7 Reasons Why Your Small Business Should Use Email Marketing

If you’re not using email as a marketing tool for your small business, you should be! Give me one good reason why you're not and I’ll give you 7 better reasons why you should be.

Email marketing is one of the best ways for small businesses to communicate with their customers. In years gone by, email marketing required specialised skills, a lot of time and plenty of money and was therefore only accessible to large businesses. But that's no longer the case. Here are 7 Reasons Why Your Small Business Should Use Email Marketing in 2014.

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1. Email Marketing is Easy to Get Started
Email marketing requires minimal resources. All you need is a computer/tablet or mobile device, an internet connection and an account with an online email marketing provider.

2. Email Marketing is Affordable
Lots of email marketing providers offer free trials or restricted free accounts. MailChimp.com for example offers free access for users to a maximum of 2,000 email addresses and up to 12,000 emails per month, perfect for small business and much cheaper than an old school direct mail campaign.

3. Emails Can Be Personalised 
Email marketing allows for a level of personalisation that social media doesn’t.  Consumers like that personalised touch. The information you collect from your subscribers can allow you to personalise your emails based on variants (age groups, gender, interests, etc) and customise the content to suit each segment.

4. Email Marketing Offers Privacy & Allows Customer Feedback
Email is perfect for the generation who are new to social media and do not feel comfortable asking questions or providing feedback that is viewable by anyone. They may not even have a Facebook account! Email marketing provides a private one-to-one channel between a business and a consumer.

5. Email Marketing Builds Relationships Communicating with your customers on a regular basis is one of the best ways to maintain relationships. You can send emails on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. By sending regular, personalised emails to your customers they will feel connected to your business.

6. Email Marketing Is Measurable
Email marketing providers offer analytical tools to measure the performance of your email campaign, such as emails opened and unopened, number of clicks, unsubscribers, forwarded emails and more.

7. Email Marketing Expands Your Reach
If a recipient likes your email they can forward it to their friends and spread your message beyond your subscriber base. Also, social sharing features means recipients can share the email on Facebook and Twitter. If you like an offer in a TV or radio ad it is very difficult to share that ad with friends.

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Now that you know 7 Great Reasons To Use Email Marketing For Your Small Business, Sharpe Design Solutions can help you get started today. You’ll be amazed at how efficient and affordable it is to grow your small business.

Author: Jody Sharpe, Branding & Online Marketing Specialist at Sharpe Design Solutions

CONTACT JODY