Email marketing for small businesses is essential to a good digital strategy. If you avoid it, you’ll end up looking like this girl. [Image Description: A pale-faced girl with her mouth open in horror, long black hair spilling down over her shoulders. She’s wearing a drab white dress and standing in the middle of a dark wood. It’s like The Ring meets Midsomer Murders, tbh.]

Hi!

Let’s talk about email marketing. Specifically, email marketing strategies for small businesses.

It seems like no one should be doing this anymore, right? I mean – how well can it possibly work? Don’t we all have, like, six thousand unread emails that we just mass-delete right away? (No? Just me?)

Aren’t we all struggling with inbox overwhelm?

I mean, maybe. But the fact remains that email marketing has an ROI of 4,400%. Seriously.

And this generally holds true across industries. That means that if you aren’t maximizing your email marketing for your therapy practice or wellness business here in 2021, then you’re missing out on engaging a lot of potential clients.

Spoooooooooooooky..! 🦇

So what are the benefits of email marketing for small businesses?

Let’s break it down.

If you’re not emailing a list of your biggest fans and friends, how are you reaching out? How are you building community, driving interest in your products and services, and creating your pipeline?

Chances are, you’re thinking about your social media platforms right now. And listen, I’m a social media fan! There’s little I enjoy more in my downtime than seeing all the gorgeous photos and branded graphics on Instagram. My best friend and I live for a good midday-meme exchange.

But when it comes to your marketing, I’ve got bad news.

While social media really can be an awesome way to connect with an audience, there’s a little something called “digital sharecropping.” This Copyblogger article does a great job of breaking it down, but the tl;dr version is this:

When you tie your engagement and outreach goals to a platform you don’t control, you’re basically building a house on land you don’t own.

What happens to your house when the landowner wants his property back?

What happens to your business goals when the social media algorithm changes?

Now, don’t stop posting those photos! Don’t throw up your hands and declare your entire social content strategy a waste of time. I’d never suggest that.

Just make sure your social content is working to drive traffic and engagement to the places that matter most: your website and your email list.

Because the benefits of email marketing for small businesses are out of control.

But when you’re emailing your people, you’re talking directly to humans who want to hear from you.

They’ve opted in! They’ve expressed interest! They’ve plucked your email out of what is very likely an overcrowded inbox, and they’re lending you an ear. (Okay, maybe an eye.)

This is the best-case scenario, folks.

How do you make sure you’re not wasting the opportunity?

When you tie your engagement and outreach goals to a platform you don’t control, you’re basically building a house on land you don’t own.

The Best Email Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

(Obviously. I mean, you wouldn’t want the worst email marketing tips for small businesses, would you? I thought not.)

Let’s assume Mailing List Myrtle (just roll with it) has not just logged into her email account and decided to mass-delete absolutely everything in it.

Myrtle does a quick scan, though, because she’s definitely considering the Big Deletion. Heck, you would be, too, if you existed in 2020 and every retailer you’d ever interacted with was reaching out to talk about “these unprecedented times.”

The year might be in the rearview, folks, but the digital weariness remains.

Right off the bat, you have three opportunities to hook Mailing List Myrtle:

Your email’s “from” field
Your subject line, and
Your preview line.

You’ve got to make sure Myrtle knows the email is from your business, but you want her to feel like it’s personal, too. Your name and your business’ name, if necessary, is your best bet for keeping it both friendly and recognizable.

Look how happy you made Myrtle! [Image Description: A woman lays on her belly on the couch, her feet in the air and crossed behind her. She’s reading something on her laptop screen and laughing. Is it your email marketing? Let’s hope so.]

You already know your email’s subject line is the single most important piece of real estate in a crowded inbox. It needs to get Myrtle’s attention and pique her interest. (Skip “Monthly Updates.” I promise.)

And your subject line needs to not annoy her, so be careful with the clickbait. Subject lines that start with “re:,” for example, can certainly grab attention, but when it’s used too much, it starts to feel manipulative.

That’s not an impression you want to make on Myrtle.

Something else that will annoy her? If the subject line doesn’t match the content of the email. If you’re promising a free download, there had better actually be a free download. Similarly, your preview line needs to hint at the awesome things to come, should Myrtle click “open” on that message.

Your ultimate goal? Make Myrtle happy.

(And use her first name! You are collecting those, right??)

Keep your CTA simple and direct.

Have you ever gotten an email that’s got six different sets of directions in it? Of course you have.

They look a little something like this:

👉 Go here!
👆 Click there.
👈 Download this free guide.
👇 Then pay for THIS mini-course.
👈 Have you read our blog?
👉 Don’t forget to follow us on social media!

By the time you’re done reading, your head is spinning. Do you have any desire to figure out for yourself which of those things you should do first?

Exactly. Myrtle doesn’t, either. She hits “delete” and backs away slowly.

So keep it simple! It’s tempting to squeeze as much as possible into one message, but this will confuse your readers.

Focus on one call to action (CTA) per email, and work on convincing your reader to actually do that one thing.

Use landing pages to your advantage.

In the spirit of keeping things simple, avoid sending readers to the no-man’s land of your website home page. Create landing pages that align with your CTA.

Looking to drum up more social media followers? Link directly to a social profile. If you want someone to buy your ebook, send them directly to a page that lets them* do that.

(*When I say “lets them,” I really mean “convinces them,” but that’s a conversation for another blog.)

Visuals, formatting and accessibility matter.

Myrtle’s going to be less than thrilled if she opens up your email and can’t make heads or tails of where she’s supposed to look first. Use high-quality images and legible fonts, all in a color palette that uses adequate contrast.

Remember that you may have folks on your mailing list who use assistive technology like screen readers. Use white space well to make the flow of text clear, and include alt text – descriptions – for all images. Make sure you haven’t turned off the text/html version of the email generated automatically by most email services.

Segment your mailing list. Then test, test, test.

Segmentation lets you target messages to the people most interested in them.

Remember those landing pages we talked about? If you’ve got any on your website designed to collect email addresses, make sure you’ve got those addresses tagged accordingly on the backend.

This way, you’ll know not to send your “business startup tips” to CEO Christine, who’s on her third wildly successful endeavor. Whoops!

Pay attention to your open and click-through rates, as well. Is there an optimal time for sending to your list? Is Myrtle loving your emails at 10am on a Monday morning? Is Christine liking eye-catching, clickable buttons instead of linked text?

Take note, and lean into what’s working.

Set up your email sequences

You know how, when you sign up for a new mailing list, you get three or four emails over the next couple of days that seem to be tailored to you, specifically?

Whether they’re saying hello, talking about the product you almost bought but left in your cart, or asking you to come back and read that blog post you never ended up getting all the way through?

No one’s jumping online and sending you a few quick thoughts multiple times per day. What you’re receiving are email sequences, and they’re an absolute must-have for engaging new subscribers and anyone who’s taken an action you want to see more of.

Some of the more popular sequences include:

The welcome sequence, which helps your subscribers get to know you a little better before you start selling to them.
A lead nurturing sequence, triggered by someone downloading a lead magnet like a checklist, for example, or a PDF guide you’ve created.
Conversion sequences, which over time address concerns or hesitations potential customers might have during the buying process.
An onboarding series that provides tips and tricks for using a product or service someone’s purchased or signed up for.
And lots of others…

...All designed to chat up and hook in the people who’ve expressed interest in staying in touch with you.

Email is one of the easiest ways to connect with warm leads. Take advantage!

...Or you can hire a small business copywriter and just be done with it.

Thinking about writing regular emails to your list can be overwhelming, right?

Hey, I get it! You already have enough to do, and if these emails need to be written regularly AND thoughtful, too..?

Well, hoo boy. That’s a tall order.

Hiring a copywriter (👋) gives you all of that time back. It means you can benefit from the great ROI on email marketing with your heels kicked up and a drink in your hand.

Copywriters are wordsmiths, digital marketers, and researchers. We specialize in making words work FOR you, so you can do a lot less.

Seriously, your vacation is my goal. And when was the last time someone told you that??

Initial consultations are quick, easy, and FREE.

So what do you think?

HOLD MY DRINK, JEEVES!

All the Clients I Left Behind & Other Scary Stories of Small Businesses Who Didn’t Email

So what are the benefits of email marketing for small businesses?

When you tie your engagement and outreach goals to a platform you don’t control, you’re basically building a house on land you don’t own.

But when you’re emailing your people, you’re talking directly to humans who want to hear from you.