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Small Business: 7 Tips about Using Email Marketing You Need to Know

Gloria Kopp, Copywriter, AcademizedEmail marketing is a very useful and important tool for small businesses. It's low-cost, it's compelling, and it's effective, if you do it right. Growing from nothing to a large mailing list seems complicated, but with these 7 handy tips, you can get emailing, and get sales, quickly and easily.Pick the Right ProviderChoosing the right email service provider for your small business can make the difference in giving you the ability to grow by segmenting your lists, by allowing you easy access to build your content, and giving you ways to test your campaigns. One such provider is Mailchimp; it has a handy campaign builder that will guide you through creating your best email campaign, among many other professional tools. Getresponse will also give you access to tools such as a drag-and-drop email editor, a set of advanced analytics, and other unique delivery tools.Segment It to Win ItYou're a unique individual with particular preferences, aren't you? So are all your customers. Ensure you are delivering to their needs and preferences by getting the right information from them at sign-up that will allow you to put them in the best list for them. Segmenting your lists makes it easy to pick specific audiences for different products.Write Emails to Suit Your StyleCustomers love getting emails that sound personal and friendly, as though they were written just for them. Take some time to develop your personal writing style with Stateofwriting, a large collection of writing resources and guides. Or get some assistance at Essayroo to help you put your great products into words.Give an Easy Opt-OutNobody wants to lose subscribers, but it's unfortunately inevitable. Make it easy for them to leave if they need to; there's no sense building resentment on the way out. Make a good impression as customer-friendly from first pitch to last email.Be Pitch-PerfectYou want your emails to give your customers value and information, but you also need to get your sales in. Ideally, you should write approximately a 3-to-1 ratio of information and ideas customers will find useful to sales pitches. To make sure your emails are on point grammar-wise, go to Grammarix and check your content before you send it. If you need a hand with editing your emails to make sure they'll hit the target, you can find some help at Ukwritings.Have One Goal per EmailSo, your subscriber opens and reads the email you're about to send. What do you want them to do next? Build in a set of steps you want your audience to take, and keep track of the number of words you're using with Easywordcount. You can also get some focused assistance with writing your copy at Resumention.Check Your Stats to Make DecisionsHow do you know what worked and what didn't? You need to rely on your statistics compared to the costs you incurred in your email campaign. How many customers opened the email? How many clicked through? How many unsubscribed or bounced? How many sales did you get and what was the amount of revenue you generated? And then compare that with the costs: how much per email sent, the cost of your email service provider, any discounts or coupon codes you gave away, any labor or human resource costs. This will give you the final return on your investment, so then you will know if the campaign was a success or not.Turn email marketing into a successful business strategy by making the right choices and giving your customers what they need.[author]About the Author: Gloria Kopp is a small business marketer and a copywriter at Academized. She is a contributing expert writer at Huffingtonpost and Essayroo blogs. Gloria is an author of Studydemic educational project for marketing students and educators.[/author]