Introduction – 12 Powerful Email Marketing Strategies Your Small Business Need To Succeed In 2021

Many small businesses and startups have the misconception that they don’t need to invest in an email marketing strategy.

However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, email marketing has been proven to be one of the most effective ways for small businesses and startups to get explosive growth!

Why?

Well, it’s because emails are so easy for people to access on their phone or computer.

They’re also a lot more personal than social media posts – which is why we recommend using them as a way of communicating with your followers when you want to drive conversions.

We would like to educate our readers about 12 powerful email marketing strategies that they can use to get explosive growth in their small business or startup. 

We will look at why a small business or startup needs email marketing as well as how a strong and well-thought-out email marketing strategy can help their small business or startup grow.

In this blog post, we will discuss 12 powerful email marketing strategies your small business needs to get online success this year!

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Why Email Marketing For Small Businesses And Startups Is Important

Email marketing is a powerful marketing tool that small businesses and startups can take advantage of to provide a steady stream of leads, clients, and customers for their business.

Email marketing allows a business that is on a shoestring marketing budget with little to no flexibility and room for error to have a safe and professional way to market their business to prospective clients and customers.

By using email marketing and a powerful lead generation strategy even a startup and small business are able to use the type of powerful marketing techniques and strategies that is used by bigger businesses to generate 6 and 7-figure revenues per month.

A small business or startup needs to have an email marketing strategy in place, even if it’s a tiny startup.

Email is one of the oldest forms of online communication and because many people use their inbox as their “to do” list these days, they will see your message when they open up their email.

It also has an average ROI of a whopping 4400 percent!

That means that for every dollar you invest in your email marketing campaign you can earn an average return of $44.

No other marketing media comes close!

The best part is that with services like Mailchimp you can get started for free!

The Power Of Email Marketing For Small Businesses And Startups

Email marketing has limitless potential to provide your business with a steady source of income.

Not only is email marketing able to generate sales and new clients from your subscriber list but it is able to build a strong relationship with them where they become raving fans for life.

Your email marketing strategy can fuel your small business or startup’s success and that is why we’ve decided to write this article today.

We want to help you understand 12 simple yet powerful marketing strategies that you can use in your small business or startup.

We also want to help you explore the power of email marketing for the long-term growth and development of your business, products, and services.

12 Email Marketing Strategies For Success In Your Small Business Or Startup

In this section, we are going to discuss 12 powerful email marketing strategies to grow your small business or startup.

Our aim is to help you to get an email marketing strategy that can help your business to grow in the short term and long term.

We also want to help you to build a strong relationship with your subscribers because we know that a strong relationship with your subscribers and customers will result in repeat business, referrals, and explosive business growth.

Let us get started!

No. 1 Offer Massive Value Or Offer Nothing

The first small business email marketing strategy that we have to propel your business to success is to ensure that every time you send an email to your subscribers you send an email that is loaded with helpful and valuable information.

The information you send in your emails to your email subscribers should be information that is relevant to the problem they face.

It should be information that is worth buying and it should be helpful enough for them to see how if they, or you as the expert, were to use this information there could be positive results and changes in their businesses.

You should also ensure that no more than 20% of the emails you send to your subscribers are commercial intent emails that are intended to drive sale san revenues in some way.

This is because the primary objective of your email marketing campaign should be to build a relationship of trust and loyalty with your subscribers, not to get a quick sale.

If the emails that you send to your subscribers are mediocre and full of generic and useless content that doesn’t solve their problems or help them understand the problems they are faced with hen they will eventually stop opening your email, unsubscribe, and move onto someone who will give that valuable piece of information that they need – i.e your competitor.

Start by offering helpful advice, guides, resources, tutorials, tips and tricks, strategies, and newly discovered information to your subscribers to help them feel that you care about them and have their best interest at heart.

No. 2 Use the Right Hook To Generate Leads

Before you can start sending out emails to your subscriber list you must first convince your website and social media traffic that they should subscribe to your email list.

You can do this by offering Content Upgrades or Gated Content to website visitors to encourage them to become email subscribers.

The way gated content works is that you create a resource or piece of content that is exclusive to the subscribers on your email list.

When they sign up for your email list, they can access this information and it will give them an incentive to continue reading what you have shared with them in their subscription inbox

The gated content, or lead magnet as they are popularly called, should be something of extremely high value that will help your subscribers to solve their problems.

It should be something that is worth paying for and in addition to helping them solve their problems it should also position you as an expert in the field that can help them.

You want to compliment any offer with another valuable call-to-action so make sure visitors know how subscribing will benefit them by giving more advice, providing helpful resources, tutorials, tips, and tricks, etc.

The right hook should show readers why signing up would be beneficial over anything else (e.g., “signing up gives people exclusive deals”) at the end of each article, blog post, or social media post.

You need something that’s going to incite curiosity as well as provide helpful and valued information to subscribers.

You should use the right hook to generate leads.

If your emails are not generating enough sales, you will need a strategy that incorporates how you’re going to capture and convert more of those people who open your email but don’t buy anything.

Offer an incentive for opening or responding to one of their emails such as “You’ll get 20% off this week if you come into our store.”

You could also offer them something free in exchange for filling out a form on their website with information about themselves or signing up for their newsletter.

An example would be offering access to a webinar where they can learn valuable insights from industry experts as well as asking questions during the session live without time limits.

The goal is to have an enticing call to action that jolts them into taking action.

No. 3 Include One Clear Call To Action In Every Email

A call to action in marketing is a phrase in the communication that tells you what to do next.

It is a request for an explicit response, and it can be as simple as “submit your email address now” or “buy this product now.”

The goal of every call to action is to move the viewer or reader from being aware of your offer (or awareness stage) all the way through buying something, which is called purchase intention.

A clear call to action should lead readers from one point to another without any bumps along the journey.

A simple, clear, and easy-to-understand call to action is important for your email marketing strategy because it is what will drive click-through rates and revenues in your business by telling your subscriber what action to take.

Without a call to action, your subscriber might leave without taking any action at all which would be a disaster.

Calls to action don’t always have to be commercial like ‘Buy Now,’ or “Sign Up.” Instead, your call to action can be something as simple as asking your subscriber to reply by telling you what they think of the information you just shared or by asking which of the tips mentioned they will try first.

The idea of a call to action in your email marketing strategy should be to provoke a response, initiate a conversion, and build a relationship.

As a small business or startup owner the relationship you have with your customers or clients, especially your first clients and prospects, will determine the short and long-term success of your business.

For that reason, we also recommend that you respond to all replies from your subscribers and even mention those conversations and results in future emails to your list.

This will be an air of camaraderie and make it seem like a close-knit group that is focused on the well-being of its members.

This will make conversions for a sale a lot easier.

No. 4 Don’t Forget The Email Marketing Best Practices

As your email list begins to grow it becomes increasingly important that you know all the email marketing best practices.

These practices will keep your deliverability rate, open rate, and click-through rate high.

They will also keep your list healthy and of a high value and they will provide you and your subscribers with an enjoyable and memorable experience at every turn that brings value to both parties.

Some of the email marketing best practices include:

1. Monitor your open rates and click-through rate to make sure that the messages are resonating with people. This will help you know if you’re on the right track or not
   
2. Make it easy for subscribers to unsubscribe from your email list by making a clear link at the bottom of all emails (or even have an in-email form) so they can delete themselves from receiving future mailings.
   
3. This is important because sometimes what feels like spammy behavior might just be someone who signed up once but never opened any emails since then, meaning we’ve sent them too many emails without their knowledge!
   
   You want people to feel as though they’re getting value out of being subscribed, otherwise, why would they stay?

We have provided an article with a comprehensive and helpful list of email marketing best practices for you.

You can find that article here: 11 Email Marketing Best Practices 2021: How To Write Engaging Emails For Your Business

No. 5 Optimize Your Email For Mobile

Today up to 81% of all email is read on mobile.

That means that you need to make it your first priority to prepare your emails for viewing on mobile devices.

A lot of people are now accessing the internet through their mobile devices as well.

This should be taken into account when you’re designing your email marketing strategy, and there are a few ways to do this.

The first thing that can be done is making sure all text in an email has been made readable on smaller screens by avoiding long lines of text or using bullet points for lists so they look easier to read – important information needs to stand out!

You might also need larger buttons at the bottom of each message so it’s easy to click whether someone is scrolling from top-to-bottom or left-to-right on their phone.

If you have images in your emails, try decreasing their size and then compress those photos with tools like TinyPNG.

This will make them load faster, which is important for mobile users.

In addition to this, it’s important to remember that the default reading experience on a phone screen isn’t great and can be difficult to read text.

This means you need easy-to-spot buttons at the bottom of your emails so people know where they are when scrolling down – it should stand out!

As a small business or startup owner, you should ensure that it is as easy as possible for subscribers to read your mail and take advantage of your offer.

Ensuring that all your content is mobile-friendly is a huge step in the direction of enhancing your startup and small business email marketing strategy for explosive growth.

No. 6 Add Your Opt-In Form Everywhere

We recommend that you place the opt-in form in different locations on your blog.

For example, make it available as a pop-up when someone scrolls to the end of an article or as a sidebar widget.

This way, people can sign up with ease and still be engaged by other parts of your content strategy like reading more articles or watching videos.

We also recommend that you add your email marketing opt-in form everywhere – at least three places:

1. Top of each page
2. Right column under your menu bar
3. Sidebars for most used pages such as “About Us.”

And finally, don’t forget to include social media icons that will allow users who follow you on Facebook or Twitter to LinkedIn.

It can also be beneficial to place a link to your email opt-in form in your social media page descriptions, social media posts, and the footer of your personal emails.

You should try to include a link to your email opt-in form in every piece of sharable digital media you have.

When you combine this with an extremely high-value free offer in exchange for email addresses you will experience a steady increase in your email subscriber base.

This will lead to an increase in sales, revenues, and profits.

One of the most important steps in your small business email marketing is to ensure that you maximize your opportunity for growth and success.

By placing your email subscription from everywhere on your online presence will be doing just that.

No. 7 Utilize A Drip Email Welcome Sequence

A drip email sequence is a series of emails that will be sent to your subscriber on a specific schedule.

The frequency and timing are based on your goals for the sequence (typically conversions, sales, traffic, or awareness) and what type of content you have in the sequence:

Content

This is any kind of media like images, text posts, videos, etc.

A drip email campaign can include one piece of content at a time over an extended period; multiple pieces of content delivered over days or weeks, or many different types of content combined together as part of an integrated strategy.

Recommended Post: 32 Powerful Website Traffic Generation Techniques You Need To Try

Calls To Action

Every single email should contain some sort of interactive call to action button which prompts them to take whatever next step you want them to take with your company/brand.

The Offer

For those who want to try a drip-email campaign, the offer is usually an incentive or discount. For others, it might be something else like a free consultation with your team, etc.

It starts with a plan!

You need to have an idea about what it is that you’re going for and this needs to be communicated clearly in the emails themselves so customers know exactly what they are signing up for.

This way, if they don’t like what’s on offer then there’s no problem because they never agreed to anything initially anyway.

There are lots of different types of plans from which to choose including a Welcome Series.

The goal here is just as it sounds, welcome new subscribers or those who subscribed years ago but haven’t opened any recent communications from you yet (reactivate them).

A successful welcome campaign should include an introduction to the company, your products and services, a point of contact, and a notification on how often you will be sending emails to your subscribers.

We have prepared a guide on how to create a 3-email welcome drip email sequence to help you get started with this step.

It includes multiple free email templates that you can use in your business today as well as a guide and information on how to create your own.

You can read that guide here: 3 Effective Sign-up Drip Campaigns for Effective Email Marketing Conversions

You can learn about 13 other types of email sequences besides a welcome series that you can use in your business by reading this article we’ve written on the topic: 14 Types of Email Marketing Campaigns for Small Businesses: How to Increase Revenues!

No. 8 Reply To Your Subscribers

As we’ve stated several times prior, the aim of your small business email marketing strategy is to build a strong and lasting relationship with your email subscribers.

We do this because an email subscription offers a soft conversion method for potential clients and customers who need to learn more about your business to trust you enough to do business with you.

One of the best ways to build a strong and lasting relationship with your subscribers is by replying and thanking them for opening your email or clicking on a link within your communication.

This shows that you are reading their communications as well, which can be really important from time to time depending on what it pertains to.

By building this kind of relationship with your subscribers they will look at you as more than a name on a screen and will welcome your future emails.

Another way to take advantage of this as your email list grows is by asking your subscribers an open-ended question to provoke a response in them.

An open-ended question is one that asks for an opinion and requires more than a yes/no answer.

You should then tell them that you read every reply (and you should!) even if you don’t get to reply to them all.

When they start replying you should shout out replies from members in future emails by referencing your conversation with them, questions they asked, and how helpful you think it can be for the entire community.

Then state that because of that experience with your subscriber (keep their identity anonymous unless they give you the go-ahead to use it!) you have decided to address this topic.

This gives your audience the impression that you really care and that even if you don’t reply to them now you have their best interest at heart and one day you will.

You should also take advantage of these scenarios to ask questions back; this will help make it seem like they aren’t messaging into an empty void when they reply.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Reply with something along the lines of “Hey! Thanks so much for taking a look at our email today.
   
2. If someone clicks one of your links in an email, follow up after 24 hours (yes… even if there was a complaint!) and see if they liked it.
   
3. When someone asks you for a certain type of article, send them one!
   
4. If someone mentions that they are upset about something, reach out to them privately (or publicly) and let them know that there is nothing wrong with feeling this way.
   
   Remind people who their friends are when they feel like the world has turned against them.

These are just some of the ways that replying to your subscribers can help you build a strong and lasting relationship that will benefit your business in the long run.

No. 9 Segment Your List

Another powerful and high-converting strategy you should take advantage of when doing email marketing for small businesses and startups is List Segmentation.

List Segmentation is the process of dividing your list into sub-lists so that you can send more personalized emails to different groups.

For example, if you have a customer list with 12 people in it and they are all interested in the same product or service area, you might want to divide them up into three segments instead of one huge group because this would allow for better targeting.

This is especially important when sending out marketing newsletters since not everyone on your list will be equally interested in what you’re offering at any given time.

The last thing you want is for someone who isn’t even remotely interested in your offer to unsubscribe from your email because they received an irrelevant message!

Think about how much easier it is to sell something like shoes when only customers who show an interest in shoes are seeing that offer.

The most important thing to do when segmenting your list is to make sure that you have a clear purpose for each group.

This allows you to focus on one specific audience at a time, instead of just blasting the same message out again and again.

To start with this strategy, think about what type of person will be interested in reading these articles (e.g., people who are trying to grow their startup).

Next, make a list of all the different types of emails someone might want: newsletter updates; blog topics suggestions; podcasts or videos – anything!

Then add them into groups based on what they offer so there’s something new every week without overwhelming subscribers with too much content.

By using List Segmentation you will ensure that you send highly relevant offers to the customers or clients that need them most when they need them most.

This will provide a huge conversion boost for your email marketing campaigns.

Another way to achieve a similar, deep, and meaningful relationship is through a nurture campaign which is the subject of the next point.

No. 10 Use A Nurture Campaign For A Longterm Relationship

Nurture campaigns are a way to build and maintain deep, meaningful relationships with your customers.

These nurturing emails might be the first email someone receives from you or they may also be sent periodically throughout their relationship with your company.

The goal of this type of campaign is to provide a personalized experience for each customer so that no one feels like they’re left out or forgotten about – and it works!

This helps keep people engaged over time which results in more repeat business for small businesses.

In fact, nurture campaigns have been shown to increase conversions by up to 300%.

If done well these types of marketing strategies can help make sure that everyone who’s interacted with your brand leaves feeling appreciated and valued.

Some of the advantages of using nurture campaigns in your email marketing strategy include:

1. Improved customer retention
2. Increased sales and conversion rates
3. Customer loyalty
4. Increased potential to create a lifetime customer and loyal fan or supporter of your brand

We have created an in-depth article that will teach you more about nurture and drip campaigns.

You will learn how to use these email marketing strategies in your business to build better relationships and for growth.

You can find that article here: Drip Campaign and Nurture Campaign: The Differences in Email Marketing

No. 11 Make It Simple And Easy To Read

One of the best strategies that you can use to improve your email marketing strategy for your small business or startup is to make your emails simple and easy to read.

A simple email is one that is easy on the eyes and is not full of clutter and distractions.

It is also important that it is easy for the eyes to read your message.

A simple email also does not contain too many words or paragraphs and only has a few sentences in each paragraph.

This will make your emails more readable for your customers.

They are less likely to skim over an email if they have a hard time reading because of its simplicity and shortness compared to other emails they get from you and others.

You should also remove any jargon you may be tempted to add to your emails. That means you should have emails that are so easy to understand that even a fifth-grader could understand.

Having easy-to-understand emails that have a simple and attractive layout will increase your click-through rate massively.

You should also ensure that you use headings and bold important sentences in the right place.

When most people are reading emails they first browse the titles and bold information then look at the Call To Action to decide if they want to read it.

By using these tactics you will ensure that your subscribers not only open and read your emails but that they also click through and take action on your landing page because you’ve made it easy for them.

No. 12 Personalize Your Emails

The last email marketing strategy for small businesses and startups that we have to boost your email marketing results and build massive conversions is to personalize all your emails.

When sending marketing emails, you should personalize them to the recipient.

You can do this by including their name in your subject line as well as information about what they have bought or requested from you.

This will make it more likely that the customer opens up and reads the email because now it is relevant to them specifically!

You may also want to send a “thank-you” email following any purchase made or service used so customers feel appreciated and know there are real people behind your brand who care about their experience.

Customers love knowing that they’re being taken into account when receiving an email; remember this for all of your future campaigns!

It’s important not only to use these types of tactics but also to include images with your email, too. Images help to break up the text and make it more engaging for readers — just be sure you’re not using too many images or they’ll lose interest!

When personalizing your emails you should also use important fields to aid your effort such as using your subscriber’s name in the subject of the email and in the body.

By personalizing your emails to your subscribers you will build trust, boost open and click-through rates, and increase your conversions all in one move.

Conclusion – 12 Powerful Email Marketing Strategies Your Small Business Need To Succeed In 2021

The email marketing strategies your small business and startups use offers a massive opportunity for consistent growth, sales, and new clients in your business.

We hope that you’ve found these 12 strategies helpful in improving your email marketing campaign results.

There are many ways for your business to communicate with your subscribers and build a relationship and the potential returns from successfully doing this are massive! 

Sometimes, it’s hard to know where to start when it comes to building a successful email marketing strategy and we’re here to help!

Let our team of experts take care of all the heavy lifting so that you can focus on growing your business while saving time and money.

Click this link and set up a free consultation if you need any assistance with setting up an effective email marketing plan for your business today!