Welcome to this weeks guest blogger Camilla Gilbro. Camilla is the community manager at iwoca. Camilla graduated from Copenhagen 
Business School, with a degree in business communication and since then she has been helping to make life easier for small and medium enterprise businesses by offering advice and sharing experiences via entrepreneur magazines and websites. Today she offers an insight into email marketing.
Many online sellers think that marketing is only for larger corporations. This is in no way the case, but there are certainly different ways of doing marketing, according to size and purpose of the corporation. While larger companies have the benefit of having more capital to do crazier things, smaller businesses have other advantages. One incredible one is the possibility of being personal. Many studies show that personalized marketing works many times better, simply because people like feeling special. We all know that feeling, when someone tells us they thought of us, because of something specific we did or because of who we are. It makes you feel happy.
So make use of that!
E-mail marketing is a brilliant way to target your customers and is a marketing technique that is said to get a massive comeback in 2013. You should use this. Alright, but how? There are several different ways to do this.
1) Make a special deal for your customers. Offer them free shipping or 10% off if they purchase something within the next 30 days. But don’t just do this, remember to inform them why. Because they’re special, because they’ve shopped in your store on several occasions, because you want to let them know you know them.
2) Then to make it really cool, if you can, look at their previous purchases and lead them to something you think could actually be of interest to them. So if they always purchase skirts, send them a link to something similar. For your buyers this will make them aware that you really pay attention to their shopping habits which will, obviously, make them feel special.
3) Alright, so don’t spam the people on your mailing list. That’s just annoying. But, you can also use these e-mails for other things than giving out offers. Did you just re-design your own website? Let people know! Maybe they didn’t even know you had a website and you just got some new customers.
E-mail marketing doesn’t have to be all about fancy html or about massive news. Make sure the content is relevant to the people you send it to, and then most importantly make use of the tools you have as an online seller. Few large companies have the possibility to personalize their marketing in the same way you have. It’s all about making the most of the situation you’re in.
If you want to learn more, HubSpot did an amazing eBook on e-mail marketing and how to make the most of it, no matter who you are or what you do.
About iwoca: Based in London, iwoca is a startup technology company founded by experienced technology and finance professionals. As entrepreneurs we understand your business needs far better than your local bank manager. The world shops online now and internet retailers like you have the potential to increase their turnover tenfold in the coming years – Click here to visit our website and lean more about us.