3 Ways to Make Email Marketing Work for You

For small business owners, email offers many selling points as a marketing method. Email marketing is easy, it's affordable and most of all, it actually works.

Think about it: How often do you check your email inbox? If you're like most of us, the answer is "a lot." The Inbox Report 2016 by Fluent LLC says more than four out of five U.S. consumers check their email at least once a day. Two in three check email more than once a day. And 22 percent get alerts so they can check emails as soon as they arrive.

One reason emails get attention is that about two-thirds (63 percent) of consumers have only one email address. That means your email marketing messages stand a good chance of getting to customers’ primary email inbox.

What happens after someone gets your marketing email? After getting an email from a business, 42 percent of consumers say they are likely to visit the company website; 38 percent are likely to make a purchase. Nearly half (47 percent) of consumers have bought something online after getting an email; 45 percent have bought something in a physical store and 38 percent have made mobile purchases.

Of those who actually click on a link in an email, just one in five takes no further action. In other words, email marketing sparks action!

If you want your emails to really spur sales, however, try targeting the 18- to 29-year-old demographic. The study finds this age group is the most likely to make a purchase as a result of an email message. They’re also less likely to say they get too many emails and less likely to unsubscribe from businesses' mailing lists.

Mobility matters when it comes to marketing emails. That's because 67 percent of Americans say their smartphone is the dominant device they use to check their messages—far above the next most popular device, laptops (just 12 percent use that most often). Those who typically use smartphones to check email also check their email more often than people who check on a desktop or laptop, making them better bets to act on your marketing messages.

But all is not well in email marketing land. Just 15 percent of consumers surveyed say the emails they get from businesses are useful to them and 56 percent say they get too many marketing emails. As a result, half of respondents say they rarely or never open marketing emails.

How frequently do they want to get emails? About two-thirds of respondents say the ideal frequency of marketing emails is one per month. This makes a monthly email newsletter a good vehicle for getting customers’ attention without annoying them to the point that they unsubscribe. For best results with an email newsletter, try the following tips:

1. Make sure it’s mobile-friendly. Use responsive design, format your images so they display properly and load quickly, and include plenty of white space around call-to-action buttons or active links so they’re easy to click on. Just as important: Make sure the landing pages your email goes to are mobile-friendly, too. Otherwise, users might try to buy on their phones but not be able to.

2. Make them feel special. Special offers and discounts are the top reasons people subscribe to marketing emails. Affluent consumers care more about receiving special offers, while lower-income consumers care more about discounts. You can use these as “carrots” to entice people to sign up for your email newsletter. Once they’ve joined, however, you’ll need to go beyond just providing deals (see #3).

3. Provide useful information. Make your email newsletter stand out from the pack of marketing emails by sharing valuable information with your readers. For instance, a clothing boutique could share the latest style trends for the coming season; a toy store could give readers tips for choosing age-appropriate toys; a pest control business could advise readers what seasonal inspections they should conduct to stay pest-free. When you offer something of value—rather than just a sales pitch—recipients are more likely to save the email, read it and act on it.