Contrary to what the doomsayers might claim, email remains the preferred way for businesses to keep in contact with both other businesses and consumers. In fact, email as a medium for direct communication is actually growing, with more businesses investing in an email marketing campaign than ever before. Small, local businesses can also enjoy the potential of a solid email newsletter strategy by defining their audiences and focusing on delivering excellent content that educates, promotes and improves the image of their brands. The following tips take a look at some of the key ways in which local businesses can formulate an excellent email newsletter campaign that enjoys the highest engagement rate:
1 – Promote Local Events
If your venue is organising a local event, there’s no better way to promote it than to let your subscribers know in an email newsletter. To help draw in more attendees to your event, be sure to provide plenty of information about the purpose of the event and what it has to offer your audience, and provide a schedule, accompanied by suitable images where appropriate. By launching and promoting an event on social media, you’ll have the opportunity to attract a great deal of attention, particularly if your event is related to charity or a certain public holiday.
2 – Accommodate Mobile Users
Since most Web traffic is now mobile, simply accommodating mobile users is not enough: every area of your online marketing campaign, email included, should prioritise mobile users. With regards to email newsletters, make certain that they are presented in a responsive format that scales automatically with the resolution of the screen they are being displayed on. You should also provide engaging text content, with the most important content being close to the top of the page so that mobile users do not have to scroll down. While visuals are important, they should not be relied on entirely, since many email clients (particularly mobile ones) do not display images by default.
3 – Offer In-Store Coupons and Exclusive Promotions
People should have some kind of incentive to sign up to your email newsletters, and offering exclusive promotions are among the most effective. Most people go online looking for special offers, particularly during and leading up to public holidays, and if you can promote them in your email newsletters, you’ll likely increase your reach enormously. In-store coupons and other promotions also make for very sharable content, and if you have an irresistible offer to show off, your subscribers will be far more likely to forward the email to their friends.
4 – Segment Your Audience
While small local businesses tend to have a narrower focus than much larger, broader ones, you’ll may still want to consider segmenting your audience so that you can deliver more personalised content to the right people to ensure a higher return on investment. You’ll also need to focus on geographical location, particularly if your business serves multiple areas, in which case you’ll need to adapt your email marketing strategy to each location to ensure that relevant content reaches the right audience.
5 – Offer Valuable Content
Not all of the content in your email newsletters should be directly promotional. After all, people are much more likely to open newsletters if they contain useful information that is relevant to them or a special offer that they can’t resist. Starting with a catchy subject line, make sure that the contents of your newsletter does not disappoint. Use the opportunity to promote things other than your business, product or service as well, such as recent blog posts or curated content from other sources. After all, the goal of an email newsletter doesn’t always have to be to directly drive sales. In order to build up a loyal following, you’ll need to focus on delivering content of the type that your audience are most interested in receiving. You can gain a great deal of insight into what your subscribers want by engaging with them over social media or inviting them to join the occasional survey or fill in a poll.
