If I had a pound for every time I’d heard this, I’d be sat on a beach in Spain. However, in my experience, when you ask the person their rationale, they clam up and say “It just doesn’t”.

The Buying Decision Process

How often have you seen a billboard advertisement for the first time and rushed to the shops? How many times do you watch a TV advertisement, or receive a newspaper insert and buy there and then? The answer, at least for the large part, will be very rarely.

Most of us enter some kind of buying “decision process”, whereby we assess & evaluate before reaching our decision. That process might follow this typical flow:

1. Problem/need recognition i.e. I need more new customers – This is often identified as the first and most important step in the decision process. A purchase cannot take place without the recognition of the need
2. Information search i.e. what can I do that will get new customers quickly – The next step a customer may take is the information search stage, in order to find out what they feel is the best solution
3. Evaluation of alternatives i.e. do I need data and if so, what data do I need – People will evaluate different products or brands at this stage based on which have the ability to deliver the benefits the customer is seeking
4. Purchase decision i.e. purchase marketing list – This involves making the actual decision
5. Post-purchase behaviour i.e. was this data list a success – customers will compare products with their previous expectations and will be either satisfied or dissatisfied. This stage is critical when retaining customers. If your customer is satisfied, this will result in brand loyalty.

Let me tell you right now – Email Marketing DOES Work!

I’ve been in this industry for almost 20 years and I’ve seen how direct marketing has evolved. The growth of email shows no sign of abating and the reason for that is … it works!

Emailing regularly and consistently to your customers and prospects alike fulfils several purposes:

• It keeps you in the mind of the recipient
• It builds brand recognition
• It shows loyalty
• It builds trust

All of those come before we even get into the content of your email! Even if your email isn’t opened, your brand has been seen by those recipients.

But Sending Weekly Emails Takes Too Much Time …

There’s no doubting you need to spend a bit of time preparing an email broadcast. Writing the email, formatting it, loading it onto the platform for broadcast – all takes time. However, that time gets shorter after the first time, as you have your template ready to simply amend. Furthermore, once done, you’re not sending it to one person, or even ten people. You can send that email to thousands of potential customers with just one click! What other channel allows you to do that in such a cost-effective way?

As for the time input, well do you want to grow your business or not? How much time do you spend in internal meetings? How much time do you spend visiting one client? How much time do you spend telemarketing to a handful of prospects? An hour spent preparing an email / blog is likely to bring more revenue than an hour spent in a meeting! Remember, you have no business if you have no revenue!

Maximise the Broadcast

What you could do is write a blog and place that on your website. You can then send an email broadcast, including a taster of the blog content, with a link to your blog. Furthermore, you can use social media to advertise your blog, with links in there too. Not only does this drive traffic to your website, but assuming the content is good, it raises your profile too. Before long, you’ll become known as the industry expert!

So you see, email marketing can form an integral part of any business’s growth plans. Sure, it takes a little time to get it right, though when you do, you’ll soon see the benefits. The next time you then hear someone say email marketing doesn’t work … well … you’ll see, like I do, that it’s their loss!