How Email Marketing Can Boost Your Local Business

An Inside Scoop At Your Secret Weapon
If you’ve ever gone through your inbox only to find hundreds of promotional emails from companies you visited three years ago, then you already know that email marketing is the way of the future.

However, as a local business owner, how do you avoid being that annoying notification user immediately sends to their junk folder?

Is email marketing even beneficial for a local business?

I’m here to tell you it’s not only important, but it’s also crucial.

When it comes to email marketing, it’s imperative to ensure you’ve done your research and understand how to carefully craft these electronic letters to your potential customers because if you can master this skill correctly, there will only be benefits on the horizon.

Why Email Marketing Is Important For A Local Business:

No matter how big or small a company is, the way marketing dollars are spent is important. If you’re a local business owner with an even smaller budget, this is critical.

If you’re just starting and you don’t have the funds to dish out a larger-scale marketing campaign, email is your secret weapon.

1. Enables You To Build Relationships With Customers:

Every person on earth likes to know they’re cared for. By sending out regular emails to your customers you’re showing them you’re thinking about them.
If a customer has chosen to opt-in to your promotional emails then it’s clear they want to know about the latest happenings!
Whether it’s a new product launch or a huge sale, don’t feel shy about hitting send.

2. Creates Your Brand Identity:

By having a direct line to your customers, you’re able to show off your business’s personality, style, and overall identity through weekly updates or newsletters.
This can help both returning and potential customers understand what your business is all about on a deeper level.
Every email sent is another chance to influence the way your customers feel about your brand.

3. Expert Status:

Email marketing doesn’t have to strictly be about promotions.
If you’re one of the only local businesses in your specific niche, you may be seen around town as a local expert on your particular topic.
By sending out informational emails, you can concrete the idea in potential customers’ minds that if they ever need a solution to their problem, you’re the one to call.

4. Develops Credibility:

As a local business owner, one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is credibility.
If a person easily recognizes the big box store down the road, what’s stopping them from going to you instead? It all comes down to marketing. While department stores do have a much, much larger budget, that shouldn’t stop you from
doing what you can to reach potential customers. As you show consistency in your email marketing, you develop credibility a little at a time.

5 Tips and Tricks For Email Marketing:

Sending emails on an inconsistent basis, without any strategy or game plan is a bad idea. For most customers, you have one shot to show that you’re serious and professional about what you do. There are tips to nailing email marketing on the head, so you can garner a positive reputation for yourself:

1. Be Consistent:

When it comes to consistency in email marketing, you want to walk the fine balance between not being overbearing, and yet, not being sporadic.
We all know the feeling of a company that won’t leave us alone, no matter how many times we’ve tried ignoring them.
Don’t be that company.
If you want to find a way to be there for your customers, without being overwhelming, try designating one day once a week to send out a weekly newsletter. This way you’re remaining consistent, without only showing up during the holiday shopping season.

2. Be Personable:

As a local business looking to gain a reputation, it’s imperative to show off your brand’s personality in your emails. People don’t want to read an email that sounds like a robot AI-generated the entire thing.
People shop at a local business to buy from another person -not a corporation.
People want to relate. The more they relate to your human-ness, the more they will trust you and feel positive towards you.

3. Keep It Short And Sweet:

In a society that is always distracted, it’s difficult to keep anyone’s attention these days. If you don’t have a strong, established audience yet, keep your emails short, and direct, and use headers to help navigate those who skim read.
If you have too much information in one email, odds are many people will skip over the entire thing and some may never open another one again.

4. Keep A Balance:

While many marketing professionals believe promotional emails are 50% of what keeps a customer reading, you don’t want to come across as overbearing.
Try and strike a balance between sales and information.
Informational emails are simply emails that don’t require any money to be spent by the customer. They simply provide value and insight into your brand.
So, an example of an informational email may be ‘tips on extending the life of (your product)’.
Sending out 1 promotional email for every 4 informational emails is often seen as the best balance.

5. Optimize Your Emails For Mobile:

With a majority of people checking their emails on their smartphones, you simply cannot forget to optimize your email for mobile.
You can do so by keeping your format in mind.
This means laying off excess imagery, breaking up text, creating shorter headlines, and testing your emails across different devices before hitting send.

When You Utilize Email Marketing, Your Business Will Grow:

All in all, email marketing, if done correctly, can play an incredibly important role in how you acquire customers, build your reputation, and ultimately boost business.
Not only will you see an increase in sales, but you’re also building relationships with customers before they ever even walk into your physical store.
Just remember: keep it short and to the point, don’t oversell, and operate on a consistent schedule. Then, sit back and reap the benefits.