Gold Circle Media

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Most local businesses could benefit in some way from email marketing. An effective email campaign is one that keeps your name and offer in front of the people who are most likely to purchase your products or services. These are the people who are already your customers or those have found your website and are interested in what you have to offer and would like to learn more. Regular email communications helps to establish and keep a relationship with the customer. If they are in need of your product or service then you will be the first business to come to mind. People like doing business with people they know and email done right can help them get to know you.

An effective email campaign is one that keeps your name and offer in front of the people who are most likely to purchase your products or services.

Handled correctly, email marketing has the following advantages/benefits:

• Low cost. The expense of sending one thousand emails can be the same as sending just one. This can cost as little as $20.00 per month for a high quality online email management system.
• Very targeted. When you put an ad in the newspaper, most of the people reading will not notice it. Of those who do, only a small percentage will have any interest in what you are selling. Your emails only go out to those who have expressed a direct interest in what you have to sell, whether it’s dental care, plumbing services, or Chinese food.
• Easy to create the emails. No need to get a professional designer create that postcard or brochure. The top email management systems  come with templates that are fairly easy to use right away. Simply choose the design/color you want and then add the message.
• Track the results. How many people read the advertisement that you put in the local newspaper or magazine? How many of them responded to the ad? With a good system, you can easily tell how many of your emails were opened and how many of them resulted in clicks to your website.
• Testing. When you send out your emails you can test various things about it to find out what is most appealing (gets opened more and gets more clicks) to your list such as the subject line, colors, designs, images, headlines, coupon offers, and much more.

Unfortunately, most local businesses have no current email system in place and are unaware of how many sales they may be missing as a result. This is one of the quickest, cheapest, and easiest ways to increase the effectiveness of your marketing.

Let’s look at a quick example of how a local Mexican restaurant might use email to increase revenues and maintain a long lasting relationship with it’s customers. For the purpose of this I’m going to write it as though you are the owner of the restaurant.

The first thing you need to determine is the purpose and format of the emails you will be sending. Here are some items to consider.

• Format – The most common and effective format is that of the scheduled newsletter. This is what I would recommend for most small businesses. There are also email training courses, tips and tricks, and many others that would probably not be relevant for this example.
• Frequency - Are you going to send the emails out every week, two weeks, or month? This will depend on the business, but some general guidelines are to send at least one per month, and no more than two per week. There are some exceptions but for the most part these should do. In the case of the restaurant I recommend a normal once per week email with the occasional special edition email with limited time offers. This might be an offer as simple as “Come in today or tomorrow for dinner and get a free refried ice cream with any entree’ “. Businesses that expect to see their customers on an infrequent basis, such as a plumber or a painter, may want to limit their emails to once per month.

The next step is to register with a reputable online email management company such as AWeber, Constant Contact, or MailChimp. It takes a little work to get the account set up but its well worth the effort. These services can prevent you from unintentionally violating the CAN-SPAM Act by making sure every email meets the requirements that prevent it from being treated as spam. They also have relationships with the major email providers which helps them to deliver your emails. It wouldn’t do you much good to build a good list and then have 50% of your emails go into spam filters and never be seen by your customers.

The next thing to think about is how people will give you their email address and allow you to send them your message. There are two primary ways to do it.

• Website – Its easy to add a form to a website that allows people to add their email address, usually along with their first and/or last name.
• Sign up form in the restaurant – This can be a clipboard with a printout at checkout where customers write in their email address and name. Train the cashier to ask people if they would like to receive special offers via email. This can dramatically increase the number of sign ups.

Now we need to figure out what to send. For your restaurant I’m going to recommend that you implement one or more of the following in each email.

• Coupons and discounts – You know as well as I do that the main reason people sign up for email newsletters is in anticipation of getting great deals. So offer them something of value in the email, not just 5% off of a $2.00 menu item.
• Introduce your staff - You can set up your email system to automatically send one or more pre-written emails to people after they sign up. This would be a great time to tell them something about the great folks you have working in the kitchen and waiting tables. Afterwords you can include updates as employees come and go.
• Ask questions – Who knows better what your customers want than they themselves? Conduct polls to find out what they like or don’t like about the atmosphere, tables, decorations, food, etc. What would they like to see improved? Are there any dishes they would like to see added to the menu?

Email marketing used in conjunction with local search engine optimization, and social media marketing can dramatically increase your web presence and in turn, your revenues.

Contact us for more information or for a free quote.