One of the most challenging parts of starting your own supplement business is actually getting people to find your brand and make a purchase. Connecting with your customers and providing them value will help you to gain their trust and loyalty. One of the best ways to do this is through email.
The Value of Email Marketing
Right now social media marketing is all the rage and it seems like that’s all anyone ever wants to talk about. One question that we hear a lot is whether or not email marketing is even still relevant! Well despite the fact that social media is an amazing marketing tool and a great way to connect to your customers, email still holds a very important role in any marketing mix.
Here are a few of the major pros of email marketing:
- Targeted content
- Communicate directly
- One-on-one communication
- Send exclusive offers and deliverables
- In-depth analytics
- Good ROI
Email marketing is your way of connecting directly with your customer one-on-one with no middle man. As social media marketing evolves so do social media platforms. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram make millions on paid advertising so they’ve adjusted their algorithms to make it more difficult for companies to reach their customers organically. You’re not imagining things, everyone is seeing less of their favorite brands in their newsfeed forcing brands to pay for ads in order to reach their customers.
That’s why curating an email list is so important! When you email your customer you’re communicating with them directly. You can send a personalized message with custom content that will appeal to that person. Social media is not a great platform for targeted content because there’s no real way to target different groups with different posts. You can also see exactly which emails they’re opening and clicking through so you know what is or isn’t working.
Most importantly is the fact that it works! Email marketing provides some of the best return on investment of any marketing activity. Some research shows that email marketing returns $38 for every $1 spent. That’s some crazy good ROI!
How to Start Building Your Email List
Building your email list takes time and patience but your efforts will be well rewarded. Don’t let building your list overwhelm you or stop you from getting started. Everyone has to start somewhere, no one starts out with an email list that has thousands of subscribers, and that’s ok.
All you have to do is start out with the emails you already have, don’t buy emails. Go into your email and export your contacts list. Yes, it’s that easy to get started. After you’ve gathered all the email contacts that you already have it’s time to start building out that list. There are a few different ways you can do that. Below are a few simple ideas.
Website Pop-Ups
Exit pop-ups and timed pop-ups can sometimes be annoying but they can also be great! The reason that so many websites use them is that they work. Your pop-up can simply ask people to sign up for your newsletter, a coupon offer, or a piece of valuable content like an eBook.
Newsletter Sign-Up
This is pretty commonplace to see on any website. Make signing up for your newsletter easy. Not many people will sign up this way but it should at least be an option. If someone loves your brand so much they want to get emails from you, give them an easy path to do that.
Gated Content
Gated lead content is one of the most popular and effective ways to grow your list. It’s called gated because it’s locked behind a “gate” and their email is the key. You’ll also just hear it called lead content or a lead magnet, I’ve even heard it called a content upgrade. You’re giving them a valuable piece of content like an eBook, healthy recipes, supplement guide etc. they’re giving you their email in return.
The video below explains in depth how to grow your email list using YouTube and a lead magnet. While he talk specifically about YouTube this can also easily be applied to any social media platform.
Types of Emails
There are many types of emails from automated email series’ to abandoned cart emails. Keep things simple to start out with and pick one type of emails to send. The most common and a great place to start would be a newsletter.
A newsletter email allows you to send weekly updates to your customers and non-customers alike. Your newsletters can contain offers, new product releases, blog posts, testimonials, etc. Continually pummeling your email list with offers and sales pitches can turn them off to your brand and increase unsubscribe rates.
Remember that marketing isn’t about making a sale right away, it’s about educating your customer, creating a relationship and gaining their trust. Your emails should reflect a desire to provide value and service to your customers.
Experiment with your subject lines and email styles. See what your customers respond to and work from there. Remember quality over quantity. Having a huge list that doesn’t participate isn’t as useful as a fully engaged email list that’s smaller.
Top Free Email Marketing Platforms
There is a wide variety of free email marketing platforms available these days. With so many different free options it can be a little overwhelming. It also means that there’s sure to be an option that fits your needs. Like any free marketing tool there are limitations but you can get a taste and a feel of the platform before you decide to go for the paid version. For those just getting started you might be able to get away with the free version for a while but it’s important to consider how you might use it in the future.
HubSpot
HubSpot is a CRM platform with a wide variety of tools in addition to email. According to them, “HubSpot’s CRM platform has all the tools and integrations you need for marketing, sales, content management, and customer service. Each product in the platform is powerful alone, but the real magic happens when you use them together.” It’s a great platform for getting a lot done all in one place. If you think it’s a platform you might use as your business grows it’s a great idea to start testing out it’s capabilities by using their free email marketing feature.
Mailchimp
One of the most well known, free email marketing platforms out there is Mailchimp. With their free version you can collect up to 2,000 contacts for free. You can also setup signup forms as well as a marketing CRM. In addition you get access to their subject line helper function and 1-step automation. And because Mailchimp is a well established email marketing tool there are over 250+ app integrations making it an extremely powerful tool.
Sender
While Sender hasn’t been around as long as Mailchimp it’s definitely a platform you should consider for their free service. According to them, “Sender empowers you to quickly and easily keep in touch with your customers and grow your business – while spending much less.” They offer a variety of templates as well as the ability to create your own without having to know code. If that wasn’t enough, their free plan lets you have 2,500 contacts, 15,000 email sends per month and all their features for free!
Omnisend
Ominisend is designed to help you do more than just simple email marketing; It also offers SMS messaging features. This would allow you to text customers/leads which is a huge deal. Of course SMS messaging isn’t included in their free features but if it’s something you know you want to do in the future, you might as well get started with email. Like Sender, Omnisend allows you to send up to 15,000 emails a month for free.
The Takeaway
While email marketing does require an investment of time, it has one of the highest ROIs of any form of marketing. When you build an email list you can take it with you anywhere unlike your followers on Facebook or YouTube. Social media is a great tool to help you build your email list so that you can take your followers with you anywhere. The important part is to get started now instead of later!
Read: How to Leverage Your Network to Boost Your Business