Marketing today is data driven. You need data to send emails, send ground mail, send invitations to events, make sales calls and check on customer’s records when they come into your store.

Everything runs off computers. Computers don’t understand uncertainty. Everything in a computer’s world is black or white. Your data is right or it’s wrong.

When you send an email to one of your customers called “Alan” you want the email to say “Dear Alan” not “Dear Jane”. But if your customer database is a mess, you can easily end up addressing “Alan” as “Jane”. 

According to the Direct Marketing Association email marketing offers a roughly $40 return on investment (ROI) for every $1 spent. Compared to the $17 ROI of SEO marketing and the mere $2 ROI of banner ad marketing.

Email is an essential component of any company’s marketing repertoire. It boosts sales, cultivates customer loyalty, and provides a high return on investment. But it is important to remember that not all email campaigns are created equal.

When it comes to crafting effective email campaigns, list segmentation is a powerful tool. Email segmentation refers to the practice of dividing (or “segmenting”) your email database into various small groups.

Email marketing is the power tool in a local business’s digital marketing toolbox.

In their research MarketingSherpa estimates email ROI as 119% but even higher for smaller businesses (with less than 100,000 email addresses), in this case ROI is 139%.

When it comes to email marketing, an e-newsletter is a tried-and-true way to keep in touch with your prospects and clients until they are ready to buy.

But how can you create an e-newsletter that people will actually read?

None of us are short of emails to read. So when you’re a local business owner sending your own email what can you do to improve the chances that your email is opened, read and some nice people actually take the action you want?