What's your best email marketing tip for small businesses?

Our top tip is for small businesses to split test their email content for effectiveness before implementing campaigns. If the goal is to increase open rates, for instance, companies need to A/B test potential subject lines to optimize campaign results. In general, businesses should test as much of their content as possible for effectiveness. We recently split test our email photo content for a Black Friday campaign that resulted in 8% more click-throughs and over 12% improvement in conversions. If businesses don’t test their content, they won’t be able to predict or understand why their marketing strategy doesn’t hit their goals. Audiences respond differently to various forms and styles of branded content, so businesses need to see what works before investing money in marketing campaigns that gamble with results.

Find creative ways to integrate social proof into your email marketing strategy. Users respond to reviews, testimonials, and proven track records better on average than other forms of content. Share what results, clients, or positive reviews you have garnered for your business to attract leads to browse or purchase your products and services. The easier you make it for consumers to believe in your product’s value via third-party recommendations, the more credible and profitable your business will be. Social proof grabs users’ attention and helps convince them to give your business another look. Capitalize on this phenomenon to drive home your product’s value after you have grabbed their attention.

Scrubbing your contact list ensures you're sending out emails to people who want to read them. Lower open rates and click-throughs may be a sign that you're sending emails to people who aren't interested in what you have to say, have already purchased your product, or went to your competitor. For these reasons, it's a good idea to clean out your email list regularly. Remove those who have unsubscribed and any recipients who haven't engaged with your emails within the last 3 months. Focusing your efforts on active subscribers increases your open and improves click-through rates, providing more effective data when measuring the success of your email marketing. Furthermore, giving your contact list a good scrubbing saves your small business valuable marketing dollars as email service providers typically charge you more the larger your list is.

Small businesses have the advantage of generally being owner run. This makes it a lot easier for consumers to identify a person/people with the brand. Small businesses should absolutely leverage this advantage especially when conducting email marketing campaigns. An image of the owner right at the bottom really makes the email more personable and it increases the trust level from a consumer perspective. Improving the likelihood of more sales and actions within the email campaign.

Small businesses should curate email marketing content to keep messages short and focused on time-bound actionable items. For example, announcing an event or special sale or encouraging recipients to order limited-time items, vs writing more generally about happenings in the business. Folks get inundated with email spam and you have a limited amount of time to capture and hold your audience's attention. Stick to short descriptions with clear calls to action, and save the exposition for your website "about me" or face-to-face interactions. This approach will make your campaign's success easier to track and is likelier to achieve your intended goals.

Email isn’t just a means to promote upcoming sales. It can be used to thank customers after a purchase with a reminder of accessories that compliment the purchase. And thirty days later, an invitation for a tune-up. Depending on your POS system you may be able to automate these actions with scripts you’ve pre-written. In fact, you can create a variety of automated email scripts to send to various customers and prospects. This is the foundation of customer relationship management, and how you can be more efficient running your business with a higher return. And in the meanwhile, email isn't a bad way to announce upcoming sales!

Small businesses often don't have the time and resources to invest in complex email marketing campaigns. Even if that's true, your customers don't really care. They expect to get personalized or, at least, relevant messages in their inbox. IF they don't, they'll delete your emails or unsubscribe. Start simple. Segment based on what they signed up for or what they purchased in the past. This is a clear indicator of their interests and will allow you to send relevant emails without too much effort.

While it's common to utilize email marketing for coupons or discounts, having a long-term goal is crucial for the success of a business. Email should be used to send information about the company to open the success rate. It can be about the ingredient you're using in your products, the blog your company just uploaded, facts about your company or related to your field or something like that. Your basic goal has to be to educate your audience as well. By sharing information along with offers, you're not only promoting your brand but also helping them in learning something new. This portrays your brand as transparent in the eyes of the customer as you're giving them an option to decide for themselves without excessively promoting your services. This leads to a more open rate of email and even if someone doesn't like the promotional emails, they'll stay for the information-related emails. Hence, less unsubscribe rate!

Email marketing is a great way for small businesses to reach their customers and remain top of mind. One of the most important tips for email marketing is to be real and genuine. Regardless of whether you are sending transactional, marketing, or relationship emails, your message needs to be genuine. People can see through marketing copy and will not be interested in your product or service if it does not solve a problem for them. Realness also extends to the email design. If you are sending transactional emails, make sure that they are easy to read and understand. If you are sending marketing emails, make sure that they are compelling and interesting enough to make people want to click through.

Small businesses need to appeal to the Fear of Missing Out, also known as "FOMO." In your marketing copy and in your email subject lines, you need to use words and phrases that will compel people to take action. Ask yourself what people like. "Guarantee," "Promise," and "Free" are things consumers like. Here are words that compel them to act: "limited time," "limited quantities," and "going fast." Use these words and phrases in your email marketing subject lines and copy and you'll boost your effectiveness.

People are flooded with emails these days and if you're a small business, you have an even tougher road to getting noticed in an inbox. Offering a giveaway or discount exclusive to email is a great way to capture and retain email subscribers.

Be consistent. Many small business leaders have their hands in so many pies that things like emails go out erratically. Having a consistent email will go a long way to improving your credibility and customer relationships. It takes time and you may feel you need to do other things that have more immediacy but sending out an email every week or two is one of the most important things you can do for the long-term success of your business.

My best tip for email marketing is to test your emails before sending them. It is an essential step to take to be 100% sure your email is written well, without typos or other mistakes. Plus, remember to make them mobile-friendly. Therefore, test your emails for desktop, mobile, and tablet. The content of your email is paramount, but don’t ignore how it looks and its design.

There are three types of email messages: transactional, relational, and marketing. Mixing them all together is much better. Start with the transactional messages. Try to gain their subscription by having messages for "account signup," "app alerts," "security reminders," "confirmation status," etc.? You may also send an email to greet a new subscriber. Give them a freebie, such as a guide, or a piece of advice. You need to figure out what information your customers need to get the most out of your app/service/store. Send them updates about your service through email. Initiate a testimonial campaign among your customers. After you see an improvement in open and click rate, subscribers will become committed to the brand and start to pay you.

Segment your email content by the most differentiating factors in your target audience. Segmented email marketing campaigns are more effective for attracting different sections of your target consumers than a blanket strategy. Content curated to attract different age demographics or professions converts more users on average than using the same strategy across all users. We target different segments with our email content from professional cooks, for example, to middle and upper-class families with marketing strategies catered to each group’s preferences. Professionals in the food industry, for instance, want to see the details and specs on our products upfront. By targeting audiences based on each segment we drive more clickthroughs and conversions.

Consumers should be able to identify your email at first glance as belonging to your business. How? Include your company logo, colors, and fonts within your newsletter to increase brand awareness and connect with your customers more creatively. Companies must incorporate their brand identity across all marketing channels to build a strong presence.

Over 300 billion emails are sent every single day, which means that you have to be fairly creative to even get someone to open your message. That's why the extra time put into crafting a compelling, informative subject line means the difference between seeing your open rates climb, or watching your hard work go directly to Spam - without passing GO. Give your recipients enough information that their curiosity is piqued enough to make that click, and then always follow up with what you've promised they'll find inside. Consumers are smart, and they can see clickbait a mile away.

Small businesses can budget for giveaway-style marketing campaigns to use as lead magnets for their brand. Giveaways effectively encourage email sign-ups, social media engagement, and create buzz to get the word out for your business. We use giveaway strategies on Instagram before a seasonal sale to boost our sales and reach new customers. After gathering sign-ups, craft valuable email content with discounts or perks to encourage a purchase soon after to maximize your campaign’s effectiveness. We recently used this strategy for our Father’s Day sale. By offering new customers a 40% discount on our products, we improved our average number of sales for this campaign by over 30%.

Focus on quality over quantity, always. Your users don't want to be bombarded by a slew of emails anyway. Instead, make sure each email you send contains information that is truly valuable to your customers or potential customers. For example, rather than sending out a handful of promotional emails that may not even be opened, send your users thoughtfully curated content that they can use in their everyday lives and businesses. This is one of the most effective ways to not only build your email lists and establish customers, but also to build trust within your company's community. If you're not sure what your subscribers want to see, ask! It's a great way to make sure your content is on point, and to let your users know that you care about what's important to them.

Think about how you can actively engage your readership with your product or service, with a simple click of a button. For instance, as a business in the skincare industry, you can create video tutorials that teach buyers how to develop a daily skincare routine that works with their skin type. Creating engaging content that is accessible and informative will help maintain the interest of existing customers and easily gain new customers.