Calgary Marketing: Grow Your Small Business with Email Marketing

Pulling off an effective email marketing campaign has a lot of benefits.

But before the benefits, below are a few steps to an effective Calgary marketing campaign.

• Select an email provider; there are a few email providers out there who can make email marketing easier for you. These providers have systems, templates and services which you can pick from to send your emails. Some of them are MailChimp, AWeber, Constant Contact.
• Get people to opt-in; you do not want to send emails to people who do not want them or who have not been informed they will be receiving the emails. Sending unsolicited emails can be a huge turn off for the customer. Here are a few ways to get users to opt-in

1. • Place a newsletter sign up form on relevant pages on your website so users can register.
   • Add an opt-in option to your inquiry forms.

• Add a sign-up option to free offerings on your website.
• Keep your contacts organized; if you can, categorize your contacts so you can easily send relevant messages to them. You can categorize by Location, Industry, Lead Source and so on.
• Determine the purpose of your campaign; your emails should have a reason. Don’t just send emails filled with company news, updates, tips and promos all in one email. Your customer should be able to know why they’re getting the email. You could send emails to;

1. • Tell a lead more about your business.
   • Promote a particular product or service so you can generate repeat business from existing customers.

• Invite users to read a new blog post or article.
• Keep the design simple; email providers have a lot of templates and designs and you may be tempted to go crazy with your designs. Simple is best. Your aim is for the user to read your email and when it’s all cluttered with several pictures and frames, it becomes distracting. Here are some tips for your design.

1. • Your email should be about 80 percent text and only 20 percent images.
   • Include one main call to action in your mail. It should be in text with a link. You can also add one graphic for the call to action.

• Have a great subject line; your subject line is one of the first things your lead will see, it is important that is a great hook. If it is not strong enough, it won’t motivate them to open or read the mail. Below are a few tips to have a great subject line;

1. • Avoid words like ‘guarantee’, ‘free’, ‘call now’, ‘urgent’, ‘order now’. You may think these words state your intent but they are “spammy” and aren’t great for your subject line.
   • Keep your subject line under 50 characters, including spaces.

• Include your company brand name so they are sure who the mail is coming from.

1. • Make it funny, intriguing and actionable.

• Set up tracking; it is important to measure the success of your campaign. Tracking your emails will let you know how many of them were opened and how many click-throughs you got from the campaign. Knowing all of these helps you know your return on investment. Here are some metrics you should measure;

• • How many of your emails were actually delivered?
  • Open rate; how many of your contacts opened the email you sent.

• Click through; how many people clicked on the links you included in the email.

1. • Conversion rate; how many of your contacts became leads.

Here are some benefits of email marketing.

1. Cost-effective
   
   

This is one of the biggest advantages of email marketing. It is cheaper than mainstream Calgary marketing methods. You don’t have to pay for printing or postage. You also don’t have to pay for exposure like you would do for a billboard or a magazine. The costs you may have to bear are fees you may pay to email providers or specialist software. This cost is still way lower than other channels.

2. Targeted Calgary Marketing Opportunities
   
   

Email marketing usually is done to people who have requested for it. Most of the people who will be receiving your email opted to receive them so they are already interested in your service or product. This allows for higher conversion rate because people who have no interest in your product are already removed from the sales funnel.

This is the reason why it is not advised to purchase email lists. It is better to grow them organically.

3. Return on Investment
   
   

The main measure of every dollar spent on Calgary marketing is the return on investment. Email marketing has been found to have a higher return on investment than any other Calgary marketing platform.

4. Immediacy
   
   

Emails sent get delivered immediately. Because of this, you can start to get feedback on your campaign and in 24 hours you can start measuring the success of the campaign. With print or other broadcast campaigns, you will have to wait for weeks to measure the success of the campaign.

5. Global
   
   

With email marketing, you can reach anybody in the world. Social media can do the same for you too but you may not be able to know who actually is reading your social media post. You can with email marketing.

6. Easy to measure
   
   

With email marketing, you can tell if your campaign is successful or not. With the ability to track click-through and conversation rates, you can know what you are doing right and what you need to change.

7. Calls to Action
   
   

Email marketing takes advantage of customers’ impulse buying. Not many platforms allow the consumer to see a call to action and make a purchase in two clicks. With ‘checkout’ just a click away, consumers can easily be lured to make a purchase.