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Startups and small businesses often build their audience through social media.
But anybody who has used social media knows that the algorithm changes all the time.
One day you might go viral, but the next day your posts might only get 20 views, zero likes or even a shadowban; social media is unpredictable!
To make up for this unpredictable nature of social media, small business owners should consider empowering their social media strategy with email marketing.
Keep the conversation going
Email marketing is primarily used to retain existing customers and to nurture new email subscribers.
After someone joins your list or makes their first purchase with you, you can use email marketing to:
- ask for a product review
- promote your social channels
- educate your audience about your products
- feature your products
- nurture them into repeat shoppers
Further reading:
What is email marketing?
Comparing email marketing vs. social media marketing
Deliver promotions
Once you’ve obtained >1000 engaged email subscribers (which is easy with a good opt-in strategy), you can reliably get some sales each time you send a promotional email.
With email segmentation you can use your subscribers’ profile information to give them personalized offers via email.
This includes information such as:
- preferences
- interests
- reviews
- survey responses
- shopping history
Further reading:
How do email campaigns work?
What is segmentation in email marketing?
Lifecycle Automation
Because small businesses have low budgets and a small team, they need to take advantage of whatever resources are available to them.
Email automations (also known as flows) happen to be a cost-effective way to passively monetize website traffic.
Common email flows include:
Further reading: What are email automations?
Do small businesses need email marketing?
The short answer is: probably. Most businesses today stand to benefit from having an email marketing strategy.
If you’re still unsure, here are some discovery questions:
- Is your business an e-commerce store?
- Does your business primarily take place online?
- Do you have a website and/or social media presence?
- Are there parts of your business’s customer journey that can be automated through emails? (i.e. cart abandonment, new sign ups, post-purchase follow up, review requests)
- Do you need to personalize messages for customers at a large scale?
- Do you need a channel to collect customer feedback, written testimonials, or to distribute surveys?
- Does your business utilize promotions to drive revenue?
If you have answered yes to any of these questions, then check out this post to learn how to get started with email marketing! For any further questions, drop a comment below ⬇️