Struggling to grow your business? Email marketing might be your answer!
Utilizing an email marketing tool can be a very effective and powerful approach to growing your small business. With a saturated market, it is important to explore ways that will help you reach your ideal clients, nuture the relationship and convert marketing contacts or leads to paying customers. Keep reading to learn more about email marketing can help your business and our quick guide to getting started.
Importance of Email Marketing
Best Communication Method
Not everyone uses social media. If you are relying solely on social media to target your client base, you are missing out on a large chunk of people. Most people check their emails at least once a day.
Using email marketing gives you another avenue to get in front of your potential clients. If your marketing contacts and leads aren’t quite ready to book, you can utilize your marketing campaigns to build brand awareness, trust, and interest in your services which may aide you in converting more leads into clients.
You have control of your list
I’m sure you have seen it happen to others or experienced it yourself, but social media can crash. You shouldn’t rely on just one route to communicate with your clients and market. There have certainly been times where Facebook and/or Instagram have been down for a while day – leaving many small businesses feeling panicked and unable to communicate to the masses.
Social media accounts can also be suspended, hacked, or even deleted for any reason at any time, often without notice. With an email marketing list, you have access and control of your subscribers and it offers another way to communicate with mass amounts of people should something happen with your social media platforms.
Quick Guide to Getting Started with Email Marketing
If you are new to email marketing, you might not know where to start. Here is a quick guide to get you started and things to consider!
1. Build your email marketing list
Make signing up easy
Give your clients an easy way to sign up for your email list. Opt-in forms are a great way to gather your email list subscribers. Our email marketing tool offers an opt-in form with HTML code so you can place it directly onto your website. Once the form is filled out, the marketing contact (subscriber) gets automatically added into your Iris account.
Give an incentive for signing up
Site visitors are more likely to give out their email address if you are offering something in return. This approach is known as a lead magnet. A lead magnet is a marketing term for a free item or service provided in exchange for someone’s contact details, such as email address. Some simple ideas for lead magnets include: downloadable content (checklists, guides, tips or tutorials, etc…), newsletters, and promotions (discount, extra images, etc…)
2. Map out your timing and content
So now that you have your email list built up with subscribers – next step is to figure out what to send and how often to send emails.
What content should I send to my subscribers?
- Newsletters
Keep your subscribers updated on your business sending a newsletter. These can be sent monthly to recap things such as new blog posts, exciting news, share upcoming events, link to your social media platforms, or help your subscribers get to know you better. - Events
Email marketing is a great way to notify your clients and subscribers of your availability, especially for events like mini sessions. Include your booking links in the email campaign as your call to action. - Promotions
We are all pretty accustomed to receiving promotional offers when we sign up for an emailing list with other business. You can increase bookings or revenue by running promotions on sessions or products. - Product and Service Information
Let your subscribers know what you have to offer – whether it is sharing information about sessions, current products, or when you have a new product/service available.
Feeling a little stuck with ideas or how to design your campaign? Our email marketing tool offers pre-made campaign templates that you can use and customize!
How often should I send email campaigns? Best time to send?
We recommend not sending more than 1-3 emails per month to any one customer, so as not to inundate your clients.
Times that would be good to send out a campaign might include:
– When you have new subscribers
– Monthly for newletters
– Launching your mini session or seasonal availability
The best time of day or which day of the week to send emails may vary for each business and market. You may need to experiment with time of day when sending your campaigns to see when you might get the most open rates.
3. Include a call to action
Don’t forget to include a call to action in your campaigns. A call to action is a word, phrase, or sentence to prompt your reader to take a particular action. Do you want your reader to book a session or buy a product? Maybe you want them to read your recent blog post or leave a review.
Adding a call to action in your campaign will help with click rates and guide your subscribers. Don’t be afraid to play with wording and make it something that will grab your reader’s attention. You can learn about different types of call to action and how to include these into your campaigns here.
4. Target specific audiences
While some campaign will be great for your entire email list, you might also have content that you want to use that targets specific groups within your mailing list. With our email marketing tool, you can filter who you are sending to (active clients, inactive clients, leads, or marketing contacts) and narrow this date further by date, session type, or group. Creating content for specific groups allows you to personalize and cater to your subscribers more and help increase your click through rates.
Are you using email marketing? Let us know how it has helped your business!
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