Welcome to day one of Email Marketing Summer School. Over the next few days we'll be taking an in depth look at email marketing, and discussing how you can begin using email to more effectively market and grow your business.
Today won’t be like the first day in most classes, going over the (boring) basics, we’re going to cut right to the good stuff and tell you why you should be integrating email marketing into your overall marketing campaign.
After reading the following list, we'll let you decide if this is compelling enough to get you started, and stick with the rest of our “class”.
10 Reasons Your Business Should be Using Email Marketing
1. To Build Trust
Since you'll be sending informational, focused, email communication, you will begin building trust with those on your list.
They will come to know you as a valuable source of information, and with that trust, they will actually start listening to what you have to say.
This is the most crucial step in the email marketing process. If you have an email list that trust you, you've won the battle, and we'll talk more about how you build trust in an upcoming blog post.
2. To Become Familiar
Email by nature is a *friendly* form of communication. We feel the best about emails from friends and trusted sources. We look forward to these emails, and by using an email list to market your business you will be one of those people we look forward to getting email from. If you do it right, you will become familiar to those on your list, and your emails will be opened, read, and acted upon.
Better yet, you will become the “top of the mind” supplier of what you sell for those on your list. The more familiar you are to your list, the more likely they will be to think of you when they need to product or service you offer. Why buy from a stranger when they can buy from a friend?
3. To Get Repeat Business
When used correctly email marketing is a great way to get repeat business. You'll be communicating with your list consistently, and providing opportunity for those on your list to buy from you time and again.
You'll also be building an email list of current customers, allowing them to not only buy from you the first time in person, but possibly again via an email offer.
4. To Make More Sales
Isn't that the goal of all marketing - more sales? If you do it right, your email list generate more sales for your business. By doing a combination of everything on this Top 10 list, your email marketing will be a lean, mean, sales getting machine!
5. To Build Your Authority
Many of the emails you send will be informational by nature, and through sharing of information you'll be building your own credibility and authority as an expert on your subject. Guess who people buy from? That’s right, the experts.
6. To Save Money
It cost next to nothing to set up and maintain a powerful email campaign. You’ll pay $50-100/month for email list management software. After that, the cost of your time to get it set up and write/send emails are your only sunk cost. Compare it against any other form of marketing I think you’ll find it’s very hard to get more for less.
7. To Create an Opt-In Market
The people on your list have asked you to send them information - It doesn't get better than this! Most marketing goes out to the crowd and you hope your message resonates with enough of them you make sales. If you have an email list you're marketing efforts are automatically targeted to a population of people who WANT what you are offering.
8. To Save Time
It doesn't take much time to send a few friendly emails a month to your list. When it comes to calculating a return on your time investment, email marketing is going to be tough to beat with other forms of more traditional ad generation.
9. To Expand Your Reach
If I see a great commercial on TV the only way I can share it is by retelling the concept to my friends, or hoping they've seen it. With email, that's not the case. Your message can be passed on and shared with the click of a button. This essentially expands your reach beyond those on your list, to potentially everyone on the receivers "list" as well.
10. To Create Multiple Buying Opportunities
When a customer walks into a store, the place of business only has that one chance to sell them something. Once they walk out, you just have to hope they come back giving you another chance to sell.
Email marketing gives your customers multiple opportunities to buy from you. You'll be reminding them how great your products and services are on a regular basis, pulling them back.
In Summary
I think it's easy to see the benefit in building and using an email list as part of your marketing activities. If you’re not currently using email to market your products and services, I think you’re leaving a lot on the table.
Hopefully you’ll hang with us through Summer School, and some of the tips and techniques we talk about over the next few days help you grow and expand your business.
Class dismissed…
Photo Credit: b?tz?
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Excellent first day of “class!”
I loved the way you presented items 5, 8 and 9. I think that e-mail marketing is similar to maximizing social media sites: people look up to you as reliable source of timely information and voila! Instant top-of-the-mind spot!
I am looking forward for your next installment.
Good start here, particularly for a guy like me who doesn’t know much on this subject. When I think of email marketing all I can think of is the amount of spam mails I recieve.
When is the next class Sir
Summer school never looked so good.
Email marketing is definitely less expense than many of the other forms of marketing available and easier in the long run. Over time it gives the reader a sense of who you are and what you stand for. I know I am far more likely to purchase from someone who corresponds with me than from a stranger and I expect most of us feel the same.
Looking forward to the next day of ‘class’. Will bring a lunch.
Great top 10! I think that these are all pretty important steps in using email marketing effectively. The building trust is such an important part of expanding your businesses reach. Once trust is established the rest falls in line according to your business plan, especially the referral and repeat business. I too am looking forward to your next post on this subject.
@Strategic
Reliability and gaining trust is the silver bullet of email marketing.
Glad you liked the class, I’m giving you all the weekend off and we’ll jump back into Monday, see you then!
Matt
@Robin
I think that is the misperception, that email marketing is spam, because unfortunately that is what so many of us receive. Stick with me through this series and I hope I can show you that the most effective email marketing bears no resemblance to those spam emails you delete by the dozen.
Matt
@Sheryd
“I know I am far more likely to purchase from someone who corresponds with me than from a stranger and I expect most of us feel the same.”
In a nutshell that is why email marketing, done properly, works so well.
We’ll reconvene on Monday, feel free to bring a snack as long as you have enough to share with the rest of us =)
Matt
@Rich
I can’t underestimate the value of trust…both in person when doing business, and with email marketing. I’ve used the same mechanic for years becuase I trust him 100%. I’d take my car to him even if I lived 100 miles from his shop, and wouldn’t think of going anywhere else – for no other reason than trust.
See you back here Monday!
Matt
Matt, excellent advice. I really need to get into email more.
Kinda of of a on-topic, but kinda of off-topic too, I was surprised the other day when I went to my local mechanic to change the oil as I usually do every 3,000 miles, they had me enroll in their email mail list list for an extra savings! I was like wow! My local business is now going to be marketing to me via email. I was really surprised by it, kinda of reminds me of how times are changing, hehe.
Till then,
Jean
Great list. I will add a important factor: emails are trackable – you know exactly who opened your emails, and who clicked which links, so your attorneys can follow up appropriately with individual clients based on their demonstrated interests.
Smallbizbee, I think that you can even save the 50-100 dollars using winword. It can send multiple messages to users without using any external program.
I could write the name of that feature but I have Polish version of word and it wouldn’t tell you anything.
@Free
Very important piece of the puzzle – you know instantly if your marketing is reaching your target.
Matt
@Silver Stop
Not familar with winword, will have to check that out.
Thanks for coming by,
Matt
mail marketing is in itself an excellent method of communicating and distributing information and an essential part of an integrated marketing strategy. Like all marketing methods, it is most influential when used in conjunction with other media with the result that the sum of the parts being more powerful than the individual parts themselves.
I’ve been using email marketing for several years an it just plain works. Excellent post, very well written. Email provides a great way to have continuing contact with customers and prospects in a subtle but direct manner.
After reading that it is easy to see why email marketing is the way to go. Thanks for sharing.