How Can Email Advertising Help My Business?
If you don’t stay in front of your customers, your competitors will.
Your existing customers are your best future customers. They’ve purchased your product or service once before and are the most likely to need it again. If you don’t take the time and effort to make yourself memorable, you may not earn their business the next time around. Staying at the forefront is critical to success.
If your customers don’t remember your name when they go to shop, you’ll have to compete for their business all over again!
That’s where email marketing comes in.
I’m not talking about sending thousands of spam messages peddling Viagra and knock-off Rolex watches. I’m talking about sending valuable information about your products and services to individuals that have already taken the time to establish a business relationship with you.
What’s the return on investment?
When you send an email newsletter or bulk mailing to your existing client base, you can typically expect a 1% to 5% response rate from your subscribers. That means that if you send out a thousand emails to existing or potential customers, you’re likely to generate anywhere between ten and fifty qualified leads. From there, you’ll have to do your own math based on your business.
For my business (Danifer Web Services) I find that out of ten leads I’m likely to generate one sale. Out of fifty, I’ll generate five. From each sale, my profit margin is anywhere between $300 and $2000.
That means for the 15 minutes it takes to put together a monthly mailer advertising my latest special or value added service to two thousand subscribers, I can expect to receive between $2500 and $10,000 worth of business. Not too bad, right?
How can I build a subscriber list?
- Networking is a great way to get started. Sign up with your local chamber of commerce and attend some of their “get to know you” functions. Collect business cards from interested individuals and plug them into a database.
- If you have a restaurant, bar or retail outlet, put out a fishbowl and encourage visitors to drop in a card for a chance to win a small prize.
- Have a website? Consider adding a newsletter sign up form like the one at the bottom of the page.
- Try giving away something for free like a white paper related to one of your products. By signing up for the information, you pre-qualify individuals who are interested in what you have to offer. Here’s an example from one of my sites where I give away statistical website information in exchange for email subscribers.
Conclusion
Email marketing is a low cost, highly effective advertising solution for businesses on a budget. My own marketing is limited to this and to the networking I do at local business events and returns 90% of my customers.
If you’re interested in setting up an email collection service or sending out a newsletter, please feel free to drop me a line anytime.