Because of how quickly competition has grown in the email marketing space, small business owners need to ensure they are going above and beyond the call of duty in their campaigns. Simple, straightforward initiatives can certainly come with strong returns on investment, but it is never a good idea to approach these matters in a half-hearted fashion.
Rather, the need for email marketing campaigns that pop has never been greater, especially when a business is operating in a highly competitive, mainstream industry. Niche product and service providers will not always struggle to navigate the brand segmentation and advertising realms given the lack of competitors, but most small businesses will be operating in highly saturated markets.
It is best to ensure that you master the fundamentals before taking more advanced steps for optimal marketing performance.
Once you’ve established the foundation of your strategy, you can then move on to unique and more eye-catching techniques.
1. Cultivate creativity
Small business owners will often experience challenges in building and sustaining an optimal marketing strategy simply because they do not have the budget or resources to have a fully staffed advertising department. Despite that, entrepreneurs will generally have smaller operations that can be even more conducive to good old fashioned brain storming.
Put more simply, cross-departmental marketing meetings are not common in larger enterprises, as the advertising staff takes care of those matters. On the other hand, in a small business, leaders can get members of various departments together to craft more brand-aligned marketing strategies and communications. This type of approach will work to ensure that the brand’s voice rings true in email campaigns.
2. Use analytics
This is among the more important aspects of email marketing today, no matter how big a company might be or in which industry it is competing. Analytics should be a priority for all firms that have not yet started to leverage the technology, as optimizing campaigns and maintaining the most efficient, will be difficult endeavors without these tools in place.
Analytics will reveal what makes your target market tick, which types of emails resulted in successful conversions and which did not, how to better personalizing campaigns, and what needs to be done to capture higher returns on investment. Small business owners can now access email marketing analytics solutions more affordably thanks to progressive advances in the software industry.
3. Start considering video
Video ads have resonated throughout the marketing industry in the past few years. Content marketing strategies have become more entrenched in video formats, while social media websites are also beginning to tailor their platforms to support more media. Email is certainly next, and virtually every major service provider will offer the option to embed videos in the body of one of these messages today. Check out one of our video ads here.
So, now is the time to begin planning for video ads included in email marketing campaigns. The video ads themselves should be aligned with current email best practices, such as involving concise and valuable messages. By starting the process of strategizing for video ad email marketing campaigns today, you might be able to get a bit of a jump on others in your market.
