One of my goals for my Pet Sitting Business this year is to improve our email marketing. Why? Because I honestly don’t think it’s good enough. It kinda sucks!
I feel that with a more concentrated and targeted effort it could bring in more customers for very little additional effort.
Over the last year I have created eBooks as giveaways and very successfully added lots of new pet lovers to my list, but done very little in the way of trying to convert them to customers. I was going through the motions of email marketing, but not really devoting enough time to be super targeted and really try to turn them into paying customers.
Crazy huh?
So why now? Well I think Email marketing it hugely important for the growth of any business. Just like I constantly talk about blogging being a must for businesses, I feel that email marketing goes hand in hand with this.
So why is Email Marketing So Important?
#1. Social Media Followers are not owned.
I have a very healthy social media following, particularly with my Facebook Page. I love Facebook, it generates a lot of business for us and it’s great to build a community of fans. BUT I don’t have any control over it at all.
If Facebook closed tomorrow my 39,000 fans would disappear overnight. GONE!
But if I have moved some of those fans onto my email list I still will be able to have contact with them. I can still talk to them via email and promote my products and services to them.
And guess what? They already love me because they made a choice to join my list and stay there – because they love the content that I send them.
#2. People do want information
I think it’s a myth that people hate emails from companies. Yes, we all hate spam, but I do love to receive information and offers that are relevant to me – that I have asked to be informed about.
After all, remember you are not going to buy a random list of people to add to your email list, you are going to offer them something of value in exchange for their email address.
Then…you are going to keep sending them information of value to keep them on your list and when they are ready to buy what you are offering you will be there to sell to them.
#3. It’s actually quite inexpensive to use email marketing
When you break it down email marketing is not that expensive. It’s far cheaper than Google or Facebook ads, and I would argue it is more targeted. People have already bought into one piece of your content when they join your list. So as long as you are keeping your content relevant to them, why wouldn’t they want more?
Services such as mailchimp are free, or very cheap, and you can create a series of email marketing messages quite quickly. It just takes time to learn a bit about the process and put what you learn into practice.
I recently read that for every $1 you spend on email marketing it will result in a return of $43. Not too shabby!! I would take that ALL day.
#4. Email marketing helps you reach people on the move
A lot of people will say that people spend all their time on social media, but people still check their emails. People check their emails when they are waiting to meet a friend, standing in line, have 5 minutes before they pick their kids up – because they are able to access them from their phone.
A well-executed email marketing campaign could just trigger a purchase at the right time. Imagine your ideal customer is rushing around, trying to do shopping, pick up the kids…then they check their emails and see your email promoting Dog Walking services. Just at the right time when they are busy and have a need for a dog walker.
Now I know that sounds too good to be true, but email marketing is a way to get in front of people and tell your story.
#5. Email marketing allows you to build on your relationships
When you post on social media you really don’t know who is seeing it. What I mean is that you can’t guarantee that ideal customer ‘Fred’ sees all your posts. Even if you boost the post you don’t know that Fred has seen it.
But, with email marketing you can track who is opening your emails, clicking on links, staying on your list etc. It’s much easier to monitor what Fred is up to!
Now don’t get me wrong, Social media is fantastic to build a business if done correctly – but email marketing is more personal and trackable in my opinion.
So I am excited to start working more on this in my Pet Sitting business and will be sharing more as I do.
