Whether you have an online or offline business, e-mail marketing is still a proven winner when it comes to marketing your business. One common complaint is the difficulty in building an e-mail marketing list. It really isn’t that difficult to build that list – the key is in not making the process too difficult. Offline businesses probably have an easier path, they can ask their customers at the checkout, and you’ll be surprised how many customers say yes.
For online businesses, there are numerous points where you can obtain a users e-mail address, the most obvious being during the checkout stage. Social media is also proving to be a reliable source of e-mail addresses for both online and offline businesses, and the benefit there is the fact that many of them are not current customers.
Why is e-mail marketing for small business still a winning way to go? People do respond to e-mails if they sent in the right format. Blasting your list is not going to win business. Rather, e-mails that are ‘newsy’ in nature are often welcome as are catalog type e-mails. In effect, they replace the old fashioned mail-order catalogs, and to a lesser extent, the junk mail catalogs used by offline businesses. Mail-order catalogs were successful because customers agreed to go on the mail-order mailing list – as they do with an e-mail list.
E-mail is still the number one online communication channel, especially for longer messages than need more than 150 characters. Businesses with a strong e-mail list that is being used wisely report good success rates when it comes to increased sales. If you are a small business with an online presence, consider developing an e-mail list that you can regularly market to – you’ll be surprised at the results.
