[dropcap font=”” size=”3″ background=”” color=”” circle=”0″ transparent=”0″]I[/dropcap]n the early days of business when you had a sale, new product, or service, the traditionally accepted way of taking your product to market was to create an ad campaign that included a television commercial, radio spot, and newspaper ad. If you were lucky to have the cash, you’d probably do some sort of billboard ad around town if you could.
Today, businesses that excel at marketing in the contemporary marketplace have turned away from TV, Print, and Radio media and are now focusing their efforts online. Among the new media is email. Email is the best and greatest way to build your business and market your products and services. But, not everyone knows why you should be using Email for your business. In this post, I’ll share with you the reasons why.
Email Marketing lets you target who is genuinely interested in your business.
When you create an ad campaign of radio, television, and print, you’re broadcasting a message to everyone. Unless you’re selling something that everyone needs, like toilet paper, it’s unlikely that everyone will buy your product or service. It’s better to create a list of people who have already expressed an interest in your business and market to them. Many businesses can thrive with an email list of 1,000 subscribers who are genuinely interested and love your product, service, and business.
Email Marketing lets you see results and almost immediate return on investment.
Because businesses have to be careful where they spend their advertising dollars, and when they almost have no advertising dollars to spare, its crucial that those dollars be spent well and have a high return on investment. With radio, television, and print, there is no way to absolutely be sure that people are buying your product or service as a result of a specific ad. Did they hear about your company through the Radio? We’re not sure. Did they buy your product from a television spot? Who knows? The newspaper ad brought in how many sales? Nobody knows.
The fact is that with traditional media you have no way of tracking a conversion. Sure, the old statistic of who sees a print ad is the paper’s readership times 3. But that still doesn’t tell you if those people bought anything from you. That’s why you see other businesses stating “Mention this ad for 10% of this product” It’s the only way to track conversions in the traditional space. With email marketing software, you’ll be able to see things like % of open rates (who read the email) and % of click through rates (who took action) and finally, you’ll be able to see the % readers who’ve bought something (this assumes that you’re selling online).
Email Marketing helps you get better with your marketing.
Most Email Marketing software allows you to do what’s called A/B testing. Combined with your open rates, click throughs, and conversions, You’ll also be able to test various elements of your email message to see which is more effective with your audience. You can test Email subject lines for open rates, copy for readability, and colors for elements like buy buttons or links. When you use old fashioned means to advertise, you don’t have the ability to fine tune your messaging and content. Over time, you’ll be able to create remarkable and outstanding messages because you know what works.
What is scary as I move around the marketplace, I have opted in to many business’s email lists and I have yet to hear from those businesses at all. This means that those businesses are losing opportunities to build their customer base and stay on the top of their customers’ minds. It also means that they are leaving money on the table.
In one business I work with, every time I send an email with a sales component to it, I see that there is a return on investment through a comment or reply and even sales of product. Every. Single. Time.
The question I have for other businesses is, what is holding you back from using email marketing?