The Ultimate Email Marketing Guide for Small Business Owners

Over 4 billion people use email. This makes email one of the best ways to reach customers.

Marketing to customers via email is an art that small businesses can use to achieve impressive ROI. However, email marketing can only deliver the expected results when you do it right.

How do you run a successful small business email marketing strategy?

For a successful small business email marketing campaign, use an email marketing platform, build an email list, segment your subscribers, decide on the email types to send, create and send the emails, analyze results, and maintain a consistent sending schedule. 

This “email marketing for small business” guide will explain these steps and more.

By the end of this article, you’ll know exactly what email marketing is, how it helps small businesses, and how to run successful email marketing campaigns.

What is email marketing?

As its name suggests, email marketing is the process of marketing to a specific group of people via email. It means using email in marketing efforts to reach your target audience.

Email marketing targets both potential and existing customers with commercial messages. Such messages can attract new customers to your business and make existing clients return for more business.

However, email marketing is not just pushing email messages out there and hoping recipients will buy from you.

Instead, it involves many moving parts, such as getting people to subscribe to your email list, getting to know them and helping them get to know your business, communicating with them at the right time using the right language, responding to their concerns and questions, analyzing your emails’ performance and metrics, and more.

How does email marketing help small businesses?

Email marketing is important for small businesses as it helps them reach their audience effectively without breaking the bank.

To increase brand awareness and sales, small businesses need to get their message out there. However, most forms of marketing are expensive. For example, putting up billboards would cost you about $15,000 apiece, and television commercials could cost you millions. 

However, sending promotional emails will cost about $10 per month. So, it is a form of marketing that suits the relatively small budgets of small businesses.

Email marketing is an effective form of marketing that gives a staggering return on investment (ROI). Every dollar spent on email marketing offers a return of $44.

Email marketing is so effective because it helps you know your audience. Knowing your prospects helps you design messages that suit them, and this will make them respond and take action.

Steps for a successful small business email marketing strategy

The following steps will help you run successful email campaigns for your small business. 

1. Choose an email marketing software

Email marketing tools have different features and deliverability capabilities, so the success of your email marketing depends on the tool you choose.

First, you can opt against email marketing software and build your campaigns manually using Gmail, Yahoo, or another email service provider. However, such manual campaigns take time and effort.

So, going for an email marketing solution is the first step to successful email marketing.

However, all software and tools are not built equally. You do not want to pay a lot of money for a tool with few marketing features or a low deliverability rate. Thus, choosing an email marketing tool with the right functionality is crucial.

Some things to look out for when you’re software shopping for email marketing solutions for your small business include:

Essential needs

These are important features that any tool you go for must offer to have success in small business email marketing. 

• Personalization features. Personalization increases email open rates by 26%. Go for software that allows you to easily personalize your emails (e.g., tools that automatically find and insert recipients’ names to your emails).
• High deliverability rate. Go for a tool that guarantees to send your email to your audience’s inbox most of the time. High deliverability ensures that emails do not end up in spam folders and go unread.
• Email tracking and reporting. Email tracking and reporting features alert you when recipients open your email. This helps you know when to follow up.
• Ease of use. Go for a tool with an intuitive interface that lets you do your campaigns without stress instead of one that will frustrate you or that is difficult to understand.
• Integration to other tools and apps. Go for a tool that integrates with the other tools you already use for your business. This way, you will not waste time switching between apps when using the tool.
• Segmentation capability. Get tools that let you target different groups with different messages. This helps you tailor email communications and increase engagement.

Advanced features

While these features are helpful, they are not essential. This is because you’ll find other ways to perform the desired function without the specific feature being present.

• Form builder. A tool with a form builder lets you build an online form for collecting email addresses. However, different platforms have their own web forms.  
• A/B testing.This allows you to send different email versions to see which performs better. It allows you to create two different subject lines. The tool then sends the first version to 25% of your email list and the second to another 25%. It tracks the performance of the two over time and determines which email version performed better. Then it sends the better-performing email to the remaining 50% of your email list. You can still do A/B testing in tools without the feature by simply splitting and segmenting by groups.
• Responsive design. Go for tools that can automatically scale email to different screen sizes. This ensures recipients can open them whether they use desktops, tablets, or mobile devices.
• Drag and drop editor. This feature makes it easy to create highly engaging email newsletters without prior knowledge of coding.
• Custom branding capabilities. Go for tools that let you add elements of your branding (such as brand colors and logos) to your emails. This makes it easy for email recipients to recognize you.
• Automated email sequences. This feature allows you to schedule specific messages to be sent out depending on the recipient’s action or inaction. 

If you would like to “start small” by targeting a relatively small size of audiences and use Gmail, you can opt for doing email marketing in Gmail. 

2. Build your email list

To send promotional emails, you must have your audience’s email addresses. So, a critical step in email marketing campaigns is building an email list.

One way to build a marketing list is to add a signup form to your website (as an on-page form or a pop-up).

When creating a signup form to build your email list, ensure the following:

• You have a clear headline and call to action.
• You do not ask for too much information.
• You make it clear they are consenting to receive promotional messages from you.

One way to ensure people fill out the form and get on your mailing list is to incentivize the process. Simply offer some discount or free digital product to encourage people to join the list.

Many small businesses do not perform their email marketing with fancy tools like form builders because they can quickly become complicated. So an easier way for small businesses who already use Gmail to communicate with their customers is to build a marketing list and leverage their Gmail list.

Mailsuite Lists makes building a mailing list in Gmail easy. Mailsuite adds a “List” to your Gmail left-hand menu. Click the tab, and you can create a contact group for anything.

3. Segment your email list

Email list segmentation helps you send more relevant content, increasing the likelihood of engagement. 

Since people subscribing to your email list have differing characteristics, a one-message-fit-all approach will be less effective.

Email list segmentation is splitting up your email list based on certain characteristics. This helps you send more relevant content because you can then send different messages to the different groups.

The more relevant your email communication is, the more likely your audience will engage with it and take the actions you want them to take. The Data & Marketing Association reports that 55% of email revenue comes from segmented emails.

4. Plan what types of emails you’ll send

There are different types of emails you can send your audience. But you don’t want to do too much, so planning what types of emails to send is essential. 

The type of emails you send depends mainly on what you want your email campaign to achieve. Do you want to send promotional emails to promote sales and offers? Do you want to send transactional emails like upsells and abandoned cart messages?

Common types of emails that small businesses use include:

• Blast emails. To send general announcements.
• Monthly newsletters. To update your audience about new developments and keep your business at the top of their minds. 
• Welcome emails. A welcome email thanks new subscribers for joining your email list and gives them a snippet of the many benefits the relationship will bring them.
• Promotional emails. To inform your audience of your current sales and offers to encourage transactions.
• Transactional emails. To encourage your audience to complete transactions or make another.

5. Create emails and write captivating subject lines

Create your email, ensuring it has a captivating headline and an attention-grabbing, attractive design. But avoid being too elaborate. 

The perfect email pays attention to design and messaging.

The email design should grab the recipient’s attention using bold colors, appealing visuals, and a good layout. However, keep it clean and simple, as an elaborate design can be distracting (or even annoying).

The content should be compelling, starting from the subject line. A compelling subject line, especially one that inspires curiosity or offers some motivation, helps in getting your email opened and read.

6. Send the campaign and analyze results

After creating the perfect email, send it out. Then analyze the results to know what to optimize. 

Email analytics gives you important insight that can help you improve your campaign. For example, a low open rate would tell you to make your subject lines more compelling. Also, a low click-through rate (CTR) would tell you to make your CTA more compelling.

Some metrics to track when running email marketing for small businesses include:

• Open rate: The number of people who opened the email compared to those on your mailing list.
• Click-through rate (CTR). The number of people who clicked on your link compared to those who opened the email.
• Conversion rate. The number of people who completed a desired action (e.g., make a purchase) compared to those who only clicked on the link.
• Bounce rate. The number of emails that could not be sent to the intended receiver.
• Unsubscribe rate. The number of people who unsubscribe to your emails compared to the number of people on your mailing list.

7. Maintain a consistent sending schedule

Consistent email communication keeps the lines of communication open between you and your audience and helps you build profitable relationships.

Email marketing is not a one-time effort but a continuous process promoting your products and service offerings.

After successfully reaching your target audience and piquing their interest in your business, you should sustain the interest. A simple way to do this is to send them emails from time to time strategically.

Consistency in sending emails helps to:

• Keep your business in the mind of prospects and customers.
• Build relationships with your prospects and customers.
• Inform prospects and customers of the latest developments and offers.
• Shorten the sales cycle and boost sales.

Benefits of email marketing for small businesses

Email marketing can help your small business in the following ways. 

High return on investment (ROI)

Compared to direct marketing channels, print media, and television, email marketing is cost-effective and has a higher rate of return.

While other marketing channels will cost you hundreds of dollars, email marketing will cost just about $10 monthly. Moreso, every $1 spent on email marketing offers a return of $44.

Improved customer retention

Beyond promoting products and services and informing subscribers of your best offers, email marketing can help you build a relationship with your past and current customers. 

With consistent messaging, not only do your customers know of the latest offers, but they also get to trust you more. This combination makes them more likely to return for more purchases and become loyal customers.

Build up your brand

Email marketing helps you directly contact your audience and tell them about your product and service offerings.

The emails enter your target audience’s inboxes, ensuring direct communication with them. Since consumers spend at least 10 seconds reading a brand mail, marketing via email ensures your target audience will see your offerings.

Including branding elements in email communication helps improve brand recognition. This leads to increased awareness that can attract customers. 

It also lets you showcase your achievements and offerings to help you establish your authority, which in turn improves your brand’s value.

Reach new customers

Email marketing helps you to regularly put your message in front of your target audience at the right time. This helps you get and nurture leads to increased conversions.

In fact, email is 40x more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined in reaching new customers.

Drive sales with customer loyalty programs

Email marketing improves sales in different ways, including encouraging customers to complete transactions and delivering special offers (like discounts and customer loyalty programs).

Much has been written about using email to impress customers with discount offers.

Emails are also excellent avenues to communicate loyalty programs. The communication informs customers of the benefits of making a repeat purchase, and those who are most impressed by these offers will likely come back for another purchase.

Promote new products or services

You can use email communication to inform your customers of new features or entirely new products or services.

Your mailing list includes people who have consented to receive promotional messages from you. They want to hear from you, especially about your offerings.

Thus, email marketing helps small businesses sell themselves to prospects. It’s a great way to tell prospects and customers about new products or services as well as their features and benefits.

Learn more about your customers’ needs and preferences

You can use email marketing to get customer feedback and learn more about your customers’ needs and preferences. In turn, you’ll know what to do to get the most out of the relationship.

You can use emails to send customer satisfaction surveys to help you understand the customer experience. The feedback can be valuable in designing campaigns that ensure your customers are happy and continue interacting, engaging, and doing business with your brand.

Email marketing strategies and tips for small businesses

Email marketing is only effective if executed properly. The following tips will help you execute a successful email marketing campaign.

Leverage Existing Resources

Leveraging available resources is key for the success of small businesses in many areas, including email marketing.

Small businesses often lack the resources to acquire a new tool or the expertise to battle the complexities that the new tool introduces. Success often depends on getting the most out of the tools the business already uses.

Many small businesses already communicate using Gmail. Interestingly, with a little help from plugins (like Mailsuite), Gmail is an effective tool for small business email marketing. 

So, instead of investing in a new email marketing software, small businesses may move to take complete advantage of the strengths of Gmail by running Gmail email campaigns.

Build trust

As a small business, many of your customers (and potential customers) will be people in your close circle (family, neighbors, friends, friends of friends, etc.). So, building trust is extremely important.

Some ways to build trust through your email campaign include:

• Email tracking. Know when the email is sent and opened. 
• PDF tracking. Know when attachments are opened and read.
• Signable documents. Let recipients sign attached documents.

Make email subscription easy

Make it easy for targets to subscribe to your mailing list. For example, use a simple signup form that does not request too much information. The fewer details your potential subscribers need to provide, the more willing they are to complete the form.

Incentivize signing up to your email list

Targets will be more motivated to sign up for your email list if they get something extra for doing so. For example, customers will more readily join your list if you give them a discount in exchange for their email address.

Be honest

Honesty helps you gain the trust of your subscribers. While you want to entice your audience with attractive offers, ensure your emails are not just click-bait.

When your subscribers are attracted by an offer only to find it misleading, they’re more likely to not engage with you going forward. So, you should be honest about the offers and benefits you communicate to subscribers in emails.

Personalize your emails

Personalized emails create an emotional connection with your audience. It tells your audience that you value them so much that you care to interact with them on a personal level.

Personalizing emails includes greeting your subscriber by name, featuring a topic they’ve expressed interest in,  or congratulating them on their special days (such as birthdays). 

Targets respond better to personalized emails than generic ones. For example, emails personalized with the recipient’s name get more opens and clicks.

Catchy subject line

It is not enough for your email marketing platform to deliver the email to your audience’s inboxes.

For email marketing to succeed, the recipients must open the email to see its content.

A catchy subject line increases the likelihood of the email being opened. To create a compelling subject line, pique the recipients’ curiosity. Good examples include:

• [Name], you won’t believe this deal.
• A deal you won’t find anywhere else.
• Mistakes that can cost you.

Use a visually attractive design

Most subscribers may only skim through promotional emails. So, it is good to make the main offers stand out using eye-catching, attention-grabbing visual elements. 

Visual elements make your emails easier to read and ensure the recipients do not miss your offers. 

Make emails mobile responsive

Mobile is the most widely used device to open marketing emails. So it is important to make your email campaigns mobile-responsive. This ensures your small business does not lose this large percentage of leads (and possible conversions).

Get inspiration from your competitor

While it is important to focus on yourself and your efforts, you can learn a thing or two about improving your email campaigns from your competition.

Subscribe to the email list of your competitors doing well in the industry. When you receive their updates, you can take inspiration from their tone, layout, design, etc.

Best email marketing software for small businesses

Some of the best email marketing platforms for small businesses include:

Mailsuite

Mailsuite is a leading email marketing tool with unlimited email tracking, personalized mail merge, email certificate, and more. 

Mailsuite is one of the easiest ways to enhance your email marketing, as it allows you to turn your Gmail account into a marketing platform for mass emails. Once you install the plugin and allow Gmail access, you can start sending marketing emails.

Mailsuite is popular for its tracking capabilities. As its name suggests, it’ll help you track sent emails and notify you when a recipient has opened and read the content. This way, you’ll know how to follow up with your audience.

Pros of Mailsuite 

• Additional knowledge is not needed to send mass emails using the tool.
• Allows you to email marketing emails within Gmail.
• No need to onboard a new solution or create new accounts and passwords.
• Tracks email perfectly, helping you know when your recipients have opened your email.

Cons of Mailsuite

Gmail limits the number of emails you can send daily, so if you’re using Mailsuite, you need to comply with these limits.

MailChimp

MailChimp is one of the most popular email marketing service providers.

MailChimp has an intuitive interface, making it an easy-to-use email marketing service. If you’re starting out with email marketing, you’ll appreciate MailChimp’s beautiful and simple tools.

MailChimp has an easy email builder that you can use to drag and drop elements to create beautiful emails. Its landing page builder also offers the same simplicity.

Besides being easy to use, MailChimp has visually appealing templates, very advanced reporting capabilities, and offers numerous integrations.

Pros of MailChimp

• Has visually appealing pre-designed email templates
• Has A/B testing feature.
• Has advanced AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities to streamline your campaigns.
• Offers robust reporting features to help you monitor your campaigns’ success.
• Offers 500+ integrations and add-ons, so you can incorporate the tools you already use.

Cons of MailChimp

• Automation features are only good enough for small campaigns.
• Not possible to move contacts between lists as mailing lists are siloed.
• While there is a free forever plan, you’ll want to move to paid plans to access advanced features, which can be relatively expensive.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact says in its name that it’ll help you remain in touch with your target audience.

Constant Contact comes with powerful tools to help small businesses simplify and amplify their marketing efforts.

Constant Contact is one of the best email marketing services for small businesses because it has a user-friendly interface. It offers easy drag-and-drop templates that make creating emails and landing pages easy.

It gives access to unlimited emails, good email segmentation and automation, built-in social media tools, and simple visual dashboards for easy tracking and reporting.

Pros of Constant Contact

• A simple interface that makes it easy to create email newsletters and landing pages.
• Offers a variety of customizable templates to choose from when building emails.
• Allows subject line A/B testing to help you send emails that’ll perform well.
• Offers different ways to segment your email list, allowing you to send targeted content.
• Has powerful marketing automation features that help you send automated emails with the right message to the right persons at the right time.
• Offers powerful reporting features that can help you view your campaign performance.
• Has 97% deliverability, so your email message is more likely to end up in your audience inboxes.

Cons of Constant Contact 

• Prices can become very high as your subscriber count increases
• You have to contact customer care to cancel an account

HubSpot

HubSpot is one of the best email marketing softwares small businesses use to combine email marketing and CRM.

HubSpot is a powerful CRM tool that has great email marketing capabilities. It features an easy drag-and-drop email builder and a large selection of templates, making creating email newsletters easy. You can put your branding touch on your emails for increased brand awareness.

You can integrate HubSpot with Mailsuite to optimize email marketing by combining HubSpot’s advanced features and Mailsuite’s email tracking excellence.

Pros of HubSpot

• An all-in-one platform that combines email marketing and CRM
• Has high email deliverability, so your emails are more likely to be seen
• Offers A/B testing to help you send emails that work.
• Has powerful automation features to help you grow your business
• Offers detailed performance analytics to help you know how your emails are doing.

Cons of HubSpot

• The free plan has limitations that you can easily max out.
• Customer support is not available for the free plan.

Sendinblue

Sendinblue is a complete email and SMS marketing software for large and small businesses.

Sendinblue promises to be an intuitive email marketing platform for growing small businesses. It’s one of the best email marketing services for small businesses that want to get unlimited contacts and emails without upgrading.

Sendinblue is extremely easy to use and has tools for easily creating beautiful and highly engaging emails. Even with no experience, you can use the drag-and-drop email editor to create beautiful email newsletters in minutes. The platform also allows you to segment your list and use marketing automation tools to create workflows for automated follow-ups.

Pros of Sendinblue

• Easy-to-use tool for creating emails.
• Offers an expanded list of email templates.
• Offers A/B testing to help you send the most effective emails
• Offers basic CRM capabilities.
• Has an impressive range of automation.
• Has high email deliverability ensuring your audience will get your emails.

Cons of Sendinblue

• Initial account setup can be difficult.

Conclusion – Use email marketing to grow your small business

Email marketing is an effective way to reach new audiences, heat up cold leads, and make existing customers return for more business.

Being cost-effective and having an incredibly high ROI, email marketing is one of the best forms of marketing for small businesses.

Tested and trusted tips for successful small business email marketing include simplifying and incentivizing email subscriptions, personalizing emails, using catchy subject lines and attractive designs, and making campaigns mobile-responsive.

Depending on your needs, good email marketing platforms to use include Mailsuite, MailChimp, Constant Contact, HubSpot, and SendinBlue.

However, Mailsuite stands out from the others because of its incredible tracking capabilities. If you’re a small business owner interested not only in sending email communication efficiently and effectively but also in knowing when those emails are opened and read, Mailsuite was made for you.

Want to use the power of mail tracking to grow your small business? Install Mailsuite for free today!