Running a small business is a tough job. You have plenty to manage and may need to pick and choose exactly how you spend your time. There are a lot of ways to handle marketing, both on and offline.

Some small business owners feel that email might be outdated. When deciding where to put your focus, you may decide that email marketing simply isn’t worth it.

Not only is email one of the best forms of marketing, but it’s also one of the cheapest and easiest to use. Keep reading to learn how to make email marketing work for you.

Easily provide customer support

There will be many times throughout your career when you need to provide customer support. A client may have a complaint or just want to ask a question. Email is by far the most convenient option available.

Live chat is quicker, but small business owners are rarely able to make themselves available that often. People are also making fewer phone calls. However, email marketing allows customers to reach out comfortably.

Even better, you can take time to personalize a response and answer it when you’re able. It’s a win-win form of communication.

Save time through automation

Email marketing might seem daunting if you imagine sending individual messages. Collecting, sorting, writing, and sending them one at a time would definitely be inefficient. But small business don’t need to live in the dark ages.

There are now some incredible email marketing services. Some of them, such as Constant Contact, are free to use and offer a range of tools. You can create emails with their templates, schedule a send-on date, and get back to other business.

Virtual word-of-mouth marketing

Word-of-mouth marketing isn’t something that you can engineer. It’s the term used when a current or prospective customer shares why they love your business with someone else. Word of mouth is powerful too and generates strong leads.

The best you can do (besides offering desirable products and services) is make word-of-mouth marketing as easy as possible.

Email are forwardable. If you take time to craft a fun and inspiring message, it may go well beyond your mailing list. Those who enjoy what you have to say can click one button and spread awareness for you.

Give consumers options

In-person marketing and networking depends on a certain amount of proactivity. You need to approach others and hand out business cards (try a free tool like Business Cards). The goal is that you will inspire them to contact you.

Not everyone is comfortable being so direct. When you offer email marketing, your customers have a choice. They can volunteer email address when and if they want to without feeling pressured.

And while we hope they stick around, clicking unsubscribe is the easier way to stop receiving unwanted messages.

It won’t impact your budget

We’ve saved the best for last, of course. Small businesses have a tight budget – that’s just the nature of things. Successfully promoting your business may require you to purchase a website or pay for advertisements.

In contrast, this option is free. You create the messages yourself and can use a free service to automate send-outs. It also saves you a significant amount of work – you won’t cut into your limited budget of time either.

If you’re still on the fence about email marketing, we encourage you to pursue it. It really does add a lot of value to the experience for the customer. And of course, it can only make your job easier. You can check out Constant Contact, or any of the other services available.

Start writing your first Welcome message today.

Article by Jenna Douglas