How To Start Email Marketing… Without Emails?

Many of our customers ask about email marketing features and how they can incorporate them into their marketing plan. They recognise the added value, but at the same time, they are concerned about their lack of email addresses from their clients.

This article will propose a way to “bypass” this problem and find the emails you need.

Email Marketing

According to most research, email marketing is one of the most efficient digital marketing tools for all types and sizes of businesses. Therefore, we should incorporate it into every company’s communication and marketing strategy.

When done right, it builds a consistent relationship and trustworthiness with your customers. Keep in mind that email marketing is not just a communication medium. It is a development tool! It is a tool to engage new customers and, at the same time, maintain existing ones.

In addition, most email marketing platforms incorporate landing page capabilities with sign-up forms to grow your mailing lists.

In my point of view:

1. If you need a landing page, build it with a marketing platform tool (e.g. MailChimp, Sendinblue, mailer lite )
2. If you are interested in email marketing, start with the proper tool.

Nevertheless, for some companies, the problem is that they do not have enough emails. Traditionally, it was a common practice for most companies to get their customers’ mobiles but not to ask for their email.

Therefore, we have the problem of small email volumes, but, on the other hand, we have enough mobile phones to start with.

SMS Marketing

SMS marketing is not new, as it has been a massive trend recently. The character restrictions and the inability of “rich content” put it in a stall for a while, but new platforms (like Viber, WhatsApp etc.) “revitalised” it.

Do not forget:

• SMS messages have an open rate of more than 90%
• Text messages have over 200% higher response rates than the phone, email, or social media.
• 90% of SMS messages are read within 3 minutes.

Source: 35+ Must-Know SMS Marketing Statistics in 2020

Let us return to the problem: emails: NO – mobile phones: YES. 

Why don’t we combine these two marketing tools?

Let’s see how:

Step 1: Create a landing page through our email marketing platform, including a sign-up form (we want the emails). Publish it, copy its url and minimise it (bitly.com, cutt.ly etc.)

Step 2: Create an engaging SMS (traditional and rich-text), including the landing page’s url and send it to your mobile phone list (SMS and/or Viber). You can even try giving an incentive gift 😉!

Step 3: You collect your clients’ emails and grow your email list on the landing page.

Step 4: Repeat the action to maximise results (You can monitor url clicks in the SMS! Resend to non-openers and “non-clickers’)

Step 5: Start moving towards pure email marketing campaigns.

Step 6: Incorporate such campaigns into your regular marketing plan.

Summarising

Email marketing is the most efficient way of digital communication and business development, building a stronger relationship with your customers.

On the other hand, SMS marketing is slightly more expensive but more direct and with higher open rates.

Combining these tools, you maximise the results of your marketing budget.

Important Notes

1. Creating engaging content is crucial, especially if you have character length limitations.
2. It takes time! Don’t expect that one single action will bring all emails from your clients! Building a solid email list is a long-term strategy.
3. You can use the same procedure to drive your customers to your social media.
4. You can use the reversed action to collect mobile phones using email marketing campaigns 😃
5. This procedure will also help clean up your mobile list (some of them may be non-valid).
6. Always follow GDPR!

At UNIQUE marketing & development Consulting, we have extensive email and SMS marketing experience for more than ten years. If you are interested in exploiting the capabilities of email marketing in your marketing strategy, we are just one click or one phone away 🙂