6 Email Marketing Tips For Brick And Mortar Businesses

As a brick and mortar business, you want to remain as connected as possible with customers. When they aren’t always popping past your store, email marketing is a great way to keep them up to date with your latest offerings.

You can lure customers in for a visit by sending timely, appealing, and engaging content that will encourage them to make a purchase. If you’re not sure where or how to start, here are 6 tips to make the most of your email marketing to boost sales and drive growth if you can’t afford an email marketing agency.

One of the most important elements of an email marketing campaign for any business is to provide incentives.

But before this, you need to first obtain customer’s emails. You will need to incentivize people into initially joining your email list. 320% more revenue is generated by the welcome email than via any other promotional email. So the simple act of welcoming new customers and signups will already give you a leg up in sales.

But how do you get people to sign up to your email list in the first place? Especially in the age of weary consumers who are inundated with emails every day?

One of the best ways you can do this is by providing discounts and offers. For example, asking customers to sign up for emails, and giving them a percentage discount on their next sale in-store is a great incentive. What’s more enticing for customers than the lure of a juicy discount? Providing customers with a motivation to engage with your promotions is a highly persuasive way of getting people to interact with your brand.

It takes seconds to ask a customer at the register if they’d like to sign up to the mailing list. And inputting the customer’s email address into the system will barely have an impact on the speed at which the sale is processed.

When asking a customer for their email, make sure you inform them of the benefit they will receive. Instead of asking “can I sign you up to our email list?”, say “would you like to join our email list to receive 10% off your next purchase?” By using these positive trigger words, you don’t appear like another annoying company whose mission is to bombard people with advertising, but a business that values and rewards their customers’ support.

If there is one thing that appeals to consumers, it’s the idea that they are receiving something that no one else has. If you can provide your mailing list customers with a range of content, services, or offers that are not available to everyone else, then this exclusivity will attract new signups.

You may want to provide early access to your newest products. But allowing those on your mailing list to buy items days, weeks, or even months before the rest of the general public, will appeal to many. Providing exclusive offers for a limited time, creates a sense of urgency, and will encourage customers to make a purchase to avoid missing out.

Many brick-and-mortar businesses find great success in hosting exclusive events for those very important people that are signed up to their mailing lists.

If you want the customers that come into your brick-and-mortar business to sign up to your email list, then you could do this through the use of competitions. By hosting an instore contest, and inviting your customers to take part at the end of every transaction, you’ll be able to take email addresses as a point of contact for winners. You’ll need to be transparent with your customers about any future marketing that they’ll get from you.

By offering a reasonably large prize, your customers will be more inclined to part with their email address. The prize will be of particular value to the customer if it is something that they can’t get elsewhere. Speak with your major suppliers and see if you can secure a special edition version of an item based on your more popular lines.

One of the great benefits of email marketing is that it can build a connection between you and your customers. One of the best ways that you can do this is by sending out emails that offer insight into your business.

For example, you may want to bring your company’s ethics to the attention of your customers. If there are particular issues that your business feels strongly about addressing, talk about this in the email content that you send out. Your customers will want to hear about how you are tackling certain issues within your industry, such as environmental concerns, or ethical sourcing. If you can provide detail about the strategies that you have in place, and how your business operates in this regard, you’ll earn their respect.

Similarly, your customers may appreciate reading or hearing about how your company is developing its products and what is in the pipeline for the future.

An email doesn’t have to be about getting people to read the text; using video will provide a more immediate response. Of course, with any email marketing that you send out, you’ll need to link back to the products and services that you offer. Try and find a natural link to generate sales and make money through this type of informative email. Another thing to keep in mind is to provide targeted content that is likely to engage your customers. If you’re a fashion retailer, send articles or videos on how people can style themselves during that particular season, or current trends that are likely to encourage people to buy.

For example, Priceline’s email newsletters deliver high-quality content relevant to their customers’ needs while considering their current situation (the global pandemic). This not only shows that their business is supporting customers during this time, but appeals to people by sending targeted, personalized content.

Never miss an opportunity to increase the number of signups that your marketing email list generates. Use the bottom or the back of your receipts to let your customers know how they can sign up to your mailing list, or include email signup details on the back of your product packaging. Perhaps even you could provide a device for them to sign up, such as having an iPad available at the counter for people to quickly and conveniently sign up as you process their purchase.

A form builder is an excellent way to collect customer information and emails. Paperform makes creating forms easy, being able to choose from a range of ready-made templates or create your own interactive, visually appealing form. With more than 1000 integrations available, managing all your subscribers in one place has never been easier.

You could also slip information about your mailing list into a customer’s carrier bag when completing a purchase. Making use of signup codes that customers use when they register online is helpful in tracking where your signups are coming from and gauge the success of each route.

Having customers subscribe via the internet rather than on a physical list, appears more professional, more appealing and better protects your customers’ personal information.

Email marketing software allows you to save time and money from manually sending emails and provides useful features to better manage your campaigns. Softwares have a user-friendly email builder with the drag and drop functionality, built-in email templates, and photo editing. You also have the ability to divide your subscribers into smaller, targeted groups based on your metrics. If you’re worried your emails will look generic and lack personalization, merge tools allow you to replace variables with a recipients name, creating a more warm message that customers will positively react to.

It is vital in any email campaign that you track success through key metrics. Analytics and reports from email marketing software gives you access to information on click-through rates, open rates and unsubscribe rates, all vital in evaluating the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns.

If you don’t know where to start, check out MailUp’s email automation platform.

Once you’ve mastered the basics of getting customer’s emails and creating engaging content, you can pretty much sit back, relax and enjoy letting your email marketing software do the work. By using automation, an attractive and creative design, and appealing content, you can generate a highly effective email marketing campaign that will have people running through your doors.