Business owners today have a plethora of digital marketing channels to choose from. But picking the right channel that speaks to their audience can be challenging. While some businesses have found success through content marketing, social media, or paid search, these approaches can be costly to execute, resulting in a less-than-desirable ROI. 

One channel that has remained a reliable choice for marketers is email. In fact, for every $1 spent on email marketing, business owners see a $42 return on investment. Email marketing is particularly useful for the service-based businesses that rely more on building relationships, loyalty, and subscriptions, making email the ideal channel to reach their customers. 

Here are four key areas of focus for service-based brands looking to maximize their ROI with email marketing. 

1. Customize through segmentation

Let’s face it, most marketing emails end up in the trash bin. Only 20.57% of consulting services emails (management, marketing, advertising, blogging) get opened, and of those there is a click through rate of less than 1%. This means if you send a marketing email to 1000 people, 200 people might open it and only one or two might actually click the call-to-action. Consumers expect personalized communication. But since hand-writing each email by customer isn’t feasible, the solution is customization through customer segmentation.

With the help of a few applications, like SC Customer Tagging and Appointo, email can be the perfect arrow in a marketers arsenal. Tagging customer segments according to characteristics, gender, income, geographic location, buying history, even preferences can help create tailored email flows that speak more directly and resonate with the audiences receiving them. These apps easily integrate for better customer targeting at each step of the customer journey.

 Is it worth the hassle though? Actually, marketers that use segmented email campaigns have seen as much as a 760% increase in revenue. It pays to personalize. 

2. Focus on building relationships

The service industry relies heavily on relationships and loyalty. Customers tend to form connections with the people who provide services rather than the brand itself. One tactic when trying to reach customers is to segment emails by familiar service providers. When customers see a name and face they recognize on an email—particularly a familiar one—they will be more likely to click. 

Another tactic for building stronger relationships is to segment emails by subjects. For example, if a financial institution sends their customers an email about retirement strategies, it shouldn’t go to their entire book of business; instead it should be targeted to the segment of customers who are at the right age and stage of life to be considering retirement. The same goes for student loans, buying a house, or cryptocurrency. This is a smart way to ensure customers receiving emails are more interested and engaged. 

Appointment Scheduling Tools like Appointo also remove any friction from the customer journey, making it easier to connect in with the customer and sell services, appointments, and calendar bookings online. Check out SidePanda and Shop Circle’s suite of integratable email marketing applications. 

3. Net a positive ROI

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Yielding a positive return on investment (ROI) from marketing is  important for service-based businesses. This makes email the perfect channel for selling services due to its affordability and high ROI potential. Considering every $1 a business spends on email marketing, they will make back $42, that’sa 4200% ROI. 

Email marketing’s affordability makes it great for brands just starting out looking for cost-effective ways to make a splash in the market. It’s also optimal for brands who have a marketing budget and can afford to invest in tools that help them optimize their email marketing efforts, such as tools that allow for smart segmentation using auto tags for customers and automated emails for booking appointments online. With the right integration of applications, entrepreneurs can put their email marketing campaigns on autopilot, and focus on their business while the ROI rolls in.

4. Make CTA’s count 

For many service-based brands, the call-to-action (CTA) isn’t to visit a store or checkout a purchase, it’s to book an appointment or service call. Whether it’s a beauty salon, fitness coach, or cleaning company, the goal is to get the customer to schedule their next visit or appointment. For email marketers, getting customers to click the CTA means having a subject line that piques curiosity and interest, elements of personalization that make the customer feel a sense of trust, and the right offer, service, or subscription to offer value and convenience. 

One tactic is to set up an automated reminder email for services that people tend to need in regular intervals. When doing so, it’s important to strike the right cadence. For example, a dental clinic shouldn’t say: “it’s been 3 weeks since your last cleaning,” whereas a hair salon shouldn’t say: “it’s been 2 years since your last haircut.” 

Use automated emails that give different segments the gentle nudge they need so that when they click on the CTA it feels like you are adding convenience to their day. 

Try SidePanda’s Appointment Booking App for an easy application for automated and online bookings and appointments. 

Select strategic tools for success

Whether it’s building customer segments and tags, adding personalization, or offering customers convenient ways to manage bookings and appointments, a seamlessly integrated solution of applications like those offered by SidePanda and Shop Circle allow businesses to build customer relationships, loyalty and revenue. The best part is these applications integrate easily together to give your service-based business endless email marketing and ROI potential.