Email marketing on a budget #4 Competing

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business successThe famous level playing field is sloping precariously. If you're an SME with a small email marketing budget, the prospect of competing for inbox attention with the corporate behemoths is intimidating. What can you do?

Lots, as it turns out. Particularly if you take the inherent advantages of being smaller and apply them to your emails.

In the final part of this series, our panel of experts describes how to best compete with big retailers or service providers in a fatigued inbox...

Use your own voice and be authentic


It's harder for a large company to use the kind of human, personable voice that resonates well with readers. Especially when trying to conform with corporate and brand communication guidelines. So this is an area where smaller businesses can prosper.

The key, says Michael Katz of Blue Penguin Development, is to sound like a human being in your communications. He adds:

"I know, it sounds obvious, but one of the biggest built-in weaknesses of large companies is that so much is written/approved by committee. Good communication has nothing to do with how well financed you are... focus on authentic communication and you'll stand out every time."

Justin Premick, Education Marketing Manager at AWeber, echoes the point, suggesting you write the way you would speak to a customer, friends or family in real life.

What your emails might lack in terms of 'marketing polish' is "...more than made up for by the credibility and likability that they promote."

Focus on substance


Many large companies underperform at email marketing because of the inevitable implications of scale. There is a temptation to focus on style more than substance, image more than content.

SMEs can win by reversing that approach: substance over style, content over image.

Raj Khera, CEO of MailerMailer, emphasizes the point:

"...over time, most people value content over style. We have numerous cases of clients with simple, very basic-looking newsletters getting extraordinarily high open and click rates because of the richness in their content. Deliver something valuable and your recipients will keep their fingers off of the delete button."

Get genuinely personal


As Justin Premick puts it:

"Large companies sell products with their emails; SMEs sell themselves."

If you've had personal contact with the people on your list, use that connection. Dan Forootan, CEO of StreamSend notes:

"...having the message come from a real person helps distinguish the sender from a large institutional mass mailer."

Exploit your knowledge


This closeness to customers gives the typical SME a solid understanding of the offers and information that people want: knowledge you can put into your emails.

Steve Adams, Vice President Marketing for Campaigner says:

"The best email communications are highly personalized. This is where small businesses have an advantage. For example, an independent bookseller can send highly targeted emails to individuals based on their stated preferences, with the email coming from the store owner - a name the customer will recognize."

Janine Popick, CEO of VerticalResponse is even more forceful:

"The larger retailers tend to communicate in a "one size fits all" fashion, but you have the luxury of maybe even knowing your customers face to face! Put some attitude and personality in your emails and your recipients will want to hear from you..."

On a small list, SMEs can handcraft individual emails to the best customers. Or use the tools provided by their email marketing service or software to better match content, offers and subscriber preferences (see Part 3).

Many people don't realize that even the very value-priced services now offer the kind of tools and features only large corporate accounts could have accessed a couple of years ago (see Derek Harding's recent ClickZ article for more on this).

Build 2-way communication


A smaller list means you can more easily enter a dialogue with individual subscribers. And use that dialogue to build a stronger relationship and learn lessons for future emails.

Raj Khera observes:

"Our email marketing metrics reports consistently show that smaller lists have higher response rates. This is usually due to the fact that owners of smaller lists have stronger, tighter relationships with their recipients."

Steve Adams says:

"Don't just sign up customers to join your list and then leave it at that. Stay in touch and get closer to them by continually asking what their current interests and needs are and basing all of your email promotions on their feedback."

And Justin Premick adds:

"Use a real address in your from line instead of a "Do Not Reply" address and actively encourage subscribers to contact you. Large companies view email replies as a cost to be avoided, while SMEs view them as an opportunity to overcome objections, build trust and close sales."

Get the basics right and learn from others


The assumption that big resources equals better email doesn't always hold true. Fact is that a lot of your competitors aren't applying some of the proven, basic tactics that underpin a successful email marketing program.

Get the basics right and you already have a head start.

Equally, large businesses do a lot of great things with email and not every concept requires specialist tools or big investment to reproduce. As Steve Adams says:

"I would suggest signing up for competitor newsletters and doing some ghost shopping to see how they handle upsell, loyalty and onboarding (welcome) messaging. This will help you see what they do well and how you can do it better to make your email messages stand out."

More on the basics of email advertising | Tags: ,

[This post brought to you by Campaigner Email Marketing]
Permalink | February 24, 2009 | 0 comment(s) - add yours!
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