Deepti Daryanani

101 Email Marketing Tips For Small Businesses Email marketing is an effective way for small businesses to nurture their audience. This is a subject that every small business owner can gain from. Here's a detailed list of 101 email marketing tips and tricks you can read and dive into. But before we begin let's address a question. Why should small business owners invest their time and energy in email marketing strategy? Time is precious and as a small business owner spending your time well is vital to the growth of your business. Today we have lots of options for email marketing activities. It can get very overwhelming for any startup and small business to begin an email marketing campaign. But once you learn the skills, it delivers well. Through emails, a small business owner can begin a relationship with their prospects. Emails can be a great way to deliver value to the audience in a consistent way while saving time and money. Thanks to the email software companies and competitive pricing. It makes email marketing affordable. Recent studies show that emails perform so much better than social media. The audience through an email converts 40% better than social media. See it this way. How many people today do not have an email address? Few. Communicating with a person who has shown interest in what you offer is a positive sign. Reaching out to them personally through their email gives a one-on-one experience. Plus having an email address helps to have a direct communication with the audience. So the bottom line is this. Email marketing for small businesses is essential. Understanding The Marketing Framework It's important to understand what marketing means in email marketing. Marketing has three essential parts. The first one is defining an audience. This is a group of people you want to communicate with. Second. You reach out to that audience with a clear compelling and valuable message. Last. You motivate the audience to take a physical and measurable response. This is the result you want to get for your business. So you target a group, you send them a message and you ask them for a specific response. Today there are many services that help small businesses get started with email marketing. Bulk Mailer provides the necessary tools needed for creating, distributing, managing, and tracking your advertising and email marketing campaigns. These tools are vital for any business. Here are 101 top tips for email marketing. You could ponder upon these to execute successful email marketing campaigns. 1. Start by preparing your customers journey. It's important to know the end goal of your email marketing campaign. The marketing method is to nurture leads into sales. But how you go about doing this is your unique approach. So before everything else. Envision how you would like the journey for your prospects to be. 2. Use an email service provider. ESP or email service provider helps a business to stand out. It facilitates to be more effective in their communication with their audience. 3. Break down your email marketing requirements. There are a lot of options when it comes to choosing a good email service provider. A great way to start is assessing your needs. Break down what you can do every day, week and month and pick the provider that best serves your needs. 4. Consider your budget. As a small business, you may not have a big budget especially if you are starting out. So based on your needs create a budget for your email marketing for a good period of time. 5. Take your time and do your research. There are many articles and blog posts that compare various email service providers. Again based on your needs, do your research. Read information from good sources. 6. Verify and examine. Pick information from other sources. Read reviews, testimonials, and interviews. Once you are sure that the service provider is right for your needs, shortlist your choices. 7. Talk to your network. Join Linkedin and other email marketing groups. Talk to the members and see what is working for other small business owners. The groups are dynamic and very helpful. Based on these findings you would be able to make a much-informed decision. 8. Ask questions. Asking questions is a great way to learn from your circle. What email service provider is working for them? 9. Start humble. Start small. Keep it simple when you start with an email service provider. As a small business, you might not be ready to take too much when you are starting out. As the process could overwhelm many. So it's always good to have modest beginnings. 10. Add-On as you begin to see results. Build your email marketing campaigns and systems gradually. As you get used to working with an email service provider, as you begin to see results, you'd be able to do much more. 11. Never buy emails. A lot of companies sell email addresses of a particular niche. Never by these lists. This is because you don't know whether these email addresses are legit. Besides, it can hurt the small business owner's reputation. Services like Gmail and Outlook are likely to spam such email addresses. 12. See from your audience's point of view. It's just not ethical to use anyone's email without their permission. This kind of practice is not going to help a small business owner instead harm their credibility. 13. Keep a signup form at your store. If you have an offline store or a boutique you can always keep a signup form for your customer. Keeping a signup form available at the checkout could be a simple practice to help you build your list. 14. Engage with your existing customer. Again if you own a store, you can begin to engage with your existing customers. At this point, your customer already knows what kind of things you have to offer. You could continue to engage with your customer over the emails. Build a relationship and offer related products that your customer bought. 15. Use an opt-in form on your website. Having a landing page with an opt-in form through which a visitor subscribes is a smart way to build an email list. 16. Give something of value. You can offer a visitor a valuable content also known as a lead magnet. This would be in exchange for your visitor's email address. This can help in starting a relationship with the audience from the beginning. 17. Refer a friend. Another way to build an email list is to ask your current customers to refer a friend. A customer who likes your service or product will be highly engaged in talking about what you have to offer. Personal recommendations such as this increase the probability for your list to grow. 18. Start an email campaign. Campaigns that are of value to prospects can be a great way to continue to build your email list. Giveaways, loyalty cards, discount are a great way of running targeted campaigns. This way it's a win-win situation for the prospects as well as you. 19. Invite your website visitors to join your mailing list. Let your audience know that you share valuable information through emails. This can encourage them to join your mailing list. 20. Engage with your subscribers consistently. How often would you send emails? You would know this once you begin interacting with your audience and see how they respond. Usually once a week emails or twice a week emails are good enough. However, this completely depends on what kind of audience you have. Updates, new information or related information could be interesting ways to reach out. 21. Be top of your subscriber's mind. It's important to stay at the center of your subscriber's mind. Be consistent with the number of emails sent per week, think about how can you provide value. Giving value regularly would help your audience to associate you with value. 22. Drive action through your emails. The purpose of an email is to engage your audience and then to drive them to take an action. It becomes much easier when there is a clickable link. 23. Motivate your audience to click. Offers and discounts are a few ways to motivate the audience to click the desired link. 24. Be open to marketing automation. Many email service providers share features to automate the entire email marketing campaign. This is based on the idea that when someone takes an action on your site they immediately receive an email. This automated trigger helps to acknowledge the audience immediately. 25. Organize your automation in sequences. Email sequence is a series of emails on a particular theme. Organizing emails within the automation help serve your audience through an email series 26 Know your audience. The more you know your audience the more personalized your messages can be. So take time in understanding your audience and knowing what they want. 27. Asses your data. Any realistic data that you may have about your audience is valuable. Seeing how they respond helps in understanding the audience and improving future campaigns. 28. Segment your audience. Segmentation is a feature that many email service providers have. Knowing what topics your audience would prefer. Knowing what stage they are in is vital to segmentation. Based on these clarities you can segment your email marketing campaigns. Cater to specific segments rather than sending emails to your entire list. 29. Keep your email list updated Updating email list helps in eliminating bad email addresses that may go into spam. Check and ensure that your email list is error free. This makes sure that your emails don't go into the spam folder. 30. Stay away from certain keywords. A good way to stay away from spamming is to stay away from certain keywords. For example, phrases like FREE FREE FREE in bold. This can indicate the internet service providers that the email may not be authentic. 31. Analyse your email performance. Looking at how the email is performing by checking the analytics is vital for the growth of any business. Check the open rate, click through rate, conversion rate, and other valuable metrics. This can help in gaining insight into your email marketing performance. 32. Improve your campaigns regularly. Improving to bring better results is an ongoing process in email marketing. Why a metric is underperforming or can give insight into what one is doing wrong and what can be changed. 33. Keep the subject line short and effective. Long subject lines cut off on mobile devices. Constraint your words and try to keep the subject line short so that it's easily readable in a mobile device. 34. Make subject lines simple. It's always better to keep the subject line short and simple. This can get your audience's attention. Speaking of the values that you are going to provide in the email. 35. Directly address your audience's needs in the subject line. Talking about your audience's needs in the subject line can help drive more action to open the emails. So find a way to simply address your audience and bring them value. 36. Address your audience using their first name. Using first names to begin the email helps to personalize the read. It's an informal way to begin the conversation. Also using first names can make your audience feel good and acknowledged. 37. Using emoticons in the subject line is a good idea. Emoticons like a heart or glass hour clock are playful and creative. It can be an interesting way to stand out helpful in opening the emails. 38. Keep a lot of spaces In your email. How you format your emails helps in its readability. So use a lot of spaces and small paragraph when you write your emails. 39. Writing the email in a clear and concise way helps. Less is more here. The briefer your message it the better it would perform. This is because people have less attention span nowadays. Honing your writing skill. Sharing your message in a compelling way will help in having a successful email campaign. 40. If using buttons, make them big. Any accompanying button that's within the email is for your audience to take an action on. Make the buttons big and clear so that it's easier for your audience to identify to press on them. 41. Make your emails mobile responsive. It's always better to have the email read easily through the device the audience uses. Make sure to use mobile responsive email templates. Making it easier for your audience to read on the go. 42. Don't overwhelm yourself. Email marketing is a new turf for any new small business owner. It's always smart to start slow and small gradually growing your capacities as you grow. 43. Learn. Keep improving. If you are in the beginning stages, learn through small email marketing campaigns. Continue improving upon them. Take it easy on yourself and this will help in performing better as you move forward. 44. Always take permission for sending emails. Respecting the prospect's privacy from the very beginning is very important. It's always a good idea to inform the visitors that when they sign up, they would receive regular emails from you. 45. Give value constantly. Helping your audience and providing them value can help build a trusting relationship. So continue to deliver valuable content and offers that can truly be useful to your audience. 46. Keep a strong call to action. People today have less attention span. They are constantly distracted by many other events happening around them. So it's important to have a clear call to action for them to take. 47. Make your audience feel good. Sending a welcome message, a thank you note or a birthday wish to your audience can help them feel good. It can make them feel that this company is invested in me, creating a good feeling in your audience. 48. Use surveys and quizzes to receive feedback. Surveys and Quizzes are a fun way to have an interaction with your audience through emails. It can help to understand your audience through your marketing campaigns. Short quizzes and services could be asking simple questions to your audience. It can help in finding clarity and also creating segments to better serve your audience. 49. Share what your audience does not know. Share your knowledge that can help your audience learn about something. Educating is a great way to establish authority and be an expert on a certain niche. So use your gained knowledge in a way that can help your audience learn more. 50. Share various types of content. There are many different types of contents. Updates, testimonials, FAQs and many more. Explain different ideas through different types of contents. 51. Keep relevant content. When designing your email marketing campaigns, show content that fits your audience's needs. Whether it's images, videos or simple text, keep it relatable for your subscribers. 52. Don't add too many elements in one email. Images, videos, multiple clickable links in one email may cause confusion. Instead, choose any one element and present it in the best way possible. 53. Use images. It is not important to have many pictures. One picture that can convey your message along with texts is a good place to start. Only make sure that your photos are clear, attractive and its placement is appealing to the eyes. 54. Make your images clickable. Studies have shown that people are more likely to click on images. So make sure you add hyperlinks to your photos. 55. Engage your audience with videos. Today, videos are a powerful way to engage with the audience. People prefer to watch a video and learn about a subject reading long pages of content. 56. Mention email contains video. Tagging the word [Video] in the subject line is a smart way to let your audience know that there's a video in the email. Videos being so popular could be a great way to motivate your audience to take an action to open the email. 57. Write compelling subject line. The subject line in an email must motivate the audience. It would do so only if you can show the audience how this email is going to help them. So create subject lines that mention their needs and how this email could help them 58. Send emails at the right time. Understanding when your audience is willing to engage with your content is vital. you want will help in determining what day and time your emails can be sent. to them. So experiment with sending days and time. Analyse your email marketing performance. 59. Use text links. Buttons don't get that much engagement than text links. So it's a good idea to include a highlighted text link to get more clicks. 60. Keep your call to action above the scroll line. Most people today check their emails on their mobile phones. Keep your most important content above this scroll line so it's easily identified. 61. Place your logo left or center in the email. A good presentation is more appealing to the eyes. If you decide to use a logo, center it or place it on the left side. You may also want to include the company name in text. 62. Limit links. Having multiple links may confuse your audience. So you may want to consider choosing to keep one to two links within an email to sustain clarity. 63. Create an email content plan. Planning your content much in advance can help your email marketing campaign's consistency. Also, it will help to serve your audience in better ways. 64. Create a content calendar. Having a content calendar can help in staying on track and being clear about where you are at with your campaign. 65. Use a simple and clear font. Your email must make the reading experience of your reader easy. Fonts that are easy to read will assist your message to reach your audience most effectively. 66. Use A slightly larger font size. To make it easy to read for the mobile users you may want to amplify the body text size a lit bit more. Instead of 14 consider points 2 to 3 points above. 67. Display the unsubscribe button clearly. Give the subscribers complete clarity to stay subscribed or unsubscribe. 68. Include links to your social media. Let your audience know where else they could connect with your business. Sharing your social profiles in your emails can also grow your social following. 69. Build your email list consistently. As you continue to email campaigns, continue to put efforts into building your email list as well. Having a growing audience is key to a successful business. 70. Ask for email verification. Email verification ensures you have active accounts. As well as shows that the people who chose to join your list are interested in what you have to offer. 71. Ask your subscribers to add you to their contact list. Your emails will not be considered as spam if your subscribers add you to their contact list. So it's a good idea to ask. 72. Make it easy for your subscribers to add you to their contact list. Many subscribers may not know how to add a sender to their contact list. Giving a step by step direction may increase your chance to be in their contact list. 73. Don't send emails without content. It's good to be consistent with sending emails on a regular basis. However, if you do not have a valuable content for your audience, don't send emails. 74. Steadily develop email content. It's important to offer value through your content. Spend time in knowing your audience and develop contents that they want. Their needs will determine your email contents. 75. Test your emails on different devices. Before beginning a campaign, test the performance of your emails on different devices. so you know how easy it would be for your audience to access your emails. 76. Build a relationship with your audience. Take time in responding to your emails. Prompt communication will nurture the relationship with your audience. 77. Use sign-up forms on social media. Grow your email list by sharing sign-up forms on social media where your audience is most active. 78. Keep a limited number of required fields. Too many required fields can overwhelm people. Make it easy for interested prospects to quickly join your email list. 79. Refine your message. As you continue to build your audience. Keep polishing your message on the sign-up form. People are more likely to join when there is clarity to what can one expect when joining your list. 80. Make your emails cohesive with your brand. Use the same colors, fonts, logos that represent your brand. This will ally represent your business. through all your communications. 81. When writing the main body text, use sub-headers. Use sub-headers, bullet points, and other formatting options. This can help in skimming through the email could help readers who are short in time. Plus it's appealing to the eyes when one reads a structured email. 82. Keep Revising your email content. Editing and revising are integral to ensuring good communication. So take time out for regular revisions when preparing email content. 83. Study and stay updated with spam rules. It's always good to learn about and stay updated with spam rules so you can avoid any hindrance later on. 84. Let your subscribers know how they got on your list. As a small business, you've got to remind your readers how they got in your list. This is one of the basic rules when sending emails to subscribers. 85. Make certain contents sharable. Make it simple for your audience to get value from your content and share it with others. Share a public link to another version of your content. This enables your subscribers to easily share your content with others. 86. Be casual. When communicating through emails, keep it friendly and informal. Think of it as a conversation you are having with a friend. After all, your email marking campaign is about connecting with other people. A human voice is always appreciated. 87. Evaluate your strategy. Based on the response from your audience and analytics, evaluate your strategy. Email marketing is a learning process to continue to do what works more and remove that does not. 88. Pick a template and stick with it. As you study, test and grow you will come to know the template that best works for your business. Once you find clarity, stick with it. 89. Keep the same tone of communication through all your emails. Having the same tone of communication helps build familiarity. It reflects the brand. So once you find your voice, showcase it through all your interactions. 90. Proofread your emails. Grammatical errors like spelling mistakes may not go well with many. As a small business owner, you must present your content in the best light possible. 91. Review the GDPR. The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into existence on May 25, 2018. These regulations are likely to have implications for small businesses. So take time out and read up on the GDPR so you are sure you are complying with their standards. 92. Highlight how a prospects email address will be used. Be completely transparent in how you will use the email address. For promotional offers, newsletter or marketing purposes. Whatever it may clearly mention it to your audience. 93. Use a checkbox to receive consent from your visitors. Having a checkbox next to a clear statement on how the email address will be used is a good idea. It's a good way to officially receive approval of the interested visitor. 94. Establish credibility Help your audience with helpful content. Nurture the relationship over time, you build credibility. People do business with those who they know, like and trust. So live up to your promise and provide value to your audience at every stage. 95. Enhance communication Think about ways you can improve your email communication and even take it further. Offer ways for your audience to interact with you where you could provide them with more value. A live session with interested email subscribers to share something of value is a good idea. 96. Increase your website traffic. Find ways to direct your prospects to your website. Provide them with a valuable content on your site. This way they are more likely to get to know your business and visit your store or displayed products. 97. Promote your services in unique ways. Determine the right time to promote and talk about your offerings to your audience. You could do this in creative ways. For example, sharing the cover of your book. Ask for feedback. This could be a way for your audience to know that you have a book coming up for release. 98. Improve your systems. Staying organized as you grow helpful in ways. You can avoid overwhelming yourself by setting up new methods. Plus improving existing operations. 99. Grow your visibility. Attract more people to your business. Consider ways that you can use to enhance your visibility further. The more your business is seen the more likely it is for your email list to grow. 100. Partner and grow your list. Another way to build leads is to partner with other businesses. Cross promote and offer value to both audiences. 101. Remain Consistent. Consistency is everything. Commit to every email marketing campaign. This is a process and your efforts are going to give you valuable results throughout. So here it is. Hope you find these basic email marketing tips and techniques helpful. The best way to learn is to be a student on a subject. Dedicate yourself to learning. This is the foundation for any business to grow and succeed. Do you have an email marketing example that can help in learning more? Let us know in the comment section below.