8 Reasons Your Small Business Needs an Email Marketing Strategy

Perseverance

Jul 23

Is email marketing dead? Not even close!

In this episode, I’m diving headfirst into the world of email marketing. Is it old school? Sure. Is it irrelevant? Absolutely not.

I’m busting myths and serving up the facts about why email marketing is a non-negotiable for any small business owner.

I’ll uncover why email marketing continues to reign supreme as the top converting marketing platform — outperforming social media in almost every metric. From open rates and click-throughs to sales and customer loyalty, I’m sharing the data to prove it.

Get ready to learn:

How to leverage email marketing to build stronger customer relationships
The secrets to crafting irresistible emails that convert
Essential email marketing tools and strategies to supercharge your business
How to automate your email campaigns for maximum efficiency

Whether you're a seasoned email marketer or just getting started, this episode is packed with actionable tips and insights to help you achieve your business goals.

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[00:00:00]

Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of "How I Made My First Dollar.". I'm your host Netta Dobbins. And I'm actually doing a couple of audio only versions to talk a little bit about something that is near and dear to my heart. And honestly, One of my favorite marketing tactics and it's email marketing.

So we're going to do a couple of, audio only episodes I think is going to be probably very weird for me, essentially talking to myself, but. We will see how it goes. So this is going to be a series of four emails, not four emails. This is going to be a series of four audio only podcasts. And within it, my goal is to set the stage for why every small business owner. should be utilizing email marketing. In their marketing strategies and for me, how email marketing has been one of the most cost-effective and [00:01:00] highest converting forms of marketing. So let's dive in.

Welcome to How I Made My First Dollar, your go to podcast for entrepreneurial success stories and actionable marketing advice. I'm your host Netta Dobbins, and with over a decade of marketing experience and an interesting journey of successfully building my own business, I'll be your guide here, helping you create a revenue generating business everyone should know about.

If you're already 10 toes down in entrepreneurship or simply flirting with the idea of taking the leap, this This podcast will help you unlock actionable strategies to really shift your business to the next level. Let's get started.

Also before we get started, I want to remind you that I have a brand new email marketing course coming out it's called The Email Advantage.

The Email Advantage is designed to take you step-by-step through the process of building out your email marketing strategy. We are starting with step one.

How do you build an email list? How do you design an email? What email marketing platform should you use based on your business? And we're going all the way to advanced techniques. Like, how do I automate my emails and put my business on autopilot? Yes, it's beginner friendly. So whether you are just starting your entrepreneurial journey or you are seasoned entrepreneur, you've been in it for a while this course is going to teach you how to get started from where you are. So very much beginner, friendly tactics easy tactics to understand. I'm not going to get too technical with anything. And yeah, that's it. So if you're interested, go to Netta, dobbins.com.

forward slash email...

So if you're a small business owner, you've been feeling overwhelmed with marketing, these [00:03:00] episodes are going to be for you. I know when I first started building out my own business or even with some of the entrepreneurs and small business owners that I work with. Now, the first question I asked me is what social media platforms should I be on?

And that really depends on who your customer is and what you're selling. And so many other things, but no one ever asked me about building an email marketing strategy, which is something that you honestly should be doing from day one.

So today we're going to talk about. Why small business owners should actually be thinking about email marketing and then throughout these series of episodes, I'm going to share how to think about email marketing, how to begin building your email marketing strategy and some other nuggets and tidbits that you should keep in mind as you continue to grow your business.

Also, if you hear some heavy breathing in the background, that is my dog, Bruno, who is quite obsessed with me [00:04:00] and never gives me any peace. So we're going to try to record while he's not in his cage while he's freely roaming around. So we'll see how that goes. Once again, it's not a stalker or a killer or anybody behind me.

It is my 75 pound doodle.

So let's face it. Email marketing may seem like an old fashion marketing technique compared to. All of the social media platforms that are thriving right now, but I want to let you know that email marketing is still probably the most effective marketing platform. Yes, I know when we think about email marketing, we might think about spam or, chain letters or ask ourselves even is email marketing still relevant.

Do people really still read emails? And the answer is actually yes, email marketing is not dead. In fact, it's actually thriving. I recently read a Forbes article. Um, that stated a bunch of different facts [00:05:00] around email marketing stats and insights for 2024. And I wanted to take a moment to play some of this out, just so you can understand the impact that email marketing has for small business owners and entrepreneurs.

So the first fact, 64% of small business owners are already using email marketing. That means if you're not using email marketing, it's highly likely that your competitors are, which only pushes you further back. You are behind right now. Two, email marketing has a 42% conversion rate. That means if we strip all the marketing talk back, nearly half of the subscribers on your email list will eventually become customers.

So let's say you have an email list of a hundred. Over time, 50 people will become customers. 500 over time, 250 people will become customers and so on and so forth. So while you may not get an immediate sell [00:06:00] from the first email you send.

On average, you'll be able to convert at least half of your audience to customers.

Fact number three 88% of people check their email daily often up to five times per day. Meaning that email marketing is a really your personal connection to your customers. They are going to see your emails because it's something that they are actively using. Another benefit to email marketing.

Before I go to the next point, is that. If you're like me, I do spend a lot of time on social media and don't think this podcast is me knocking social media or saying that you shouldn't be on social media. You definitely should. But social media is more of a brand awareness play or email marketing is more of a, here's how we're going to convert these people who are now aware of my brand and to customers. But thinking to step back from that. I've been on social media and I've seen something that I thought was funny or that I wanted to buy, or that I was interested in knowing more [00:07:00] about, and I forgot to save it and I can never ever find that sweet or the Instagram posts again.

And that frustrates me because, maybe that could have been a sale for that business owner. It could have been something I wanted to actually engage with. The benefit of email marketing is that it's hard for people to lose your emails. So even if you send me something, maybe I see it, but I'm super busy and I don't have the time to read it thoroughly right now. or really check out what's happening when I do get free time. I know where to find it. It's in my inbox. I can search your name. I can search your business name. I can search a couple of words that I read that stuck with me from that email, and I can find the offer again. So. Gotta love. Email marketing just for the searchability. Um, Aspects of it. Fact number four, people are three times more likely to make a purchase from email marketing compared to social media.

I'm going to say that again, people are three times more likely to make [00:08:00] a purchase from email marketing compared to social media. Yes, you can be on social media. You should be posting about your businesses on social media. But. If you want to sell, and if you want to sell more and sell quickly. You need to be thinking about how do we transfer the people who are following us on social media. Into an email list that we own.

all right. So let's go into fact number five. And we just talked about social media. So I want to say there for a moment. I think the average view rate. For someone to see your post on social media is about 10%. So about 10%. Of your audience actually sees your posts when you post them organically.

It's probably way lower than that with everything that's happening with the algorithm these days. And if we want to talk about engagement rate, I believe it's less than 3% who actually en engage with your content. And once again, [00:09:00] it may be even lower than that. Based on what's happening with the algorithm. Email marketing has an average open rate, which is the same thing as like view rate , impression rate. Of around 30%. So let's take a step back. 10% of people on social media, 10% of my followers on social media, are seeing I content, but if I am best and build an email marketing strategy, That increases by 20%, 30% of subscribers. will see my content.

So even if we think about how many people are actually seeing our messaging, email marketing is the better way to go.

all right. A few more facts and then we're done. Fact number six, how many of you all have shopped online and you filled your carts up and you can look in it's a couple hundred dollars and you're like, okay, I'll come back. And maybe you forget to come back. You will [00:10:00] get an email from whatever boutique or online retailer it is saying, Hey. Did you forget these things in your cart? We call those abandoned cart emails.

Abandoned cart email open rates average about 50%, meaning those timely reminders that we've seen brands saying after we've left something in our cart, people are actually opening them and they do increase the chances that people are going to go back and purchase the cart that they may have forgotten about or got distracted from buying.

Our next fact is that 83% of customers are happy to share their emails for a more personalized experience. That means if I give you my email, I know that you are going to send me things that I want to learn about; things that want to buy things that may be pair well with something that I've already purchased, people are happy to get those emails.

So when you think about, oh, I don't want to spam my followers or my subscribers or people don't actually read [00:11:00] emails. They do. They read emails when it's relevant to things that they want and things that they're interested in.

And then last but not least 50% of people actually buy from marketing emails at least once a month. Is your mind blown yet? 50% of people buy from marketing emails. And you're worried about spamming or you're worried about nobody reading them. The point of me giving you all those stats and really breaking it down is that I want you to understand that if you're not investing in an email marketing strategy right now, you are missing out on revenue.

And if you're wondering where to start, I highly encourage you to check out my upcoming email marketing course, The Email Advantage. We'll start from literally email marketing. 101. How to build an email list, how to build an email, like what's the anatomy of an email and what makes people want to read it. What do you say? [00:12:00] How do you design it? What platform should you use? And then we'll start there and go all the way to more advanced techniques. Like how do you set up a welcome funnel? How do you set up a re-engagement funnel? How do you automate those abandoned cart emails that I was talking about earlier? All the things will be covered in this email marketing course.

So you can learn more by going to nettadobbins.com/the-email-advantage.

So let's sum all of this up because I want to make sure that I really hit home on a why you, as a small business owner should be using email marketing to day. I don't care if you just started your business yesterday, or if you've been in business for 10 years, if you do not have an email marketing strategy, I want you to start today and here are a few reasons why. Number one, it's going to help you build relationships with your customers.

Unlike on social media email allows you to connect with your customers on a more personal level. [00:13:00] You can share your brand story, showcase your products or services, built trust with your audience. And know that they are actually getting the content that you're delivering to them.

So two, email marketing, lets you segment your audience based on their interests, their demographics, their purchase history whatever, whatever this is going to allow you to send more targeted and personalized messages that really resonate with each subscriber. You're not going to be shouting out messages that may or may not be relevant to people you don't know, or people you think you may know, these are people who are interested in your product. These are people who have purchased from you. These are people. Who are invested in your brand and you can look at your data either on your website or if you're already working through some email marketing things. You can see what people are opening, what people are clicking on, and you can create sub groups of your audience to send more targeted messages. All of [00:14:00] this, makes them more likely to engage with your content and convert into paying customers.

So with your email marketing strategy, you're going to start with what you think your audience wants, what you think they need. But when you look at the data, you're going to be able to understand what actually resonates with them. What are they actually clicking on and what you need to do more of.

So I'm going to hop off my email marketing horse for now, because throughout this series, We're going to dive deeper into everything you need to know about email marketing from building your email list, to how to craft an email campaign that truly drives results. So once again, whether you are a complete email marketing newbie, beginner, or, you know, you've done some email marketing and it hasn't been working and you want to understand how to take your existing strategy to the next level.

This series is for you. So stay tuned and we're going to keep it going. I will see you in the [00:15:00] next episode.

As a reminder, if you want step-by-step support building out your email marketing strategy, I highly encourage. That you check out my upcoming email marketing course, The Email Advantage. The course is specifically designed for busy entrepreneurs and I'm going to walk you through the entire email marketing journey from building a targeted email list from scratch to crafting emails that truly resonate with your ideal audience. I'm going to show you how to automate certain tasks and free up your time so that you can focus on what matters the most.

The course is on sale right now. So you can get access to it today by visiting nettadobbins.com/the-email-advantage.

Outro Music

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Whether you've been an entrepreneur for years or are just starting out, this self-paced program will guide you through everything from building a targeted email list to crafting email campaigns that drive sales.

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