By: Clara Toombs, Marketing Consultant and Executive Coach
Organising your email marketing in 2023 doesn’t have to be hard, you just need to create the right plan for your business. Email has the highest ROI of any marketing channel, and it continues to be the most popular way to reach customers.
So how can small businesses use email marketing to their advantage in the next 12 months?
Today, I’m going to walk you through some key areas of email marketing that will help you get organised for 2023 and ensure that you’re using it to its full potential.
Here are my top tips:
1. Set clear and measurable goals that tie in with your business goals
Did you know that for every $ you spend on email marketing, you can expect and average return of $40*. With such a strong and compelling return on investment it would be advantageous to include email marketing as part of your business goals in 2023. Many businesses can get started with email marketing for free, I recommend Mailerlite if you’re just starting out.
Once you are clear on your overarching business goals for the year, from here you can determine
your email marketing goals.
Get organised – If you’re planning on using email marketing as part of your business plans this year,
then it’s important that you’ve got everything organised from the start. Take some time out and go
through all of your current subscribers’ data and determine what you want from them moving
forward. Do you want more subscribers? More open rates? More clicks? Then consider what
content you need to send out in order to achieve these goals.
Ensure your goals are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-bound)
e.g. Q1 2023
1) New business
Goal: Grow our subscriber base from 0 to 500 subscribers in Q1
2) Established businesses
Goal: Generate 20% more sales from email marketing activity by Q1
From here your email marketing plan can be determined based on what goals you have set.
*Omnisend, 2022
2. Carry out an audit of your current campaigns
It’s important to know what’s working and what isn’t. You can also use this as an opportunity to
learn more about how people interact with your brand via email. What campaigns resonated with
your audience? You can determine this by your engagement metrics e.g. open rate (the number of
people who have opened your email as a % of those you received it and click through rate, the
number of people who clicked on content within your email as a % of those who received it). It’s
good to get a sense of what resonated with your audience in 2022.
3. Know your audience
This sounds obvious but it’s surprising how many companies don’t know who their audience is! It
doesn’t have to be an exact science, but have some idea of who you’re talking to and what they need
from you. If you’re going to invest in email marketing, you need to make sure that you know who
you are talking to. Email is a powerful tool for targeting specific groups of people, but if you don’t
know who those people are, then you can’t use that power effectively. You need to understand what
makes them tick, what they respond to and what they don’t respond to. This will allow you to tailor
your message specifically to them and get the results that you want.
Knowledge is power!
4. Build your subscriber list and create a benefit-led opt-in process
Email lists are the core of any successful email campaign. The best way to build your list is by
asking customers for their details when they make a purchase or visit your website. You should also
consider asking them if they would like to receive emails from you in the future – this will help
build up your opt-in list and grow your database over time. Make your opt-in form/page
compelling, highlight the benefits of what they will receive by making the opt-in process enticing
and benefit-led you are more likely to get subscribers that are more likely to buy from you.
There are a whole host of other ways to build an email list – check out my free guide:
10 Powerful Ways to Build an Email List
5. Create engaging content
Email marketing works best when you create relevant, valuable content that solves a problem or
helps your customers in some way. If you’re not sure what kind of content will resonate with your
audience, try creating different types of emails and see which ones get more opens and clicks. You
can also check out other companies’ email newsletters and see what they’re sending out—that way,
you’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t.
6. Automate it
You’re busy so you don’t have time to send out every single email manually! That’s why automation
is so important for effective email marketing: It allows you to set up an automatic process that takes
care of sending out new campaigns sent manually. Automation is key to ensuring that your emails have the highest chance of
being opened by subscribers. This can be as simple as adding a welcome email sequence to your
first campaign, which includes information like who you are and what you do.
Then, as people continue to engage with your content over time, they’ll receive more targeted
follow-up emails based on their interests and preferences — such as those related to travel or
fashion messages on its own whenever they’re needed (e.g., once per week).
7. Test and learn
Once you’ve built an email marketing strategy that works for your business, you need to test it
regularly so that you can continue improving results over time. The best way to do this is with A/B
testing; this enables you to compare two versions of an email (or website) against each other, so that
you can see which version gets better results. For example: one version of your email might tell
customers about a new product line; another version might mention how much money they could
save.
For more top tips subscribe to my newsletter where I share ways to scale with email marketing
specifically designed for small businesses – count me in
I’m running a Scale with Email marketing webinar for small businesses on 7th of February, if
you’d like to join register here.
Clara Toombs
hello@claratooombsconsulting.co.uk
www.claratoombsconsulting.co.uk
Schedule a free email marketing roadmap call
*We strive to do our best when supporting small business and their growth. Our business databases can give you information and data that can help you with advertising, market research, company information, and industry factsheets. If you have already taken the plunge, we would love for you to join us at a seminar, our workshops cover digital marketing, business model canvas and planning, demystifying taxes and intellectual property to name a few. Visit our events page or website for more information.
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