Running a small business is a complex venture. No matter what area you’re specialising in, no matter what products you’re offering and no matter whether you’re operating on a traditional brick and mortar basis or an E Commerce basis, you’re going to find yourself facing a lot of challenges along the way. Countless elements need to pull together to make your business a success. You need to establish yourself as a brand, you need to make customers aware of your presence and offerings, you need to ensure they can make purchases with you when they want to. This means specialising in product development, market research, advertising, marketing, content creation and more. That’s before you even consider the more practical elements of the entire process, like manufacturing, packaging and distribution. So, it can often feel difficult to know where you should be directing your attention when it comes to running your business successfully. When it comes down to it, the key is to take on staff or outsource – plenty of hands make light work. But you also need to familiarise yourself with different important elements in the process. For now, let’s focus on mailing lists and how they can benefit your brand and your sales!
What Is A Mailing List?
First and foremost, what actually is a mailing list? Well, put simply, a mailing list is a list of people’s email addresses you have gained permission to use for marketing content. When you have someone on your mailing list, they have provided you with their personal contact information and they have agreed that you can communicate with them through this email address. Once they’ve signed up, this can be extremely beneficial for you. You are now able to market to them, keeping your brand in the forefront of their mind on a regular basis as they check their emails. You can reach out to them with information on new product releases, offers, sales events, and more – bringing them back to your site and encouraging them to make a purchase. Of course, if you find that you have many customers who do not have email addresses, or do not use their email addresses, you could find that variable data direct mail works better for your brand. But all in all, email marketing does tend to be effective!
Encouraging People to Sign Up to Your Mailing List
Of course, it can be a challenge to encourage people to sign up to your mailing list in the first place. People are wary of spam and don’t want cluttered inboxes. This is why most businesses offer some sort of incentive for people to sign up. Generally speaking, an incentive that also encourages them to spend with you is beneficial for both you and your customer. So, you might want to consider offering 10% off their first purchase or free delivery on their first purchase when they sign up.
These are just the basics of mailing lists. But hopefully, some of the above information will prove useful for you and your business!
