"If Social Media is the cocktail party, then email marketing is the ‘meet up for coffee’. The original 1 to 1 channel." Erik Harbison
The pace of innovation and the number of marketing resources today is nothing short of incredible. An astounding 1,876 companies across 43 different marketing categories, including SEO, social, video marketing, sales enablement, mobile analytics, and dozens more, are in existence, according to VentureBeat.
What’s more, many of the categories didn’t exist in the report just one year earlier. Just one marketing category continues to perform well, year after year: email marketing.
The reason is clear: For ten years in a row, email generates the highest ROI for marketers. For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI; it also gives marketers the broadest reach of all the channels available to them. Despite the plethora of tools available to marketers, email marketing is simply the best bet for business growth. From an online marketing report by Campaign Monitor.
Why email is so powerful
You own your email list. No one can ever take it away from you. It is GOLD.
It is an extension of you: you are talking directly to your customers - who want to hear from you!
Email converts at a very high rate (translate: you’re selling - and the proof is clear by the seven studios' email links at the bottom of this blog).
So, what's first?
Putting together an email should never take more than hour. What is your call to action? What do you want your customers to do?
In most cases, book seats for an upcoming class or event, showcase new inventory and promote groups and parties. But what if your studio is more about walk-ins and groups than classes? Never stop sharing the many reasons for a walk-in visit (girls’ day out, friends in town, grandma day, mental health day) or booking a group (ladies night, office event, holiday gathering, family reunion, going away party, neighborhood outing, PTA, book club, wine group). And be specific about what you offer as walk-ins: clay (wheel, hand building), canvas, pottery painting, mosaics, wood art, etc.
Create converting emails
Send emails through an email service, not your personal email account.
Make them conversational (short and sweet, like you’re writing a friend).
Personalize (include your customer’s name).
Have a call to action (what do you want your customer to do?).
Reuse your content: photos and information your share on social media can be included in your emails (and vice versa).
Include your store’s contact info, hours and social media links. Be sure to include a link to sign up for your emails (when your customer forwards an email to a friend - “Hey! Let’s take this class!” - they can easily be added to your list.
Test your email on your desktop and your phone before sending.
Use your business name as the sender (not your name) and make the subject line short and compelling (not “Winter, 2025 updates”). The average office worker gets 121 emails a day. Your subject line greatly increases the chances they'll open it as soon as they see it in their in-box.
Before hitting send, send yourself a test; be sure to look at the email on your desktop AND phone. If you can't read it on your phone (the type is too small) or you're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling because there's so much content, your customers will struggle to get through it (and are much less likely to convert). Send a draft to your manager or a friend and have them test the links and ask for honest feedback. Also check your links to ensure they go to the right place.
Be consistent, send a minimum of two emails a month, and you will see the results. The marketing world often uses the Rule of Seven: it takes seven different "touches" before a potential customer takes action.
List growing tips
Have a signup at your POS for those who are just looking; it can be a notepad and/or a QR code that leads to a landing page specifically for email sign-ups.
Have staff add emails when entering new customers into your POS (and update existing customers without one in their profile).
Display email sign-ups in multiple places on your website, including a pop-up.
Build your list with a giveaway.
Weed out the non-openers (the quality of subscribers is much more important than the quantity).
The proof is right here: check out these VERY successful emails - all created by TCR. They all converted sales (one sold almost $800 in class sign-ups). Let's get your emails underway - even with a tiny email list. One of these studios started with about 50 people on their list; 8 months later, there are over 500 - and the studio books events and camp like CRAZY now.
Don't wait any longer - email me, Hillary@TheCreativeRetailer.com
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