With the continued evolution of social media and email marketing, it’s become easier than ever for businesses to stay in touch with customers. However, creating and maintaining a customer database can be extremely time-consuming, and a cumbersome process that requires a great deal of effort.
Luckily, this process is made easier thanks to the advent of email list marketing. With this method, businesses can automate the process of collecting contact information from interested parties and then, using that data, nurture potential customers into long-term relationships with an extensive email campaign.
The Growth Of Email List Marketing
If you’re looking for a method of marketing that has seen significant growth in the past few years, it’s safe to say that you’re looking at email list marketing.
According to HubSpot Blogs research, 62% of consumers have added an email address to their profile, while 33% have updated their status to reflect their interest in receiving commercial email messages.
This trend of increasing email engagement shows that businesses can have confidence in targeting potential customers via email campaigns that utilize an email list.
Why Should Businesses Use Email List Marketing?
Here’s a short list of some of the main reasons why businesses should consider using email list marketing to build their customer base and establish trust:
- Engagement – The growth of email marketing shows that businesses can have confidence in connecting with customers via email messages.
- Conversion – Email marketing provides the opportunity to target and convert casual browsers into leads and then into customers.
- Measurable Results – With A/B testing and other advanced tactics, businesses can ensure that their efforts are paying off and adjust their strategies accordingly.
- No Breakdown In Exclusivity – Since each email address is treated as a completely separate entity, businesses can rest assured that they aren’t jeopardizing their relationship with current customers by expanding their reach to new audiences.
- Ease Of Use For Newcomers – Since most email marketing platforms are quite intuitive and user-friendly, even people with no previous marketing experience can easily get started.
- Increased Brand Awareness – The more consumers learn about your brand, the more they’ll associate it with positive thoughts and feelings. The more they associate your brand with positive thoughts and feelings, the more they’ll associate it with favorable outcomes when they need your product or service. So in effect, your brand becomes more memorable to people – and that’s never a bad thing.
- Data And Analytics – The increasing number of business owners that are turning to business analytic platforms to gain insights into their marketing and sales means that marketers can gain valuable data about customer behaviour and make better informed decisions. These business analytic platforms can provide invaluable information about the effectiveness of an email campaign and help marketers to personalize interactions with customers to gain long-lasting relationships and increase sales.
- Cost Effective – Email list marketing is a highly targeted form of advertising that costs much less than most other traditional marketing methods. In addition, with email marketing, businesses can leverage their largest profit center (i.e., their customers) and maintain constant communication without having to worry about paying for each individual interaction.
- No Need For A Paywall Or Ban On Forwarding – Most email marketing platforms offer free trials or limited-enrollment options, so businesses that are worried about their customers seeing the content for free can rest assured that they aren’t risking their relationship by offering content for free on a website.
How Does Email List Marketing Work?
Now, let’s explore the how of email list marketing.
As noted above, email list marketing is quite easy to do – with the right software, all you need is a list of email addresses and you can start sending out emails to gather potential customers.
The process is fairly straightforward:
- Find your product or service – This is the first step in establishing credibility – before you start sending out emails, you need to determine what your product or service is.
- Research the optimal email body – It’s important to make sure that your email is of a high quality before you send it out (e.g., avoid using templates that are littered with errors and have an unsubscribe button that’s not working).
- Find the right email client – It’s important to pick an email client that’s easily customizable and has all the features that you need to make your life simpler – some good examples of email clients are ConvertKit, MailChimp, and Infusionsoft.
- Set up automated emails – One of the great things about email list marketing is that you can easily set up automated emails – so you can spend less time handling individual communications and more time growing your business.
- Engage with your audience – Once you have your email list, it’s important to stay in touch with your audience by engaging with them on social media – sharing relevant content, interacting with potential customers, and answering questions.
- Measure the results of your strategy – As a business owner, you’ll want to track the results of your strategy – measuring the success of your email campaign is extremely easy with most business analytic platforms (e.g., Google Analytics, HubSpot’s own Marketing Suite).
- Compare your results to those of similar businesses – If you’re looking for ways to improve your results, it’s important to look at other businesses that are doing the same – this will help you to determine what’s working and what needs to be changed.
- Follow-up with customers who’ve expressed interest in your product – Once you’ve established credibility and interest with potential customers, it’s important to follow-up with them to keep the relationship fresh.
- Repeat – With enough eyeballs (i.e., potential customers who’ve expressed interest in your product) and engagement (i.e., sharing relevant content and building a community), you’ll be able to gain more customers and grow your business.
Thanks to the above steps, businesses can stay in touch with potential customers, gain trust, and ultimately, grow their business.