Key takeaways
- Stay out of the spam box by mobile‑optimizing emails and ensuring images include ALT tags.
- Track email activity to segment your list and personalize messages (based on past email activity, site search history, past purchases).
- Keep each email focused: one clear message and a single call to action.
- Make checkout seamless: pre-filled special offers, secure branded mobile payments and no extra steps to buy.
- Leverage small‑business strengths: send triggered, relationship-focused emails that reflect who you and your customers are.
Introduction
As a small business, you may feel like a canoe in a sea full of ocean liners, trying to navigate the waters of email marketing. You don’t have the budget, resources or the mega-talented marketing staff that the bigger brands have. But, this doesn’t mean you can’t compete. Marketing is all about finding and hitting your target audience, and of course, converting them as customers. Here are a few marketing conversion tips that will help your small business convert.
Avoiding The Spam Box
We already know that in order to get and retain a customer, you need to stay out of the dreaded spam box. Because more people are checking email on their phones, your emails should be mobile-optimized and one of the most important ways you can do this is to ensure your images have ALT tags. In an article in Entrepreneur, Kristen Gramigna says that images often don’t show up on mobile devices and because of this, those emails get relegated to the spam box.
Target Your Messages
As you build your small business, diligently tracking your emails will give you the data you need to segment your mailing list to really send targeted messages. From here you can personalize your messages, which will in turn improve open and click-through rates immensely. People don’t want to open what they see as junk sent en masse to their inbox. Instead, they want to believe your brand is speaking right to them and that the message was meant for them and not for your entire customer base. Segmenting your readership by things like past email activity, site search history, past purchases and more, will definitely give you the information you need to send those personalized emails that have your customers singing “Hello”.
Make It Easy For Them
You know when you go to a website and pop-up after pop-up comes up and you get so frustrated, you just leave the site? The same thing happens when someone tries to buy your product and they are faced with step after frustrating step. Make claiming your special and personalized offers as simple as pie. There are a number of ways you can do this, suggests Gramigna. You want your emails to be clear, with just one message that speaks to your reader, along with the call to action. More importantly, the best way to watch your readers covert to customers is to give them a seamless checkout experience.This requires:
- Pre-filled special offers – discount codes that are already there when they reach checkout after clicking from your email
- Secure and branded mobile payment providers so security isn’t an issue
- No extra steps to take besides entering in their information and clicking “Buy”
Nice To Meet You, Let’s Be Friends
Small businesses need to capitalize on what makes them better than the larger brands, and that is their ability to really connect with their small customer base. Because you may only have a few thousand customers as opposed to the millions that the big brands do, you can take this opportunity to make them feel as special as they are to you. Using your emails to “form a lasting relationship” will ensure your customers come back to you every time they require what you’ve got to sell. Because you are tracking your data and basing your new emails on their past activity, you can now send “triggered” messages that really show you appreciate their loyalty.
A small business can compete in this increasingly-wired world, not by emulating what the big corporations do, but by being the small business that it is. Your emails should reflect who you are and who your customers are and with this strategy in mind, you’ll be converting in no time.
FAQ
Mobile‑optimize your emails and ensure your images include ALT tags. Images often don’t show on mobile devices and those emails can be relegated to the spam box, so prioritize mobile rendering.
Diligently track your emails and use that data to segment by past email activity, site search history and past purchases. Those segments let you personalize messages so the brand speaks directly to each recipient.
Use one clear message with a single call to action, personalize the content based on tracking data and make sure the email is mobile‑optimized so recipients can act from their phones.
Provide pre-filled special offers (discount codes already applied after clicking from the email), use secure, branded mobile payment providers and remove extra steps so customers only enter their information and click “Buy.”
Capitalize on your ability to connect personally: form lasting relationships, send triggered messages based on customer activity and craft emails that reflect who you are and who your customers are to encourage repeat business.
Tracking gives you the data to segment and personalize messages. Personalization based on that tracking will in turn improve open and click‑through rates immensely.
