The 7 Commandments of Email Marketing for Small Businesses

Meager budgets, perennial apprehensions of recession and slowdown, and relentless trade difficulties and tariffs—Welcome to the realm of small businesses where there is intense competition enough to overwhelm you and break you down. And yet, there are also opportunities galore that are not too difficult to grab, leverage, and succeed; if your approach is right. Marketing experts have their bags full of tips and tricks conducive to the success of businesses, small or large. But more often than not, these maxims require deep pockets to be implemented.

A successful marketing endeavor showcases your brand to the masses. It introduces your products and services, creating an awareness of how it will bring value to their living. Is spending vast sums of money mandatory to achieve your marketing goals all the time? The answer is an emphatic ‘No!’

Thank goodness, there still exist strategies of successful marketing for small businesses that do not hinge on capital. One of the most popular and formidable among such strategies is email marketing. Let us look at the seven commandments of email marketing for small businesses that will ensure successful customer acquisition and retention.

#1. Thou shalt Be Compliant

Be CompliantYour passion for succeeding must not compel you to dispose of your ethics. Compliance regulations are in place for the good of everyone. Do not cross those lines. For instance, there is a CAN-SPAM Act that mandatorily requires you to have an unsubscribing option available in your emails. Do not forget to include it. Do not think that an unwilling prospect will become interested in your unrelenting proposals. Even if they do, they will be hazardous for the health of your organization in the long run.

#2. Thou shalt Perform Data Analytics

Data AnalyticsThere must be some great reason why Salesforce recently acquired Tableau, and why Microsoft has been so vocal about its Power BI services. Analytics is a hot trend that will shape the technology landscape in the future. Email marketing is also not alienated from it since major email marketing tools have built-in features for Analytics. Consider this in simple terms: you must always have an idea about the impact of your campaign. If it can be measured quantitatively, you can continue with it, or further enhance it if things are heading in the right direction. And if you are not getting the desired results, you can discontinue your strategy or fine-tune it.

#3. Thou shalt Include Social Media in your Campaign

Social MediaThere is a symbiotic relationship between email marketing and social media marketing. In confluence, the two can augment your outreach by leaps and bounds. If your emails have links to your social media accounts, prospective customers will have more information about your products and services. They will also share the digested information with their connections, thus increasing your lead base.

Email marketing endeavors that contain social media sharing options have 158% of higher click-through rates as compared to the ones that do not include social media.

#4. Thou shalt Be Brief

BriefThe open rates for lengthy emails are dismal. So, be precise, concise, and to-the-point without losing the essence of your campaign. Apart from brevity, focus on including pointers, highlighting keywords, and using a reasonable number of headings and sub-headings. Getting the complete message to the right recipients in the least possible words will show positive results.

#5. Thou shalt Be Consistent

ConsistentYou should have a plan about how frequently you will transmit your emails to your customers. And this effort must be consistent. If there are gaps in your communication, your customers would simply forget you because your competitor will have you replaced from their business life by then. But also, take care not to send an email when you do not have anything to say. Only for the sake of maintaining consistency, your email marketing efforts must not go in vain.

#6. Thou shalt Be Mobile Friendly

MobileAbout 46% of the world is checking emails on mobile. And this percentage will continue to increase as time goes by. Make a mobile strategy for your email marketing campaign on priority. Always be double sure about the readability and functionality of your emails on mobile devices before you send them.

#7. Thou shalt Procure an Accurate Users’ Email List

AccurateAll the struggle, hard work, and passion that you fuel into your email marketing efforts will come to nothing if the recipient of your email is a zombie! Or in case your audience is awaiting that incredibly sophisticated arthritis relieving device for senior citizens, while your email campaign is about a new heartbeat calculator to be launched this Valentine’s Day. Having an accurate, authentic, and actionable email list of users is the first and foremost step of a successful email marketing campaign. You can procure such a reliable list of users from a professional marketing data solutions provider. Do it yourself or get professional help, but do not neglect this crucial task.

Summing it up!

In the kingdom of marketing, email marketing is hailed as ‘the king’ by experts. It is one of the most cost-effective methods of lead nurturing that results in high customer acquisition and retention rates. With these seven commandments, email marketing has lived up to its reputation time and again for small businesses.

Now the big question is: How many of these commandments is your sales and marketing team living up to?