Love them or hate them emails are essential to marketing your business, especially in the current climate. Most of us can’t see our customers in person and for many, we can’t send our product or service in the post. Emails let us communicate with our existing customers, build stronger relationships, develop brand awareness and encourage business when we can all meet again safely.
Consider the following examples.
My youngest child goes to a swimming class which hasn’t been running since Lockdown 1.0. In nearly a full year I’ve had 3 emails and all they’ve said is ‘we can’t get back in the pool yet and we’ll be in touch soon’ (I’m paraphrasing but you get the gist!). Now, I get they can’t replicate swimming on dry land but it’s a missed opportunity to keep the relationship going with their existing customers. How many parents will have been crying out for something to do with their kids in the last few months? An email with a link to some dry land exercises to build their stamina for when swimming returns. An email with some swim related facts or a quiz for kids. An email with a video link to the swim teachers saying hello. All a better alternative to their chosen approach which to be honest, made me feel they didn’t really care about their business or their customers (which I’m pretty sure isn’t the case!).
A local spa near me has been open and closed throughout the pandemic, following the government guidance at any given time. I’ve had at least one email a week from them. Far from being spam, their emails have been full of useful, informative content about looking after ourselves at home, suggested DIY beauty regimes, pamper tips etc. It’s reminded me how good they are at their job (and how much I need a massage/facial/haircut!). It’s also been a chance for them to tell us about their brand values (with information about the products they use and why and what their spa stands for). They’ve highlighted what makes them different from their competitors and reminded us why we should come back to their spa once guidance allows.
Ask yourself 4 quick questions
Think about the last email you sent to your customers. Now answer these 4 quick questions:
1. Did you have a reason/purpose for emailing your customers?
2. Did you send a slightly different email to different groups of your customers?
3. Did you automate your email i.e., use Mailchimp, Hubspot or Constant Contact to name but a few?
4. Do you know how successful your email was e.g., did all your customers receive it, did they all open it and did they click on any links within your email?
If you didn’t manage to answer ‘yes’ to all 4 questions then you could be missing some simple, effective ways to improve your marketing. And did you know Mailchimp can help you do most of the above for FREE? (I’m not getting paid to endorse Mailchimp - it’s just the platform I use and recommend for email marketing.)
If you’d like to chat some more about email marketing and how it could help your business, feel free to get in touch. Or you might want to join my ‘Email Marketing and Mailchimp’ online programme, which is coming soon.
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