Bandwagon is normally used as a pejorative. It contains contempt for those who can’t think for themselves and instead merely follow others. There was a talk by a chap who thought he’d cracked the system when, in a previous recession, competing shops around his closed, leaving him as the only retail outlet selling his particular range.

He eventually realised customers liked choice, particularly of outlets, and as he was the only such business in town, people didn’t bother coming in to buy. Back then, some years ago, email marketing wasn’t an option. Nowadays, many companies are going online to sell. It is a bandwagon.

It’s easy for those in the business to see email marketing as easy; after all, we’ve been doing it for some time. You might feel that all your skills lie with face-to-face sales, and it probably seems wasteful not to use them. The good news is most of the skills are transferable, and, remarkably, email marketing is one of the easier marketing tools to understand and make your mark at. You’ve taken the first step by coming to an email marketing service provider.

The customers you’ve built up over the years in your business are the ones you should target to subscribe to your nascent email marketing list. They know you, they trust you; these are custom made subscribers. Keep signup forms on your counter. Include them in documentation. Sell it to them just as if it was a product where the profit margin is higher, because that’s what email marketing is.

Your first email to your new subscribers will be a Welcome Email, one that doesn’t directly try to sell anything but merely shows your new subscriber what they can expect from you, and builds a little excitement to this new venture; for them as much as you. The open rate, probably higher than you’ll ever get again, will be your first bit of data.

The next connection with the subscriber will be a marketing email proper. You will now have lots and lots of decisions to make, which, according to most correspondents, will be critical. In fact, they are not. Your service provider will have a selection of free email marketing templates for you to try, with your only contribution being images and text.

While subject lines, headings and the all-important copy all have an effect on profitability, the most important aspect at this stage is the returns you receive in the form of data. This is gold dust. You will use it to improve your next and subsequent emails, and will gradually build a customer base probably more profitable than the one you have now.

SMEs are opting for email marketing for a reason that probably applies to you as well.