John W Hayes- You’ve got customers: If you’ve got customers, you’ve got the opportunity to generate repeat purchases and upsell opportunities. The revenue from these opportunities is the lifeblood of most businesses (small or large). It is much easier to sell to an existing customer than find a new one. It’s never too early to start email marketing. If you have 10 customers (or even 10 potential customers), you have a foundation to start rolling out your first email marketing The most efficient way of selling to existing customers is via email marketing.
- You’ve Got Prospects: There is only so many times you can pick up the phone and call prospects, particularly if they are not ready (or in the position) to buy, before they start avoiding your calls or simply wasting your time. These people however, are still incredibly useful to your business. Today’s tire kicker might be tomorrow’s customer and even if they never buy, they may influence someone else to make a purchase. These people need to be nurtured. The most efficient way to nurture prospects is via email marketing.
- Your Spending Money on Marketing: Marketing is an expensive business. If you are already spending money on things like paid search, print or broadcast advertising, tradeshows or any other form of acquisition marketing, you might find it difficult to ever see a return on that spend. For example, the cost of a single click on a paid search advert can completely destroy any margin you have in a product or service. The best hope of seeing a return on expensive acquisition marketing channels is to build Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) – See point #1. The most efficient method of generating CLV is via email marketing.
- You’ve Got Content to Share: Sharing content is a great way to generate interest in your business. Content could be in the form of a blog post, an eBook, a videom, or an infographic. The real challenge is getting people to view this content and then share it with their wider community of friends, family and colleagues via the social web. If you have customers (or prospects) who are already engaged with your brand, you have an active audience who can potentially view and the seed your content across the wider web. The most efficient method of seeding this content is via email marketing.
- You Want to Identify HOT Leads: What better way to identify hot leads than to see which clients/prospects are engaging with your content. iContact’s free analytics tools let you see who has opened your emails, who has clicked on your emails and which content they have engaged with. The most efficient way of tracking customer/prospect engagement is via email marketing.
- You Want to Go Mobile: Email marketing was made for mobile. Mobile technology, including smart phones and tablet devices, has freed email marketing from the desktop environment. People now carry their email inboxes around with them wherever they go, meaning you can now target your subscribers anytime and anywhere. The most efficient method of engaging via mobile technology is via email marketing.
- You Want to Go Social: Social Media compliments email marketing perfectly. While social is a great place for engaging your clients and prospects, it is not a great venue to sell through. This is because it is a social environment and nobody likes to be sold to in a social environment (could you imagine being sold to in a café, a pub, or a restaurant). Email on the other hand is very much a workplace environment and as long as your campaigns are relevant, timely, and engaging your subscribers will welcome sales pitches. Best practices dictate that social media is best used to engage your audience and email is best used to sell. Think of social as the bait and email as the hook. The most efficient method of driving revenue via social media is to combine it with a little email marketing.
Isn’t it time you got more efficient and started email marketing?
This post first appeared on the iContact Email Marketing Blog.
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