of competitors).
Warm audiences: People who already have an established link with your brand (clients, social media subscribers, newsletter subscribers).

By targeting contacts already present in your company’s database, you optimize the chances of getting results. Email marketing allows you to specifically target customers and prospects who are likely to be interested in your products or services. By collecting email addresses from people interested in your business, you can create email marketing campaigns that are more likely to be read and generate results.

With the help of features in your email marketing tool, such as lead scoring, a dry-cleaning business owner can create recipient groups based on their qualification level to purchase services.

Owning a Channel

Small businesses often need to improve their online presence, and email marketing addresses this need. Maintaining a direct link with your clientele is also a way to distribute your content through a channel other than social media. If your profile gets blocked, hacked, or deleted on a platform that is your only communication channel, your entire web presence is handicapped.

Platforms are a form of audience rental with content production as rent. The risk is losing control of the audience built overnight.

Using email marketing is a way of “not putting all your eggs in one basket.” By owning your email list, you eliminate the risk of being cut off from your audience.

Visible Results

The golden rule of marketing: Return On Investment (ROI). Advertising often offers few means to track results for small businesses, whereas email marketing is inherently much easier to evaluate.

Engagement, open rates, and conversion can be tracked from the dashboard of the chosen software. These pieces of information, when compared to the cost of the tool in question (when a paid offer is subscribed to), give the measure of the return on investment.

When the average basket value is modest, a few additional sales are enough to make the strategy profitable. For example, a dry-cleaning business owner who sets up a bimonthly email campaign for a few euros per month needs to generate three additional sales to amortize their marketing effort.

Best Email Marketing Ideas to Follow for Small Businesses

A ready-made plan? Better! A list of possible options to make email the key access point for the customer flow.

Create Engaging Newsletters

With the registration form on your website pages or even in-store, you have a base of addresses to share content with. To create an engaging newsletter, audience segmentation will be essential, by the acquisition channel or any other relevant criterion.

Once this segmentation is done, you just have to manage it and build your newsletters based on segmentation criteria.

Ensure to include quality content, such as blog articles, special offers, or upcoming events.

It’s important to keep in mind that to avoid being ignored, your email must captivate. Here are some tips when creating your newsletters:

Use the art of storytelling to make your message digestible and pique the reader’s curiosity. Customer cases are a way to facilitate identification with people who trust you. In short, tell your brand through its successes and missions.
Personalize your newsletters using dynamic content or by using all available segmentation criteria.
Choose a suitable rhythm and automate your newsletters to save time on the production of new relevant content. Advanced tools allow you to create predefined emails that will be automatically sent to your recipients based on specific events, such as a new purchase, a subscription to your mailing list, etc.
Don’t forget to subtly encourage the reader to take action, such as making a purchase or sharing your newsletter with others.

Offer Exclusive Discount Codes

Exclusive discounts are the kind of win-win promotion that customers love to receive. It not only attracts the customer’s attention and encourages them to make a purchase but also reminds them of the special place they hold for your business. This second factor is another step towards a stronger relationship with your brand.

This high-attention moment from your target audience is ideal for:

Creating a sense of urgency by giving a short time frame to use this discount, exclusive offer, or exceptional gift.
Promoting a new product.
Sending short content like a customer testimonial. In general, avoid overloading your email marketing.

Small businesses can offer all sorts of deals, such as a 20% discount on the first order, a specific code for loyal customers, or those celebrating their birthday, or a free gift with every purchase, etc.

Send Cart Abandonment Reminders

Sending a reminder email to a visitor who has abandoned their cart is an effective tactic to encourage a sale without a budget. You can optionally include a product feedback page, a form to assist the customer in their purchase, or a small discount code to maximize conversion chances.

When setting up this type of automation on your email marketing service, consider:

Setting consistent reminder intervals. To contact customers at the right time, before they forget what they abandoned. You can send a first reminder within 24 hours of cart abandonment and then a second reminder within 72 hours.
Adding an image of the abandoned product; the human brain is more responsive to visuals.
Using a clear and concise Call-To-Action (CTA).

Most software provides abandoned cart message templates compatible with small businesses.

Personalize Content

To enrich your subscriber list and ultimately generate traffic directly to your website, personalization of content is essential. It will boost the performance of your email marketing strategy as a small business.

Initially challenging, with the right strategies and suitable software, you can improve the emails you send and, consequently, your online marketing. Using advanced email software is an excellent option for successful personalization.

It’s important to note that personalization is not limited to simply inserting the recipient’s name into the email. You could use data from your CRM or social media for more in-depth personalization. By understanding your subscribers’ preferences and online behavior, you can create more precise, more effective content and calls to action.

To start, divide your contacts based on available data. Then create relevant content for each segment of customers in significant numbers. Finally, associate your segments with your content in your email marketing software. Remember to check the grammar, spelling, and wording of your words to be in line with your brand’s tone. Finally, depending on your tool, you can use optimized email sending that will send your message at the time when the recipient is used to opening their emails.

For example, our dry-cleaning business could send emails dedicated to its customers who bring in their shirts with useful information on “how to avoid losing a button on your favorite shirt,” “where to store your shirts before dropping them off at the dry cleaner,” “choosing the right hangers for shirts,” etc.

Innovate

Finally, small businesses can use email marketing to stand out from the competition.

Here are some relevant use cases:

Conduct a Survey: Maintaining the business relationship also involves listening to the needs of customers, so why not submit certain development projects to the opinion of your subscribers? Collecting this type of data has high value for a small business looking to establish proximity with its customers. This data can be used to improve the company’s products or services or to better understand its target market. For example, a dry-cleaning business could request Google reviews from its new customers or survey its clientele on the preferred scent of fabric softener or inquire about expectations regarding a delivery service.
Brand Employer Branding: Small businesses, often close to their customers, can use email marketing to talk about the news of their own team. A periodic section inside a newsletter would be a good way to humanize the team beyond its communities on social networks. Typically, the opening of a position, the search for a part-time position, congratulations to an employee for their work, or the arrival of a new team member that is illustrated in a photo are all brand news.
Fundraising: Whether it’s supporting a charitable cause or launching the development of a new offer through crowdfunding, an active community is receptive to this level of transparency. Small businesses can use emails to solicit contributions or investments as part of an opening of capital. They can choose to use email marketing to have a positive impact on the world, promoting environmental initiatives, helping an association, or communicating their own CSR commitments.

It’s evident that there are ultimately few limits to the use of email marketing for small businesses. The only remaining rule in this matter is:

Spam is prohibited. It is harmful to your reputation, costly for the quality of your sending domain, and completely counterproductive.

What are the Best Email Marketing Tools?

Tools for success in your email marketing strategy.

AcyMailing

AcyMailing is the popular email solution. Suitable for small businesses looking for a tool with advanced features, the plugin available on WordPress and Joomla! offers:

Advanced segmentation based on user behavior and contact list management.
Creation of personalized campaigns compatible with an online store.
A powerful visual email editor enhanced by AI and dozens of predefined email templates.
Automation, including cart abandonment.
Compatibility with mobile screens.
Data analysis at every step of the email process.

This is the tool that elevates your SME’s marketing into the big leagues. In its free version, you can send up to 500 emails per month. Paid plans start at €6.5/month. Test it here.

Mailchimp

A widely used email application, this tool offers a wide range of functions, from email improvement to shipping confirmation and automated emailing.

Mailchimp, a renowned digital marketing tool, is equipped with an intuitive editor that allows you to easily design your emails. With many email templates at your disposal, creating attractive emails has never been easier. Visual elements can be easily integrated to enhance your email marketing.

In its free version, you can send up to 1,000 emails per month. Paid plans start at €12.4/month.