Email marketing allows small businesses to attract and engage new customers while retaining the interest of existing ones. Here, Paul Cross, Product and Marketing Manager at Thomson Local, explains how the platform is both adaptable and affordable.
Tight economic times inevitably require businesses to squeeze as much value as possible out of their marketing investments. For growing companies or recent start-ups still finding their feet, that need is heightened further still, with a lack of time and resources often restricting the marketing options available to smaller operations. The ideal solution is a marketing platform with a wide outreach to potential customers that can be executed at minimal and manageable expense. This is where email marketing can help.
"Email marketing is a useful tool for growing businesses as it can be used for raising brand awareness and lead generation," notes Paul Cross, Product and Marketing Manager at Thomson Local. "The costs involved in sending out email campaigns are much lower than other direct marketing channels, which is great for any business that doesn't have a large marketing budget, such as a new or growing business."
While the benefits of the channel may be clear, the prospect of setting up a slick and stylish email marketing campaign can often seem daunting to business owners still stuck in a paper age. But it needn’t be as daunting as it seems. Mr Cross urges companies to first think about the type of clients they want to reach before devising an appropriate communication.
"You should start any marketing campaign, including email campaigns, by identifying your target audience," he says. "Once you know who you want to contact, you can design your product offering and creative to best appeal to them. We advise small businesses to get help with sending out their email campaign from a reputable supplier, such as Thomson Local."
Hiring support from a professional seems wise given the growing challenge of getting beyond the spam filter. Recipients and email providers alike have wised up to lazy email marketing blasts that fail to offer relevant, clearly thought-out promotions. According to Mr Cross, it is up to the marketing company to ensure their emails are worthy of a place in their recipients' inboxes.
Indeed the art of email marketing has thrown up a number of best practice guidelines that can dramatically boost the success of a given campaign. As Mr Cross observes: "The top half of your email is really important. You must grab the recipient's attention and give them a strong call to action." He also advises using bulleted lists to help keep copy concise and scannable and argues against overly complicated email designs or those which rely heavily on images.
As with any form of direct marketing, having access to comprehensive, up-to-date business data is vital. Mr Cross stresses the importance of buying contact verified, opt-in email addresses, noting that they will give businesses much better response rates than if they were to just buy a list of email addresses. "You never now how many times a list of email addresses has been contacted before you get hold of it" argues Mr Cross.
Thomson Local boasts over 500,000 opt-in, verified business email addresses that companies can contact for marketing purposes. "All they have to do is provide us with their HTML and text email creative and we will broadcast and track their campaign for them," says Mr Cross. "We also provide them with the details of who opened and clicked on their campaign, so they can use telemarketing for targeted follow-up afterwards."
Integrated campaigning has long been the key to getting the most return from direct marketing. Mr Cross suggests that in addition to post-email telemarketing, growing businesses can use email marketing as a follow-up tool to remind prospects about a prior direct mail promotion.
Email may have become an established stalwart of online communication, yet the buzz in recent times has surrounded the growing potential of social media. However, as Mr Cross observes, email has remained a widely used and highly reliable channel that is only benefiting from the new opportunities being thrown up in an increasingly diverse digital age.
"Despite the increased popularity of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, email marketing communications isn't declining," he says. "It still offers an extremely cost effective way of communicating with prospects and customers alike. We would recommend utilising both social networks and email marketing to gain the best advantage for your business."
