Email Marketing Made Simple For Caribbean Businesses with Mailchimp

Mailchimp offers free access to its platform with up to 2,000 email addresses.

COVID-19 has made life inconvenient for your customer. The appeal to ‘dress up’ to go shopping is hindered by the multiple hand sanitisers required before entry. It’s also a deterrent seeing the long lines outside of businesses upholding the minimum number of shoppers allowed inside.

Sadly, your landlord doesn’t want to hear your struggles and you have to pay your staff. As the business owner, you have to make difficult choices and I’m confident you will make the right one. For this blog, I want to give insight into how you can use email marketing to learn about what your customer is thinking. One of the most cost-effective ways to gather information about your customer is Email Marketing.

There are necessary steps you can take to build a customer base to ensure you’re making the best decision for your business, without a big budget. Check out this list to learn more:

A Website…but not really

Mailchimp offers free access to its platform with up to 2,000 email addresses. All you need is an email and time to build a simple ecosystem for your customer. Once you’ve created your profile, you must assign a name to an audience which will help you develop specific actions to that group. For example, women are interested in female-specific apparel and you should speak directly to her, no one else.

The next step is to create a Campaign via a Landing Page that will become your unofficial website. Keeping it simple will increase your chances of users sharing their information. Check out this blog to learn more.

You will not be able to customise the URL with the free version, but it’s a great place to start at no cost.

Opt-In Welcome Email

To avoid arriving in the Junk Mail Folder, create a welcome email for your new audience. Luckily you can automate your message and track the effectiveness of your text via their reporting feature.

Make sure you include Call to Action messages to drive a favourable return on their attention. Ask them to add your email to their address book. Keep it concise.

Email Campaigns

What are you selling? Why should anyone buy it? You need to ask yourself these questions before creating an Email Marketing Campaign. Customers are bogged down with their own struggles. How will your email bring value to their inbox?

Optimise Based on Engagement

Every time you click send on your email campaign; you need to obsess over the numbers. An Open Rate is an indication of how well your subject line was received and the best time to send the email. The Click Through Rate allows you to learn about what your customer wants to see.

Every 3 to 6 months, mull over the numbers and make changes. You are managing a balancing act of creating a rhythm of communication and trying to stay relevant.

Regardless of what happens after the vaccine is approved, your customer will never be the same. Now is the time to build a database that will allow you to pivot based on their new normal.

Follow Pauline on LinkedIn