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We’ve written before about how small and medium businesses (SMBs) went big in email marketing last year, and the reasons behind that gamble. The good news is that, according to several recent studies, that bet paid off. SMBs not only sent significantly more emails in 2020, but they also reaped the rewards of that approach, achieving 61% more online sales than in 2019. Site Impact has always been an advocate for the usefulness of email, of course; but these figures can’t be ignored.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, those businesses that were most impacted by Covid-19 and its associated restrictions leaned harder into email marketing than those whose sales and operations were largely unaffected. A study by MailChimp found that SMBs consistently looked for ways to use email marketing to get the word out about their businesses, and to increase sales at a time that in-person shopping efforts and marketing were fraught with complications. The report shows that this should continue into this year, and potentially even beyond--which shows that the drive to increased email marketing isn’t just a short term trend but almost an inevitability. The business verticals that saw the most impact from the pandemic restrictions adopted more tools than those businesses that were less impacted, but there’s a solid case to be made that competition will drive up adoption.
The biggest goal that SMBs report having for their email marketing campaigns is to educate and inform prospects about their existence. The current global crisis makes more traditional methods of customer outreach and prospect nurturing a lot harder to accomplish; while word of mouth is still a valued method, TV and radio and print media are just not getting the same results--and of course, in-person demonstrations and partnerships just aren’t responsible. Email marketing is a particularly good method for brands of any size to use, and it’s only a matter of time before more SMBs--even those who aren’t as directly impacted by the crisis--begin to come onboard. It’s mostly a question at this point of making that process as easy as possible for marketers who are looking to get into the channel.
Email marketing has been vindicated by SMBs who leaned into the channel hard in 2020 in reaction to restrictions that made it harder to do business in traditional methods. The excellent news is that the gamble on throwing money into email has paid off for almost all of the SMBs that were willing to take the bet, with a major increase in online sales as well as in-person purchases. Marketing efforts by SMBs are largely focused this year in getting the word out, and email marketing will be a big driver of those efforts. Even for those brands that haven’t been directly impacted, it will increasingly be an important tool in the box. Contact Site Impact to learn how we can help you get the word out about your business and what you have to offer.
