Email Marketing is one of the oldest & most cost effective Digital Marketing tools.

Here are some of the interesting Email Marketing facts:
  • According to DMA, Email marketing ROI is $40 for every $1 invested. 
  • Survey of US marketers found that 88% of the B2C  & 71% of the B2B organization use Email Marketing  - Forrester 
  • 88% of the respondents said that their Email Marketing budget will increase  or stay same  for next 12 months – MII
  • There are 3.6 (Approx) billion email accounts in 2013
  • 64% of the Decision Makers  read their email via mobile device (mostly instantly) 
  • Email which include social sharing buttons have 158% higher click through rate  - Getresponse 

Here is a Chart to demonstrate that Email Marketing plays a significant role in inbound marketing & produces 13% of all the Leads:
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Despite the ever increasing toolkits and techniques available to marketers, email still holds its place as a channel that offers a strong ROI, with two-thirds (72%) of in-house marketers rating email as having an “excellent” or “good” ROI – According to Econsultancy. 

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With the above mentioned facts on Email Marketing & the charts it should be very obvious that Email Marketing is one of the cost effective marketing tool.

Here are five reasons to summarize why Email Marketing is one of the most popular marketing tool for Lead generation & Brand building:

  • It has the maximum reach
  • It is very simple to use (No learning curve)
  • It is very inexpensive
  • The ROI is very high
  • Overall one of the best Digital Marketing tool

Now let us look at how to do Successful Email Marketing. Here are three steps to do Email Marketing which will produce desired results:

1)      Build the right Database – There are two ways to build the database. You can buy the database or build your own database. Although the first option is quickest & easiest, the second option is highly recommended. When you build your own Database, using opt-in (single or double) option, you are sure of the authenticity of the database & hence will produce better results.  Also with the purchased database list you run the risk of getting blacklisted by your ISP/ESP & your digital reputation can be in jeopardy.

2)      Plan & design your campaign properly - this is one of the most important step in the how to Email Marketing Campaign process.  In this step you need to decide who your target audience is, what is the message that you are going to communicate & how are you going to entice your reader to click some of the links. You have to design the email (text or HTML) with attractive look & feel & interesting content.  You also should have appropriate Landing pages in your website to guide them to take anticipated steps.  Here few  things you need to pay attention to during this stage;

a.       Make sure that your campaign is CAN-SPAM compliant
b.      Need to have adequate call to action buttons in email & in landing pages
c.       Subject line is very important ( almost 60% of the reader open/don’t open the        email looking at the subject line)

3)      Execute the campaign successfully - You need to decide on how you are going to execute the email Campaign, whether to do it in house or use an ESP/ Marketing agency.  Here are some of the steps to pay attention to:

a.       Test, test , test  email campaign before executing the actual/final campaign.
b.      Try to use auto responder for better results.
c.       Schedule the email campaign  as the time of the day & day of the week may have significant impact on the opening & click through rate (CTR)
d.      Manage the bounce & subscribe properly to avoid any negative impacts.
e.      Based on the reports analyse the campaign; fine tune  the future campaign for better results.  

Here is an interesting chart to help you do an effective Email Marketing:

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Summary:
  Email Marketing has come a long way. Unlike earlier where email campaign use to be one page email describing features of your products with attachment/s and the outcome of the campaign was not measureable accurately.  In today’s Internet world, Email Marketing is one of the important tools in the digital marketing and can be used for various campaigns & is highly measurable.  It is not only inexpensive but also one of highest result generating tool.  Email marketing is hence one of the best tools for lead generation & brand building. 


 
 

Large organizations spend millions of dollars on various advertising like  TV ads, Print ads, Hoardings, & promotions, etc.  to build their brands & attract customers to buy their products & services . On contrary, SMBs  do not have budget to spend Millions of dollars on advertising.   However, the need to attract customer is same or more.  Hence the SME have to rely on innovative & cost effective ways  to generate these leads  on a shoe string budget.

First, let us look at the various sources of leads (a partial list):

·         Advertising (TV Ads, Print Ads, Radio Ads, Internet ads, Hoardings,…)
·         Trade shows
·         Seminars
·         Mailing Campaign
·         Telemarketing
·         Internet Marketing ( SEO, SEM/PPC, SMM)
·         Referrals
·         Through Partners/Dealers

All these lead sources can be categorized into 2 types:

1)      High cost leads
2)      Low/zero cost leads

In option one, if you have the budget for it, one has to find the right agency & they can give you hundreds of options to choose from.   In this article we will take a closer look at the second option.  SMEs have to be very innovative in order to generate low/zero cost leads.  This again differs from industry to industry & from geo to geo.

One of most economical way to generate low cost leads is by Internet marketing (Digital Marketing). This method can cost as low as 10-20% of  the cost of conventional marketing. If you know how to do it & have the time to do it, with little effort you can generate many leads in a short period of time.

There are 4 steps to follow to generate low coat leads:

1)      Develop a excellent website (Content/ look & feel/ Value proposition)
2)      Increase traffic to your website using tools like SEO, SEM/PPC, SMM
3)      Lure your customers with hard to refuse offers & downloads
4)      Make them fill the form & collect the name & contact info

Once you have the Database of leads, you need to contact them  through mailing campaign/s or telemarketing & follow up to close deals.  Most of the SME/SMBs do not have a Marketing department with a dedicated marketing person. Rather than doing it yourself,  is also advisable  to outsource these activities to a small marketing company which can generate low cost leads for you, so that you can focus on your core activities like development, manufacturing & delivery.


If you are having any challenges Generating Leads & effective Mailing Campaigns on a shoestring budget  and need some Consultation or Advisory services please take advantage of our FREE Consultation  or Click Here.