To increase sales with email marketing, it helps to understand the role that email marketing plays in your sales process.  Email marketing is arguably the most important marketing channel that any business can use.  Before diving into the 5 Steps let’s clarify how to grow a business.

There are only three ways to grow a business:

• Increase the number of leads that convert into customers
  
• Increase the average transaction value per customer
• Increase the number of transactions each customer makes

Email marketing is the only marketing channel that consistently plays a role in all three of these critical business strategies.   Email marketing is used at the top of your marketing funnel to attract new customers and at the end of your marketing funnel to help build relationships, brand awareness and repeat business.  This explains why every $1 spent on email marketing brings in an average return on investment of $44.25. (source)

In addition:

• Email Marketing is 40% better at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter.
• Email Marketing conversion rates are nearly 3 times greater than Social Media
• 90% of large businesses use email marketing to increase profits.

So how do you, as a small business owner, harness the power of email marketing to grow your business?

Follow these 5 simple steps to increase sales with email marketing

Step 1:  First you need a product or service that’s high quality and something people want to purchase.  Be clear on what this is.   Before choosing a product to sell, make sure that it’s a product or service that people want to purchase.  Look for market indicators that show there are customers who are willing, able and ready to spend money.  Two key indicators include:

• competitors who are selling the same or similar product.
• searches on Google that indicate people are looking to purchase your product or service.

Step 2:  Put a system in place that helps you collect the email addresses of both customers and prospective customers. I call this your marketing foundation.  It’s also known as your “marketing funnel.” Your foundation will function differently based on the type of business that you have.  Your system must include:

1. a marketing software tool that will help you collect and manage the email addresses of your customers and potential customers.  Constant Contact and Aweber are two of my favorites for small businesses.
2. An action plan for collecting the email addresses. This might be a squeeze page or opt-in form on your website or a sign up form at the register of your brick and mortar store.   Train your staff on the importance of asking customers for an email address and make it a win/win for the customer and for the business.  Offer something of value to your customer in exchange for an email address.  Suggestions include:
   1. a free valued added and quality report (like this one), video or e-book that will help the customer solve a problem
   2. access to VIP access and coupons for your business.
   3. value added newsletter.

Step 3:   You need a traffic source that targets your ideal customer.  This means that you need an advertising plan in place.   that lets your customers know about your offer.  Your media plan may include:

• Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn Ads
• Google Adwords
• Social Media
• Blogging
• SEO
• Television, Radio or Print
• Targeted Email Marketing Solo Ads.

Step 4:  You need a quality communication strategy that will help skyrocket your business. This is where the rubber meets the road.  In step 2 you put together a system for collecting the email addresses.  In step 4, your marketing software delivers the requested information via email.   The customer opens the email and consumes it and you continue to follow up periodically with a series of follow up emails that drives your customer deeper into your marketing funnel.  These follow up emails build a relationship and remind your customers that you have a solution to a problem that they are having.   Your follow up series might consist of a daily email or a monthly newsletter.

Step 5:  You need a strategy that will convert the people that signed up for your list into new and repeat customers. This helps you increase the number of transactions that each customer makes.  The goal here is provide strategic communication that encourages your customer to buy from you again and again.  This is the step where you bring people back through  different marketing funnels and introduce them to new products and services.  In this step you measure your results based on the click through rates and sales made from your newsletter.  Use the data provided by your email marketing software to measure what content your audience prefers and make smart business decisions based on the information that you receive.  This can be done by:

• review open rates to help identify your most loyal fans and customers.
• review the types of links that readers click on and provide more of that kind of content.
• segment your list based on the data that you measure.

There you have it, the 5 Simple Steps to Increase Sales with Email Marketing.  How are you reaching out to your customers again and again?  Tell us in the comments below.