5 Email Marketing Tips to Grow Your Small Business

How to use email marketing to grow your business

The following five tips offer easy-to-implement ways to boost audience engagement with your brand.

1. Make signing up for your emails easy.

You can’t expect to build an email marketing list with one semi-hidden sign-up form on your website. Add subscription forms throughout your website so that people engaging with your content in different ways can see them.

Include subscription forms on your homepage, landing page and About page. Add them to your blog content, sidebar widget areas, website footer sections and even near the navigation menu so that people can spot a place to subscribe easily.

Consider using software with exit-intent technology that displays an email pop-up form as people are about to leave your site. This gives them one last chance to subscribe.

2. Offer an incentive for signing up for your email list.

Making sign-up easy is only the beginning. You also have to make people want to sign up.

The best way to encourage site visitors to subscribe to your email list is to offer a content upgrade. Provide something of value, such as an exclusive coupon, an e-book or a handy checklist to anyone willing to subscribe. [Related article: How to Create and Write Your Business’s First E-Book]

People are more likely to give out their email addresses for something in return. They’ll feel this bonus upgrade is valuable and that you aren’t just after their money.

3. Vary your email marketing content.

A constant stream of promotional emails won’t engage your audience. They want to feel you’re offering them valuable content. One way to appeal to your subscribers is to mix up your content and send out different types of emails to grab their attention.

Here are some varied email content examples:

• Events: Invite local customers to an event you’re hosting at your business, such as a product demo or an educational seminar. This tactic is also an excellent local marketing strategy.
• Product and service information: Send an email marketing campaign to inform your customers about new product or service launches and updated features. You’ll get them excited about changes and enhancements.
• Newsletters: Email newsletters are a great platform for sharing various types of information. You can even include promotional material without coming across as overly focused on sales. Consider linking to your online shop to boost e-commerce sales. You can also link to blog content and social media platforms to improve your social media presence.
• Promotions: While people don’t want nonstop promotional material, they’re likely interested in upcoming sales or special deals. Offering coupons and perks like free shipping via email is a great technique for boosting your click-through rate (CTR) and revenue.

4. Segment your email lists.

Long gone are the days when a small business could get away with sending the same generic email marketing campaign to every person on their list. Personalization is an excellent way to improve your email marketing campaign. Personalized emails are much more effective at engaging subscribers and keeping them on your list.

To boost your CTR even further, consider segmenting your email lists into groups to send meaningful content to varied demographics. 

For example, send one email campaign to those who have recently made a purchase, another to those who haven’t opened an email in a while and welcome emails to new subscribers. Don’t make them all promotional, as this defeats the purpose of segmenting your list.

There are many ways to segment your email list to target and nurture your subscribers and their unique needs.

5. Always include a call to action (CTA) in your email marketing campaigns.

Every email campaign needs a clear CTA, even if a sale isn’t the email’s primary goal. A compelling CTA increases recipient engagement with your website, content and business.

Follow these tips to get people to click your CTA button:

• Make it visually clear and exciting with compelling copy.
• Don’t make it wordy; stick to about five words.
• Use action-oriented copy that tells people exactly what to do — for example, “Click Here” and “Download Now.”
• Make the CTA easy to find and don’t let it distract from your campaign.

Getting people to open your emails is just the start. You must encourage them to read the email’s content and take further action to grow your business.

Email marketing mistakes to avoid

Even the most innovative email marketing campaign can be ineffective if you don’t follow email marketing best practices. Avoid these common mistakes in your email marketing campaigns:

• Using poor subject lines: Your open rate is a crucial marketing metric, and the subject line is where you can sink or swim. Being too strident (using all caps, exclamation points or too much excitement) can hinder your opens and deliverability rate. Your messages may get tagged as spam or dismissed as a phishing attempt. Keep subject lines short and to the point but try to intrigue recipients so that they open the email. Subject line personalization, including emojis and the recipient’s name, can also increase open rates.
• Neglecting message previews: Message previews are a few lines of text that give recipients a little more information than the subject line, prompting the reader to open the email. Most email programs display this text along with the subject line, so take advantage of this opportunity.
• Sending from a nonresponding email address: If you want people to engage with your email, provide a way for them to reply. Sometimes, customers or prospects have questions that the email doesn’t answer, so giving them an actual person to help can bolster your relationship. Avoid sending no-reply emails and emails from generic unchecked email addresses like contact@domain.com or info@domain.com.
• Not sending consistently: In today’s fast-paced world, attention is at a premium. When people tell you they’re interested in your company by subscribing to your email list, don’t lose them by only sending sporadic emails. Follow an email calendar and prepare your content ahead of time so you don’t fall off your customers’ radar.
• Neglecting mobile users: If your email looks great on a computer screen but isn’t readable on a smartphone, you’re missing out on a lot of potential engagement and sales. 

The best email marketing services

The best email marketing services allow you to track and manage your email lists, create attractive and responsive email designs without programming and track your results. Here are a few well-regarded options to consider:

• Constant Contact: In addition to its ease of use and wide variety of customizable email templates, this service provides high-end functionality like Canva and Vimeo integration, behavioral triggers, subject line recommendations and automated email campaign flows. Read our detailed review of Constant Contact to learn about this platform’s features and affordable pricing, which starts at $12 per month. 
• Benchmark Email: With a free plan and tiered options starting at $13 per month, Benchmark Email is a feature-full and affordable platform for startups and small businesses. The free version allows you to send up to 250 emails per month and the Pro plan includes behavior-based email follow-up, website engagement automation, automated customer journey templates and the ability to do A/B testing. Find out more by reading our in-depth Benchmark Email review.
• monday.com: monday.com provides a workflow management interface to track and analyze email campaigns from idea to execution. As our monday.com review explains, this solution doesn’t send out your emails. However, its project management functionality gives you the reporting, tracking and analytics tools you need to identify and replicate successful email campaigns.
• Campaigner: Campaigner is a robust email marketing service for businesses that send many emails and create numerous email marketing campaigns. Prices start at $59 per month in a plan that allows you to manage up to 5,000 contacts and conduct A/B testing to discover what elements work best. As we outline in our Campaigner review, higher-priced plans allow more contacts, dynamic content, automated workflows and additional tools.
• Salesforce CRM: Salesforce’s Sales Cloud CRM solution includes impressive email marketing features for small businesses and large enterprises alike. With options starting at $25 per month, you’ll be able to capture lead information, send mass emails, conduct email marketing campaigns and learn from detailed analytics. Read our Salesforce CRM review to learn how this platform’s artificial intelligence tools provide valuable insights into customer email interactions. 

Making email marketing a priority

Email marketing is one of the best ways to give your small business room to grow and succeed, even when competing with big industry names. However, you must prioritize building quality email lists and writing compelling campaigns to get people to go beyond opening your emails and make purchases on your website or in your physical stores.

Determine what your customers want the most and present it to them via email. You’ll see the results quickly as your business grows.

Kimberlee Leonard contributed to this article.