Have you ever thought that marketing is only for big businesses with big budgets? If yes, then you have to think again. You are missing out on one of the most important aspects of marketing which is email marketing.
Email marketing is an affordable and impactful tool that uses emails as a direct communication channel between your audience and your business. You can use this bridge as a direct means to promote your products or services. It even helps you to build better relations with your customers.
It is the best way to engage with your audience, nurture leads, reinforce your brand identity, and keep your customers engaged.
But the main question here is whether among all of the marketing strategies, is email marketing the perfect match for your business. People often get confused about the benefits of a thing and whether they need it or not. Therefore, before starting anything, let’s explore who should get into email marketing. And if email marketing is right for you or not.
Who should dive into the email marketing world?
To understand whether you should dive into email marketing or not, we have divided our checklist into two parts.
The first part for accessing your business and whether it needs email marketing or not.
The second part focuses on whether email marketing is right for you as an individual or not.
For business
Who are your customers?
First thing first, who are your customers? Do your customers or potential customers use emails? This is the most basic question you should ask yourself before switching to email marketing.
For example, say you run a family restaurant. Now you already have loyal customers who have been coming to your restaurant back and forth for meals. Now if you switch to email marketing will you be able to reap the benefit of it?
The answer to this question is yes. Now that you already have a solid customer base, you can improve your customer interaction and experience with email marketing. You can start by building an email list by asking for email IDs with feedback.
Does email marketing align with your business goals?
The next question comes: what are your business goals? For instance, if your business requirements are more inclined towards establishing authority and increasing brand visibility, opting for social media marketing can be a better option for you.
Why? Because social media platforms are used by so many people. And if your people are not familiar with your brand, they are less likely to buy from you. Now this doesn’t mean you should not use email marketing. But it’s about priority. You have to give your time and effort to social media first and then when you have a customer base, you can try email marketing.
What are your expectations?
Before getting into email marketing you must have realistic expectations with it. A good approach would be focusing on growth rather than faster conversions.
For a business that is just starting email marketing, you should focus more on building an email list first. Building a good email list doesn’t happen overnight. So with consistency and hard work, you can get a good number of emails to start your first email campaign.
After that, you should give yourself time to understand and research your customer preferences and your business goals. You should also look for other marketing channels and explore which one is best for you.
Also don’t hope for instant results. Building relationships and trust a time and therefore focus more on long-term engagement rather than short-term conversions. Also don’t expect that every subscriber would open your email even if they had voluntarily signed up for your emails.
Also, have a positive mindset and be ready to test and try various methods. With each campaign, you can see the results through the analytics. Try to analyze which campaign is resonating well with the customers. And if it is not, what are the changes you could make?
Competitor research
Analyzing your competitors can also help you understand whether you should start email marketing or not.
Start by looking into your competitors and find out if they are using email marketing or not. And if they are, how well it is performing. Are they able to increase customer engagement or conversions with it? If yes then email marketing could be a good and effective marketing channel for you too.
You can also try to analyze the types of content your competitors are sending in the email campus. This way you can get reasonable insights into what resonates with your audience and what kind of content you have to generate for maximum impact.
It also helps you to identify gaps and opportunities where your competitor might be falling short. You can even learn from their mistakes or best practices and draft a perfect campaign for yourself.
The right tool
The next thing you should consider is finding the right tools to start your email marketing. There are so many tools available in the market. But do you need them?
Most of them have premium plans and therefore you must consider your budget before choosing anyone. You must ask yourself these questions as together you are ready to spend a significant amount of your fortune to buy the right tool for yourself or not. Also, it is not a one-time investment as they are recurring in nature so you will have to stay committed for the long term to see good results.
Note:
Now, if you want to start email marketing for your business and you have answered yes to almost all of the above questions, let me share a cheat trick with you.
For You
Now that you are done with your business it’s time to step back and think about yourself. While deciding whether to start in marketing or not, you must consider various individual aspects about yourself:
Are you interested in writing emails?
The first thing you should understand is when you are starting your business you have limited employees. It means that most of the things you have to do by yourself. So if you own a restaurant and want to start email marketing you will have to write emails initially by yourself. You cannot hire content writers for that and therefore you must ask yourself whether you enjoy writing and have the skills to create engaging and compelling email content.
Are you patient and adaptable?
To be able to see visible results in email marketing you have to be patient. You cannot accept a miracle overnight. When you are just starting your CTR, the open rate and conversion rate would be low. With time you have to adapt and refine your strategies based on the results of your previous campaigns and industry trends. And then only you will be able to get significant results.
Are you comfortable in complying with various rules and regulations?
Are you comfortable and open to learning about various rules and regulations? Email marketing is governed by various rules and regulations like GDPR, and CAN-SPAM to avoid scams and frauds. And therefore you have to comply with these rules to avoid legal issues and ensure proper email deliverability.
Do you have the time and resources?
Marketing is a time and resource-consuming activity. First, you will have to give time to plan, create and execute your email campaigns not once but consistently. You will constantly have to look into the latest trends, competitors and your analytics to find the best strategy.
And then you will have to spend your resources in finding good tools to implement those strategies.
What is the type of business you own?
What type of business can get benefit from email marketing? Well, almost every other business can get benefitted from email marketing. But for more clear understanding, start by considering the nature of your business while deciding whether to embark on an email marketing journey.
- For example, if you have a service-based business you can use email marketing to build relationships, nursing leads and establish your authority & expertise.
- If you have any commerce enterprise you can use email campaigns to showcase your products and new launches, announce promotions, foster customer loyalty, etc.
- If you have a B2B company, you can use email marketing to generate leads, build relationships, increase your business reach, drive sales and enhance loyalty.
- For startups, email marketing can be a perfect channel to build brand awareness, attract customers, and showcase authority.
- For professional service providers, event organizers, content creators and NGOs marketing can be a tool to build credibility, engage audiences and establish new connections.
Conclusion
Marketing your product or service through email can be a flexible and cost-effective way of reaching new customers. It can also help you to increase your customer retention and increase customer satisfaction. But you also have to understand that email marketing requires lots of time and effort. Therefore, you have to consider your business, your current liabilities, priorities, before you jump into this marketing channel.