Traditional advertising is out of the question for small business. It always has been. The average super bowl ad costs 4 million dollars for a 30 second commercial. Let that sink in for a moment…4 million dollars!!!
Even regular television spots cost thousands of dollars. With this kind of cash being spent on TV ads, you may think big business has small business beat. However, small business has a secret weapon – email marketing.
The Benefits of Email Marketing
A few short years ago, traditional advertising was the only way to reach a customer. Choices were often reduced to throwing money into newspaper advertising or a commercial spot on television. Money alone can no longer get buyer attention.
This is the old way of doing things.
5 reasons why email marketing crushes traditional advertising:
1. It is cheaper.
Commercial advertising has become a waste of money. Today’s average TV has hundreds of channels to choose from.
Viewers are skipping commercials. Technologies like DVR allow people to record favorite shows and fast forward through commercials. Netflix has also decreased the effectiveness of commercials. They simply aren’t worth the investment.
Email marketing is dirt-cheap. Every business needs CRM software to track buyer activity. The good ones include email marketing too.
2.Targeting options.
Television and print advertisement only offers age demographics to target your ad budget. Demographic information does not provide a way to tell who actually sees the advertisement.
In contrast, email marketing lets you target your campaigns based on an infinite number of buyer characteristics. CRM data lets you create ideal buyer personas, which is a profile of your perfect customer.
No email is wasted. You know exactly who is getting it and why you sent it to them.
3.More interactive.
Traditional advertisements are passive. There is no real engagement.
Most people hardly pay attention to commercials.
Viewers skip over the advertisements of newspapers completely.
Readers consider direct mail to be “junk mail”.
Email is interactive. Prospects open it, scan it quickly and decide if they want to respond right away.
Good email content causes a click through to immediately engage with your business. It also opens up a direct dialog between the prospect and your business.
4.More personal.
Let your personality shine in your emails. The beauty of email marketing is it lets you put a face and virtual “voice” to your business.
Faceless corporations turn off today’s customer. Email offers a small business the opportunity to give its customers the mom and pop store feel they crave.
5.Better measurability.
With email everything can be measured. Your CRM dashboard allows you to see who is opening your emails and clicking through to your site. This makes it easy and cheap to adjust campaigns mid-stream.
Leave the million dollar ads to big business. Email marketing offers everything your business needs to thrive. Use it as your secret weapon.