After working with over 40 companies this past year, I realized that there is a key set of email marketing campaigns for small businesses that not only help generate revenue but also keep consumers engaged & coming back for more.
Email Marketing provides significant ROI in many of our clients’ email marketing campaigns, ranging from $17-$53 in revenue for every $1 spent. Email marketing also tends to rank much higher than other marketing platforms such as social media or paid social. We have experienced clients who earn as much as 10x the revenue in their email marketing campaigns compared to their paid advertisements or social media efforts!
Segmenting plays a large role in the success of an email marketing campaign. There can be up to a 760% increase in revenue from segmented campaigns (email campaigns sent to a subset of members of your email list) versus the one-size-fits-all all approach (source), so be sure that the email campaigns you choose align with your target audience and their needs.
Keep reading to learn about 15 email marketing campaigns that can help your small business grow!
Welcome Drip
The welcome drip is a sequence of emails that welcomes new subscribers/customers to your business and introduces your company and services. Some email drips are as few as 1 email, while others can span an entire year or longer. Some companies will choose to include a small coupon (10% or 15% off their first order) in return for subscribing.
One of our clients has a welcome drip that generates almost $5000 every 6 months!
Regardless of whether you include this incentive, it’s important to welcome customers onto your list and let them know what to expect from subscribing to your business.
Holidays
Small businesses can take advantage of holidays as triggers for emailing customers and clients in multiple ways.
- Discounts
Creating holiday-themed sales can generate immediate revenue. Be creative like, 22% off on Earth Day (on 4/22) or a week-long sale in preparation for things like Thanksgiving or Mother’s Day. Cyber Monday is another huge day in eCommerce sales, and email promotions are key in many companies’ marketing plans for that day. - Greeting Card Emails
Holidays are commonly a time to celebrate and reach out to others. Sending greeting card emails creates another touch point that keeps your business top of mind and connected to its audiences.
Anniversary
Similar to holidays, celebrating anniversaries creates a perfect opportunity to reach out to your email subscribers and keep them engaged. Consider the following anniversary emails:
- Company anniversary – Celebrating the founding of your company every year, especially during the first few years and larger milestones, can help your subscribers feel part of your journey. Especially if you share all the improvements and growth you’ve seen.
- Customer anniversary – Yearly messages marking the number of years a client has been with your company show them you care and pay attention to the relationship. You might even want to celebrate by giving them something in return for their loyalty. (This can also include birthdays, actual wedding anniversaries, etc.)
Events
Events are the perfect opportunity to engage your email subscribers. There are lots of emails that can be created for an event, including:
- Community parade
- Volunteer or Giveback Opportunity
- Expo
- Contest
- And more!
Don’t be afraid to send multiple emails about the same event to your customers, especially if you’re starting a promotion weeks or months in advance.
A good rule of thumb is to segment your list to ensure that people who RSVP or register are taken off of the reminder emails so they aren’t receiving information trying to entice them to go to something they’re already going to. You can also use the information from the participants at the event to send them a thank you email afterward (and maybe include a discount for future events!)
Freebie Drip
Some companies offer free trials or products in exchange for signing up for an email list. You can create a drip campaign that is similar to a welcome drip, but includes information about how to receive the freebie. Another email that can be featured in this drip campaign could be:
- information about what to do with the freebie
- how that free item or service is connected to your other products or services
- how to buy a full-size item or service once the freebie has been used.
Sales Promotions
We’ve already mentioned sales several times and that’s because they serve as a great trigger for sending an email campaign! A sales promo can range from anything related to holidays, in-store promotions, flash sales, and even event-related sales. This is customizable to your business and the specific sale you’re running, and a good rule of thumb is to always have at least one announcement email and one reminder email. This can change depending on how long the sale lasts and the amount of inventory available.
How-To Drip / Guide
Do you have a product that requires some base-level knowledge, or a service that needs a more in-depth explanation? Then a how-to guide can be a great tool to ensure customers’ success. This is another example of a welcome drip campaign that focuses on the products or services more in-depth than a traditional welcome email series.
Challenge Drip
Some companies, particularly ones in the fitness industry, will offer challenges to their customers through an email drip campaign. Getting signed up for the challenge involves giving you their email, which starts the drip.
A first email detailing the contents of the challenge and maybe even some downloadables/references to look at before beginning could be included.
Emails can be sent during the challenge, updating customers on their progress or what’s coming next in the program.
At the end of the challenge, you can give your customers the option to sign up for services, another challenge, or as an opportunity to promote some of the other products you offer.
Reviews/testimonials
The best form of marketing comes from your customers! Good customer reviews are key to a successful business, and they should definitely be used in your other marketing efforts.
- Get Reviews – Use your email list to encourage customers to give testimonials, reviews, and other user-generated content. Sending post-purchase emails of this type is a great way to earn more public reviews.
- Celebrate Customers – Conversely, you can use customer testimonials and reviews in your emails and celebrate customer stories. You can pull stories from public reviews on Google or Facebook, look up social media content mentioning your company or even sharing case studies published to your website.
FAQs
If a customer joins your email list, there’s a good chance they’re interested in what your company has to offer.
Sending emails about your frequently asked questions is a great way to draw people into your products or services, and it clears up any lingering questions they may have had.
Letting them reply to the email with other questions is also an easy way to find out if there are things your customers want to know about that you should add to the FAQ section of your website.
New product/service announcement
When you get new products or services, you want to tell your customers! Some companies will use their email list as their “exclusive drop” list, where they will give their customers insider information about new releases before anyone else. This is a great incentive for customers to join the email list, and it helps you get product information out there faster≥
Abandoned Cart Drip
A drip that works best for pulling customers back to your site is the abandoned cart drip. Using triggers on your website, you can target customers who visited specific pages, such as product pages or their cart. Sending reminder emails lets customers know what they left behind, and it incentivizes them to come back and purchase. This drip takes a little bit of prep work, but once it’s set up it’ll be an easy way to bring customers back to the site and get more revenue.
One of our client’s abandoned cart email campaigns has an ROI of over 17000%.
Blog highlight
The content you create should be used over and over again on all of your platforms. Recycling content is the easiest way to create a cohesive brand, and it also can reach new customers. If you have any news or blog sections on your website, highlighting them in an email is an easy way to earn website traffic and build trust. Don’t be afraid to reshare content multiple times, especially when it’s been a while and you know you have lots of new subscribers who haven’t seen any of it yet.
Recommendations
When someone purchases a product or service from you, your relationship doesn’t have to end there. You could provide recommendations for add-ons, or affiliate products. Bringing attention to everything your business has to offer can only pay off in the long run.
Upsell Drip
Much like adding recommendations, upselling is a natural next step. Customers who already use your product or service have trust in your brand and will be more likely to pay for more. Consider the following:
- A product-based business, you could choose to send a follow-up email after their order has been delivered with some products that go well with what they bought.
- A service-based business could send an email promoting additional services commonly purchased by other clients.
Upselling through email can be just as effective as upselling in a store, and it can be made into an automated drip campaign to make it even easier!
The options for email campaigns are never-ending, and businesses are always finding new ways to engage their customer lists through email. If you’re struggling to generate new revenue or leads through email, try one of these campaigns out for yourself!
Related Questions
When is the best time to send emails?
Our clients typically see higher open and click-through rates in the mornings, but it is entirely up to your specific business and industry. If you don’t have any prior emails to base your research on, start testing different days and times with your future emails to see which ones perform the best. Just because 10 am works well on Mondays, doesn’t always mean you’ll have the same luck at 10 am on Fridays..
How do I segment my email list?
All businesses will segment their customer lists differently, but some general segmentation lists could include prospects, customers, repeat customers, past customers, and much more. You can use automated email platforms to speed up this process, and it makes it easier in the long run when you gain more customers to automatically add them to their respective lists.
There are many ways to segment an email list, and there are a variety of factors that contribute to a successful segmented list. Here are a couple of questions to consider when segmenting your customer list:
- What are the stages of my customers’ journeys?
- What problems are my customers facing, and how can my product/service solve them?
- What dates did my customers sign up for my emails?
- Do I need to consider their demographics in my segmentation?
Segmenting your email list allows you to choose who receives which emails from your company. There is a good chance everyone on your email list is not at the same stage of decision-making, and so there is no reason for them to receive a bunch of emails that do not pertain to their specific case. Although it takes some prep work from the beginning, a successfully segmented email list will make it easy for you and your team to send information to those who need it most.