Key Benefits

Key benefits for using email marketing are:

1. Staying connected with your existing clients.
2. Maintaining a list of prospects.
3. Saving money.
4. Getting the word out quickly.
5. It keeps you in control.

We talk about each of these below:

1. Staying connected with your existing clients

Done effectively, you will be top-of-mind when your clients next need your products/services and are also likely to pass your name on if friends or colleagues require similar assistance.

2. Maintaining a list of prospects

Keeping a list of prospects “warm” can be difficult if you don’t interact with them regularly. One to one meetings and frequent phone calls take up a lot of time, so communicating via email on a mass basis is an extremely useful way to keep yourself at the top of their list should they need your offerings. This can always be interspersed with telephone contact if that is part of your client relationship strategy.

3. Email marketing saves money

Sending mass mailings via the postal system or other delivery method wastes a lot of money and is minimally effective as most people put those mailings straight into the garbage. In contrast, establishing a repeatable process via email to promote marketing campaigns is cost effective and easy.

4. Getting the word out quickly

Using your email list to communicate quickly can be very beneficial when you have decided to provide a last minute promotion (ie you have extra stock you want to sell at a discount) or putting a last minute push into a new service. Being able to reach out quickly, to a large number of people with a well-thought out email could work well in your favour.

5. It keeps you in control

Many new businesses rely on using Facebook or another social media account for reaching and maintaining contact with their clients. By doing this, that business is not in control of the relationship with or the data about those clients, the social media platform is. If you don’t collect email addresses or develop a relationship outside of that platform, if for any reason that platform disappears or changes their policies, you are less likely to maintain contact with those prospects. Warning: As an example, if you rely on a Facebook page as your only contact with perspective clients, consider the effect on your business if they suddenly change their engagement rules. They have done this several times in the last few years in terms of serving members with fewer and fewer business-related posts in their news feed. Currently, they are moving towards a “pay-to-play” policy, encouraging business page owners to pay for advertising in order to reach an audience (even those people who have followed or liked your business page). As Facebook doesn’t give you the email addresses of your followers (often, not even the names) you will not be able to reach out to them in any way apart from the way Facebook dictates. It’s the same with all social media platforms, the data they collect is not yours to retain.