Get R.E.A.L Results with Your Email Marketing

Email marketing continues to provide the best ROI for small business owners because of its relationship-building capabilities. Robin Taney, the Get R.E.A.L Girl from Studio 4 PR and Certified Solution Partner with Constant Contact shares her top tips for getting results from your email marketing that are realistic, engaging, authentic and designed for long lasting (in other words, real) results.

 Why is email marketing a good tool for small business owners?

The basic tenets of marketing are to get your clients to know, like, and trust you. Email marketing helps you build a relationship, nurture it, and create brand awareness, so that when they are ready to buy, they will think of you. You may have heard that it typically takes 7-9 touches before a customer is ready. One of the reasons your list is so valuable is that you can’t predict when someone will be ready to take that step with you, and if you deliver valuable information over the course of time, more prospects will trust you, and hopefully tell their friends about you.

What is the best way to get people to sign up for your list?

First and foremost, you MUST have permission. Getting someone’s business card does NOT constitute permission unless you ask her if you can add her. That aside, there are a number of ways to get people to sign up for your list. It can be as basic as a clipboard at a tradeshow or your place of business. You should also have a sign up form on every page of your website or blog and social media pages. S a solution provider with Constant Contact, one of my favorite features they have is Text 2 Join, where you give a prospect a keyword and a 5-digit code and they can text it and be automatically added. The point is to make it as easy as possible for people to sign up for your list.

Everyone is inundated with emails. How can a small business owner make their email stand out?

If you want to keep your subscribers for the long haul, you must consistently deliver great content, but let’s face it, you’re competing with thousands of other email marketers trying to do the same thing. Here are a couple of ways to stand out. First, having a great subject line will help get your email opened. Research shows more emails are opened if you use their name in the subject line. Keep it short. 40-60 characters fit on a laptop and 20-30 fit on a mobile device. Don’t risk any of it being cut off, so keep it to 6-8 words max. You’ll want to stay away from spam trigger words, like, free, buy now, limited time, or act now. If you’re using an email platform like Constant Contact, which has very strong spam filters, using these words could get your emails bounced. Next, you can have the greatest content in the world, but if it looks blah, your reader won’t hang around long enough to read it. Use a branded template. Constant Contact has hundreds that you can customize with your colors and logo. Use high quality images (3 at the most) and 20 lines of text or less. If the content is longer than that, you can post it on your blog or website and provide a link for them to keep reading. 

Can email marketing be used to promote a business as well as provide content?
Absolutely! If done right, your content should provide valuable information they can get without buying anything, yet still tie into a program or product you offer that will help them go further. Include coupons or videos that offer a discount to provide further enticement.

How do you measure the success of an email marketing campaign and why is that important?
Measurement is always important because you want to know if you’re achieving your intended results. Did it resonate with your audience, did it drive more traffic to your website, did it generate more sales? These are all questions that can be measured and help you decide if you should do the campaign again or scrap it for something else. Your most important numbers to look at are your open rates, click through rates, and bounce rates. Open rates show how many people opened your emails. A good open rate is between 15-25%. Your click through rate is important for lead generation because it means they clicked on your call to action, but you have to get them to open it first, so a good click thru rate is 2.5%.  The bounce rate is also very important because it tells you whether your list is dead or just not engaged with you. A soft bounce is someone who has a temporary hold on email delivery (vacation). A hard bounce is an email address that no longer exists. You want this number to be below 2%. You also want to make sure you don’t have role email addresses, which are ones to a group or department like production@abccompany.com because there’s no guarantee that everyone who receives that email actually opted in to it. If your bounce rate is consistently too high, an email platform like Constant Contact will suspend your account.

What does the ideal email look like?

The ideal email has a great subject line, is pleasing to look at, includes no more than 3 high quality images or a video 20 lines or less of text, and a call-to-action that’s clear and easy to find.

What if a business doesn’t have a lot of content to share? Can email marketing still work for them?

Of course! Remember, you’re building a relationship with your ideal customer, so share what will draw them in. Restaurants can share the menu, a coupon for a free appetizer, or a favorite recipe. A yoga studio can include the class schedule, and a dentist can send appointment reminders and tips for toothcare between visits.

Robin Taney is the Get R.E.A.L Girl from Studio 4 PR and works exclusively with small business owners and entrepreneurs to help them get results that are realistic, engaging, authentic, and designed for long lasting (in other words, real) results.

Visit her website to sign up to receive free PR tips and a copy of the Top 11 PR Mistakes Most Businesses Make.