How to Make Email Marketing Really Work for You

As small businesses look for new customers to increase sales, some might be enticed to buy or rent a list of email addresses. While email marketing could be appealing for its reach, immediacy and affordability, sending emails to individuals who didn’t really ask to receive these messages would only make you look like a spammer. Fortunately, this kind of marketing does work, but only if you use it to foster real relationships with your target market — and if you’ve already established this via other channels. Here are some tips:

Leverage your existing customer touch points

For example, in your vehicle wrap franchise, you could ask customers at cash registers or those milling around to sign up for your email list. Look at it this way — since customers are already inside your shop, they’re probably interested in or already know your brand. Plus, you already have their attention so getting them to sign up for your email list would be a breeze.

Let them come to you

To drive prospective customers to your shop or website, consider advertising on a target or local search engine. When a potential customer finds you through a search engine, they are probably already engaged or interested in your business.

Take advantage of existing business relationships

Consider introducing yourself to potential customers via other businesses with email relationships with their customers. Since people already trust that company, they could bring better results if the vouch for your business.

Make your website work for you

Place invitations for your email list on each web page, especially on your home page and landing pages. The more enticing, convenient and frequent your invitation, the higher the chance that people would take the bait. Don’t forget to tell them about how they could benefit from signing up (maybe throw in a discount code or two) and ensure them about your privacy protocols. It’s very important to remember, though, that while these tips would help you find prospective customers, you need to continue to build and reinforce that trust in order for them to actually convert. To do this, you need to develop quality content that’s relevant to your potential customers and resist the urge to send something just for the sake of sending something.