Challenges of Email Marketing for Small Businesses
According to a survey, conducted by Hurwitz & Associates for Ontario-based email marketing service provider Campaigner (a solution of Software-as-a-Service communication services and solutions company Protus), almost half of North American small businesses use email marketing today.
Campaigner’s “State of Small Business Online Marketing Survey” found that 46% of small businesses surveyed rely on email marketing to help them find new customers, keep existing ones and grow their businesses. Hurwitz & Associates gathered responses from 259 North American businesses with 1 to 20 employees.
Furthermore the report reveals that 36% of the surveyed small businesses plan to start using email marketing in the coming year.
Secret Weapons For Promoting A Business
New small businesses are often faced with the task of marketing on little or no budget. Aside from the staple marketing materials like business cards and a website, there are other strong and effective marketing tools which are often overlooked. Here are three secret weapons for the small business to create awareness, reinforce brand recognition, and keep customers.
Improving Your Email Newsletter
The Internet has transformed the way we do business, opening new channels of communication and introducing far more direct ways of marketing to customers. One aspect of online marketing that is frequently underused is email marketing and one critical element that is often overlooked is the actual content of the email. So how can you get more from your newsletter copywriting?
Here are some tips:
1. Avoid the delete button. 90% of the millions of emails sent every day are spam. Your email newsletters can only be judged as successful if your customers actually read them. An effective subject line is the first point of contact – if that doesn’t have the power to engage and interest, your carefully crafted newsletter will end up in the recycling folder.You are already talking to an audience you know are interested in your products. So the door is already open. If your customer has signed up to your newsletter, then they’ve already expressed an interest. It’s now your job (or that of your copywriter) to keep that interest by constructing a newsletter that interests, entertains and, most importantly, informs.
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Increasing Marketing Costs During an Economic Downturn
Online reference website Juggle.com recently sent out a press release stating that it spent more on marketing than ever before – despite the economic downturn – and that its aggressive advertising strategy appears to be working.
Nice to know – but the motivations and reasons that Juggle.com gives for its strategy of increased spending, provide some interesting views on advertising during an economic downturn in general.
As a starter Juggle.com refers to an older study by McGraw-Hill that analyzed 600 business-to-business companies and concluded that businesses who continued to advertise during the 1981-1982 recession enjoyed over 2.5 times the growth compared to competitors that decreased spending during the same time period.
But there’s more.
Boost Your Email Subscribers
You have set up your mailing list, put an opt-in form on your website, but you’ve still got no subscribers.
What gives? Setting up your mailing list is only half the battle; the other half is all about marketing it effectively. Even though your email contact list is a marketing asset in itself, it requires real marketing effort and dedicated promotional muscle to make it as valuable as it can be.
For some, that is where the entire exercise becomes too much work. Many marketers are out to make fast money, and tend to give little thought to the long-term prospects that a marketing list can generate.
