Email Marketing for Small Businesses, Part 2: Know What and When to Send

Email marketing is a fantastic way to keep your products and services top of mind with your target audience. We recently brought you a post about building an email marketing mailing list the proper and ethical way, but what do you do once you have that list? Email marketing is more than just sending haphazard updates to all your subscribers, it is a way to remind them of your value and serves as a direct reflection of your brand.

Your email marketing campaign is only limited by your creativity, but other small businesses have successfully utilized email marketing as any of the following:

• A newsletter – is something exciting going on? Allow your list to share your joy. Has some big industry news just broken? Explain its significance to your customers. Newsletters can include nearly anything you can imagine – from informative articles to interviews with key people in the industry to case studies to, of course, news about your business.
• A promotion – Have a sale going on? Your mailing list would surely love to hear about it. And perhaps you could finally turn some of your mailing list subscribers into customers by offering a little incentive to use your products or services.
• An invitation – Perhaps your company is going to appear at a trade show or event, or you are going to give a seminar. Invite your mailing list subscribers to interact with you in person or via a webinar.
• A reminder – Sale ending? Is it time to order a seasonal item? Use email marketing to remind subscribers about time based events.
• A welcome note (or, in the case of defecting subscribers, a goodbye note asking for feedback o how you can do better next time) – Use the event of a new subscriber to explain a little bit about your company and your products or services. This helps you engage with your subscribers right from the very beginning.

Now that you know what you can do with a mailing list, it’s time to get started sending. But there is one more important factor to consider before designing your email marketing campaign – know when to send.

There are very few times when you need to send daily emails to your mailing list. On the other hand, if you only send out notices once or twice a year, you may risk losing their attention. As a basic rule of thumb, send an email when you have something to say.

If you wish to offer a newsletter, set a sustainable expectation. Email marketing campaigns take time to put together – what may at first start out as a weekly newsletter could quickly deteriorate into a monthly or bimonthly campaign, especially when you get busy with all the clients and customers you are winning with your successful email marketing. At the same time, if your business is rocking and rolling, it may be tempting to contact your list every day. Keep in mind that it’s quite possible to overload your subscribers, who are probably not quite as engaged in the success of your business as you are. The important thing is to strike a balance when it comes to the frequency which you contact your customers.

Stay tuned for the next part of our email marketing series, where we talk about composing effective emails.

Similar Topics:

• Email Marketing for Small Businesses, Pt 4: Choosing an Email Marketing Service Provider
• Email Marketing for Small Businesses, Part 5: Tracking the Success of Your Email Marketing Campaign
• Email Marketing for Small Businesses, Part 1: Building a Mailing List the Right Way
• Email Marketing for Small Businesses, Part 3: Sending Dynamic Messages
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