There are several reasons as to why regular email marketing should be a big part of your company and business.
According to an article released by Lifewire, The Radicati Group Inc, a technology market research firm identified in January 2017, that there will be more than 3.7 billion email users worldwide by the end of this year (2017). With the math done for us, 54% of the population is using email, or has access to email.
For those of you who have heard the term but don’t really know what email marketing is, it refers to marketing business through email to clientele, in order to build brand awareness. Usually marketing of this type is done fortnightly or monthly, for the majority of businesses.
Most businesses market their brand to clientele through fortnightly or monthly newsletters. These sorts of informative emails usually advertise products, company news or industry news. Email marketing must be done through an email marketing platform, to allow recipients of emails to unsubscribe if they wish. Some email marketing platforms which are quite popular are, but not limited to: MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, Vision6 and GetResponse.
All of the platforms mentioned above vary in terms of pricing as they all vary a little in terms of functionality. Some are free up to a certain number of databases or contacts, while others allow you to build online contact and survey forms for websites, hence why they aren’t free. One thing that all these platforms have in common is that they will give you statistics on who opened the emails you sent, who clicked on the links in the email and who unsubscribed.
Considering that over 54% of the population are using email and you’d also have a large number of customers/ clients with email addresses, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be emailing your customers on a regular basis.
Research shows that when emails are sent out to the right people on a regular basis, those emails you send can help revenue and boost sales, since people will regularly be encouraged to visit your website and take advantage of product sales and services advertised in your newsletters.
These days, you wouldn’t want to be a business with no social media presence and the same goes for email marketing, unless of course, you are a new start-up business trying to establish a database. Fortnightly or monthly newsletter marketing directly target audiences, who know and trust you. These types of people are the ones who are likely to refer your products and services to their friends and family.
Those who receive your newsletters will either: read through it, enquire, reply to it, forward it, or purchase a product/ service, and if they don’t do any of this, they will be prompted again that your company exists for next time they need to use your services or purchase a new product.
If design and customisation has been holding you back, don’t fear anymore! A lot of the main email marketing platforms now have templates you can choose from which allow for the alteration of colours, images, titles and text boxes, where they didn’t allow for this years ago. These platforms also allow for mobile responsiveness so that your newsletters display correctly on all phones/ tablets. The editors for these templates have drag/ drop functionality built in them, so the days of needing a designer to design a template for you are over.
If you’re looking for a platform, we can’t say enough about MailChimp! It’s free for up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month. It will give you decent reports on who has opened emails, clicked on links and the templates you need to start. Don’t forget to place a newsletter signup form on your website as well so that people interested in your services enough to receive deals and promotions you’re offering can sign up for your monthly newsletter.
Feel free to contact us if you’re not sure where to start with email marketing.
