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How Sending Emails Can Boost Captured Sales Over Time
There’s an old school of thought with small businesses that they only have time to deal with customers who found their website. Dealing with social media is too much like work and email marketing is too much writing and won’t convert to sales. Typically, this kind of thinking is rare as hen’s teeth now.
Email marketing finally becomes important to companies when they realise how profitable it can be. Let’s look at the reasons why this is the case.
Google is Sending a Lower Percentage of Traffic to the Company Site
Free organic traffic from Google is wonderful. People search for things they need and for the lucky companies who are positioned well, they’re likely to receive plenty of organic traffic. The higher the ranking, the better the traffic. That still holds true, but the traffic percentages have shifted markedly from a few years ago.
It used to be that a number one position for a search term could deliver 40 percent of the search volume for that keyword, but in a few short years, that’s fallen to below 30 percent. And it keeps dropping. The reasons include a knowledge section that answers questions right on the search page, copious advertisements pushing search results lower down and alternative related questions being shown above the other search results. Also, images and video now get pride of place sometimes too. All of the above content obscures the search results that people visited Google to find.
What does this mean for small businesses relying on Google organic traffic? It means they’d better find other traffic sources in the future because the free traffic from Google has certainly slowed down and it’s only downhill from here.
Email Lists Return Control Back to the Company
The email list, where the website visitor decides to opt-in to a semi-regular email newsletter, is an excellent way to collect a prospect’s email address. They can then be contacted later to show off new blog posts, mention a product release, and advise about product promotions that’ll end soon.
Even if the subscriber hasn’t bought anything yet, having their email address is invaluable. They agree to provide access to them and this is fantastic for companies involved with both content marketing and email marketing. Their marketing messages and helpful posts can reach the right people.
They can be contacted over and over again through the power of SMTP. Special servers running SMTP agree to use a standardised way to send and receive email. This is the case regardless of whether the server is running on a Windows, Apple, Linux or Unix operating system.
Both the email sender and email receiver can use whatever email app they like to send or receive emails. Because SMTP is a protocol used worldwide across the internet, there’s zero difficulty understanding emails being sent and received. It’s one of the reasons that email remains so popular today; it’s almost instantaneous, simple for the users, and almost always works.
Email Can Be Used in Different Ways
Companies who use email effectively know exactly how to use it to maximise the value they get from every subscriber. They balance the newsletter sending frequency with the unsubscribe rate; sending too often may lead to greater sales but some subscribers will get irritated and unsubscribe.
Here are three of the ways that email is used:
Search engine optimisation -- Publishing a new blog post and then emailing subscribers leads to a flurry of activity as they click-through to the blog post to view the new article. It’s a good idea to only supply a title and summary of the article in the email to tease out the details and encourage visitors to re-visit the website. When they visit, they’re more likely to re-engage with the brand and consider buying a product too.
Order confirmation – This is a good opportunity to offer special offers and promotions. The more related the product is to what’s just been purchased, the more you will sell. Companies shouldn’t miss the opportunity to turn one sale into a couple more sales in short order.
Email subscription confirmation – The simple email subscription confirmation is a chance to run new subscribers through an autoresponder. This is a special sequence of emails sent to each new subscriber. The email sequence is a combination of useful articles, general information, and promotional offers.
Email is a powerful tool in the tool box for companies that know how to use it right. Sometimes an effective email newsletter is shared with a friend who may click on a link or choose to subscribe as well. It’s also a highly inexpensive marketing channel when compared to paid advertising, product promotions, and giveaways. People who have already chosen to opt-in have shown some interest and that’s a great start to move them down the sales funnel.
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