How to Use an Email List for Business to Your Advantage
Executive Summary: In A Nutshell
What will you learn if you read this article?
In this article we explain a bit about the history of email lists and newsletters. We explain the role they play. Perhaps more importantly, we have reviewed Industry literature and collected Best Practices (Secrets) which will tell you how to actually leverage the great potential an Email List holds.
Action – Practical Recommendations
Your list reveals mission-critical information about your customers. By analyzing demographics, you can identify and segment your target audience. Key metrics are: preferences, brand loyalty, and browsing interests. This is very valuable information, because after understanding your audience, you can then advertise on your email list in a format that you know will appeal directly to actual interests.
Research tells us that 91% of consumers check email daily, often anticipating new promotions and deals. Your emails can function to re-direct them to your business, thus increasing the probability of generating conversion.
Conclusion: Do not let your email list go to waste. Grow your business using your existing Marketing asset (mail list) for marketing purposes.
There are plenty of articles floating around the internet that highlight the urgent need to create an email list for your business. You will also find a lot of articles that give you step-by-step instructions on how to create an email list. What these articles lack, however, are key tips that will allow you to use an email list to your advantage. After all, what good is an email list for your business if it isn’t helping you?
You could have a foot long email list and it wouldn’t help your business prosper if you don’t have a clue about what you’re doing. How does one capitalise on your email list? Most business owners face this problem. This article is dedicated to helping you use your business email list to your advantage.
What is an email list?
An email list or a mailing list is quite literally just a list of contacts. It might consist of the email addresses of your clients, or maybe the people who signed up for a newsletter or promotion updates on your business’s website, or perhaps even colleagues or business partners, if you are good with networking.
An email list is quite simply, a list of people’s contacts. Back in the older days, this ‘list’ consisted of the physical address of individuals where they would receive letters from a company advertising its products. It’s the same concept but instead of physically delivering the update, we now send emails in a virtual space. Best of all, unlike a physical mailing service, it’s free to send and relatively cheap to manage.
So, why should you use it?
An email list can be particularly useful when it comes to marketing your product or services. When accessing a website, people often agree to sign up for newsletters, not because they’re particularly interested in the services offered but because they simply can. There was probably something about your business that caught their eye that made them subscribe to your mailing list. This means that while you may not have sold products to these people, they might consider using your services if you do provide them with a good bargain. This is why an email list is so important. There’s so much potential for it. For one thing, even if these people never use your product, they will probably suggest it to a friend or a colleague. It’s all about catching people’s attention with new offers on a regular basis.
Think of it this way:
You own a small plumbing company in your city, competing with a hundred others. People subscribe to your email list because it seemed useful- everyone has plumbing issues at one point. However, the person who subscribed to your list did not face any problems and instead, one day, a friend or a colleague talked to them about a plumbing problem in their home. This person, remembering your business, will probably refer you to them.
As you can see, it’s a great way of promoting and marketing your business so you need to make sure that you put your best foot forward.
Ways to use your email list to your advantage
Use your List to Highlight Events & Promotions
An email list can help marketing on your website by quite a big margin. Of course, as a business owner in the era of social media, you might find this to be perplexing. After all, it is quite clear that social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have a massive audience to tap into. With an email list however, you can market to your target audience with a laser-sharp message. You can reach a target audience at set times with an open rate of up to 30%.
Bearing this in mind, an email list will benefit you if you are looking to market your business. This is why it is very important that you highlight your upcoming events and promotions. You don’t have to provide extensive details. All you need to do is 1) provide a little detail to build suspense, 2) excite your audience and 3) build up the hype. People will be more likely to tell their friends and family about upcoming events if they are excited about it. Capitalise on that excitement through your email list.
Bring Out Our Competitive Nature – Everybody is looking for a DEAL
Understanding Your Audience
Your email list can tell you a lot about your customers. By analysing your demographics, you can learn a lot about your target audience. This includes metrics such as their preferences, their income margins, brand loyalty, and so on. You can use data analytics for this. This is the most important thing that you can possibly learn from your email list because, after understanding your audience, you can then advertise on your email list in a format that you know will appeal to your audience the most. It can help your business flourish at a more rapid pace.
Create Customer Loyalty – Who is Ready to Buy?
Last but not the least, you can turn your email list into a platform that will allow you to communicate to your regular customers. This is actually quite important because research has shown that over 70% of the people visiting your business’s website will never return to it. So, in order to get a clear understanding of what your actual clientele looks like, you might want to start giving them exclusive deals. If anything, by telling people visiting your website from the get-go that the email list has exclusive material for your loyal clients, you will be getting people who are actually interested in your product. Studies reveal that 91% of consumers check their emails daily so by giving them exciting new promotions and deals, you will be able to re-direct them towards your business thus increasing the probability of them actually using your service.
Mailing lists can be very helpful in these scenarios because you really want people to buy the services you’re offering them so that your business can flourish. Don’t let your email list go to waste, you can grow your business a lot by using it only for marketing purposes!
Conclusion
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