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In some cases, human behavior may look quite strange. What would you say about the person who found the dream tool (gadget, car…) that perfectly meets his expectations, with guaranteed quality, price is suitable too… But suddenly refused to purchase. There’s something wrong with that dude, right?
But what’s wrong with those owners of small businesses who underestimate or just ignore email marketing?
It may be assumed that the problem relates to the lack of information. People may have little understanding of what email marketing is, so they treat it as rocket science for big companies and transnational corporations.
While in reality, it’s nothing like that. According to researches like this one published by Campaign Monitor, email channels satisfy the specific nature of small brands even better.
ROI really matters
The first argument in favor of email marketing resulted from the financial advantage of big businesses. Assets of large-scale companies are enough to spend funds for multivector promotion, outdoor advertising, TV commercials, etc.
Unlike that, small brands’ resources are limited. So every dollar invested in marketing is supposed to return and bring a crowd of bucks. In addition, small businesses are less able to find solutions by trial and error — misconceptions are too expensive.
For precisely that reason, any small-scale business urgently needs a proven tool to build marketing communication, generate income, and grow the whole enterprise. And, besides, the required tool should be cost-effective, technically reliable, and marketer-friendly.
You guessed right, email marketing is exactly the kind of such tool. According to Hubspot stats for 2021, this marketing channel retains superiority. The average rate decreased a bit, probably due to pandemic times, but it’s still impressive: a regular eCommerce email generates $42 for every $1 invested, which means 4,200% ROI compared to the recent 4400%. Isn’t it enough to say yes to email marketing?
Costs and performance
Regarding other requirements, this channel complies with them as well. Firstly, it’s cheap. Even the paid tariff plans of HTML template builders and CDP‘s are not too expensive. In addition, practical implementation is unrelated to printing, paper, physical mailings, and other issues. Everything is virtual 🙂
Speaking about tools, they are user-friendly enough. Today, proper services offer wide sets of options/features to ease marketers’ life. No need for coding skills anymore. No third-party designers. Everything is done by marketers/business owners themselves, from email template customization to advanced settings. This is essential for small businesses where one person often combines several functions.
As for performance, we all know that the email communication channel is reliable and protected enough. Messages are delivered literally in seconds.
…Well, the facts above belong to basic knowledge. Let’s pay attention to other impressive benefits.
Deep connection
Let’s start with engagement and marketing communications. Email is a channel with advanced options and features, enough to mention the AMP4Email innovation. It means new approaches to content presentation and structuring.
But even besides AMP, email has a row of useful things for marketing purposes. Embedded videos, for example. Or integration with social media. Using email potential wisely we generate professional content, and build a communications system that will engage leads and accompany clients. People appreciate it when the brand is supporting them and solving the problems.
By the way, integration with socials is reaching a new level, much more complex than regular Facebook/Twitter/Instagram icons. This innovation is worth our special attention: it allows promoting small brands, in particular with the help of user-generated content. For small biz where the target audience is not too wide, it’s a promising solution: clients become your brand advocates.
Hyper-personal targeting
I guess you are aware that personalization in eCommerce is more than addressing by names. Since 2019, this practice is back on the trend list again, in an updated shape of hyper-personalization empowered by smart tools.
There are lots of dedicated publications, you will easily find all the details about AI-based tools in modern email marketing. For example, this post by Smart Insights. So we shall only mention AI in the aspect of small businesses.
As we said, small biz is unlike having lots of clients. Does it make marketers’ work easier? No way. Even more challenging: we need to treat every client very personally, like a family member.
Well, it’s not an impossible mission to personalize emails manually for 100 or 200 contacts. But why waste time? Smart tools segment the database much better, and no trouble happens when the database is growing. It’s a challenge for humans but not for cyber brains. AI will process all the data on its own, track customers’ activities, find segmentation criteria — and generate hyper-personal emails.
Growing trust
The previous point is about workflow automation. Being implemented in a small-scale business strategy, smart techniques save a lot of time and enhance customers’ trust.
But the latter goal is not purely machine-related. Everything depends on a professional approach. And we can build a trustworthy brand image with emails.
For example, we all know that email design must be responsive. But mobile-friendliness is not limited to design! Content should be adjusted to smartphones too. For a smaller audience, it’s a chance to show a non-generic approach. Choose relevant content only, show your care about clients and consider their needs.
(Venngage)
Image is a complex thing formed by many components. An email channel has unique options to reflect your style and spirit — one more example is accessibility. Communication adapted for clients with special needs… are SMS or phone able to show your care?
Shaping brand identity
Big famous brands are recognized at first sight. Samsung, Adidas, McDonald’s… enough to see the logo and color scheme. But what about small biz?
It needs its own face too! And email is a way to grow identity. Again, SMS cannot represent the brand design. Push notifications potential is wider but still limited technically. While email has lots of design options. Stick to corporate design in newsletters and triggered emails, and you will grow identity recognized by clients.
If you dare to mess with AMP, it’s a good chance. When newsletters are following the style of the company website, it works great.
Analytic potential
We are going to end now with one more function. Email channel turned out to be an excellent analytic tool. A/B split testing and campaign analytics exceed the field of email marketing. This data allows you to estimate the whole enterprise performance, detect advantages and weaknesses, update strategies, etc.
Moreover, AMP-based solutions optimize the process of feedback collecting. Knowing your clients’ needs and opinions is a critical condition to fix the business strategy. Again, AI will measure and decypher results for you.
Summing up
Let’s sum it up with a tip: define the goals before crafting email campaigns. As well as the overall mission of the entire enterprise in a long-term perspective. With this big picture, you will define the best solutions much easier.
We sincerely wish you success. Let your brand grow, maybe even to the scale of big corporations. Remember that lots of famous brands started as small-scale facilities or shops. Hope to see you among the big bosses!
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This content is brought to you by Entony Savchenko.
Inset photos provided by Stripo.email
The leadership group continued to encourage and train him, giving him the confidence he needed to create his own company.