Using eMail Marketing for Your Local Business

Internet marketers are fond of saying “Build a list, build a list!” Under the best of circumstances this is a difficult challenge, but even more for a local business.

Say you’re a car dealer, landscaper, chiropractor, hair salon or real estate agent. What is the point of building a list of email subscribers?

The job of the marketer

If you were to draw a little schematic diagram of the marketing process you might begin with two boxes. On the left is Box A – “My Products” – the things you sell to people, and on the right is Box B – “My Target Market” – the individuals, companies or organizations you are trying to sell to.

As a marketer your job is to push information about Box A to the people in Box B. You have to do it in a convincing enough way that some people in Box B will buy some of the stuff in Box A.

Breaking down your target market

Say you have a home renovation business and you want to market it to your local community. Who is in Box B? What is your “Target Market”? Or to put it another way, who should you address your marketing efforts towards?

The easy part is coming up with a rough statement something like this:

“My target market is Homeowners within a 30 mile radius of my home base”

Fair enough. But when you start to think about this a bit more you realize there are important sub-divisions within your target market. And each of these sub-divisions may require a slightly different message.

The most important sub-divisions will be between groups with different levels of attachment to your business – typically the list will look something like this:

- current customers
- warm prospects (including past customers)
- cold prospects

Generally speaking the job of the marketer is to move people up the ladder – to turn them from “cold prospects” to “warm prospects” and then to “current customers”. Having a carefully developed email list is a great way to feed right into this process.

How this applies to List Building

First, to have an effective email system you will probably need more than one list. A good place to start is to have one list for current customers, and a second list for warm prospects. What you need is the ability to tailor your messages to different segments of your target market.

Second, you have to realize we are basically talking here about a “permission-based” email system. This is one that subscribers have opted into (either explicitly or implicitly). Anybody who has voluntarily joined your list is automatically a “warm prospect” – someone who has expressed some level of interest in your products or services. And obviously current customers are the warmest contacts (and prospects for future business) that you have.

Third, “cold prospects” are, by definition, not on your list. They are just out there in a faceless mass waiting to be introduced to your company and converted to warm prospects.

Challenges of moving people up the ladder

The challenges involved in this kind of system are pretty clear.

1. First, how do you turn “cold prospects” into “warm prospects”?

This is another way of asking how you get them on your list. The standard answer is “Advertise”. Since you cannot reach these people in a “personal” way (such as email) you have to reach them in an impersonal way.

This does not usually mean sending out mass emails to people who have not opted into your list. Rather it usually means running ads in places like Google Adwords, Kijiji, or Facebook.

These ads can all be targeted to specific groups (homeowners, for example). In your ad you make an offer for a “free home renovation guide” or whatever. In order to receive the free gift they have to sign up giving you their name, email address, and (sometimes) phone number. By signing up they become “warm”. You’ve moved them up the ladder.

2. Second, how do you turn “warm” prospects into paying customers.

In theory this is relatively simple. You keep in touch with the people on your list by sending them a message on a regular basis.

Most eMail marketers will send out a combination of different types of messages. Some will be strictly informative with no sales pitch at all. Others will offer a “free” service – a “gift”. Some will encourage people to get involved by commenting on a blog post or by entering a contest. And others will be a sales pitch for products or services, often in the form of a “special offer” – a discount, for example.

The long term objective is not just to enhance your brand, but to build a relationship of trust with your warm prospects, and ultimately, to turn them into customers. Email marketing lets you reach different segments of your target market with different messages. That makes it ideal for tailoring your message to the specific job required for each segment.

Tagged as: Email Marketing, email strategy, List Building, local business promotion