Small businesses are constantly looking for ways to be more visible to potential customers. However, many companies do not invest heavily in marketing campaigns, fearing that they will lose money and not be able to turn a profit. 
But this is not usually the case. Marketing is becoming more important than ever due to the growing role of digital media in the average consumer’s life, and small businesses need to spend money to make it.
Marketing is a vital part of running a small business in 2015
Business 2 Community contributor Francesca Di Meglio stressed the importance of marketing in the digital age. She said that small business owners have new opportunities to grow their client bases through online marketing campaigns. Social media, search engine optimization and review-oriented websites make brand growth more accessible than ever before, Di Meglio pointed out.
Despite this, she lamented that many small businesses are reluctant to invest in marketing due to misguided fears about its affordability and being a hassle to oversee. However, this idea is actually quite inaccurate – Di Meglio advised that digital marketing is both cost-effective and important in terms of making a company recognizable.
Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to increase revenue
Small business owners should view email marketing as a top priority, according to The Next Web contributor John Rampton. He noted that even for cash-strapped companies, email marketing is cheap and leaves an impact. Establishing a strong brand is an essential component of growing for small businesses, and email’s effectiveness can be backed up with statistics. Rampton cited a study conducted by Ascend2 in which 54 percent of respondents – primarily digital marketers – said that email is the most effective digital marketing method, while only 11 percent described it as difficult.
But the purpose of distributing content by email goes beyond just sending out a newsletter or promotional offer. There are a variety of different ways that small businesses can grow their brands using email – A SalesForce report entitled “2015 State of Marketing” revealed a large number of different types of content is being sent to customers. The options included re-engagement, social opt-ins, welcome series, birthday promotions, post-purchase updates and various other forms of connecting with clients.
A Gigaom study found that email is the most successful marketing format for customer retention purposes, according to 56 percent of respondents. And, perhaps more importantly, consumers actually prefer to receive marketing messages via email – over 70 percent confirmed as much in a survey conducted by Marketing Sherpa earlier this year.
The most significant reason to implement an email marketing strategy is that the format has the best return on investment in the industry, according to figures compiled by the Direct Marketing Association in conjunction with Demand Metric. After all, the whole point of spending money on marketing is to see a positive change in ROI, and email can provide this more effectively than any other medium.
Small businesses need to create a memorable brand to grow their client bases, and email is a great way to do so.
