Site Impact predicts ten SMB categories that will buy email marketing in 2020

In general, SMB’s believe email is their most important source of marketing, according to every recent survey by Borrell & Associates.

However, most companies in Borrell's study owned fewer than 3,000 names, and about 25% had fewer than 1,000 names. They often think of email marketing as simply sending notifications to their existing customers. 

So which SMB categories will be interested in purchasing email to reach new customers?

Site Impact, the white-label provider of email marketing solutions to more than 2000 media companies of all sizes has the data. Here are various trends their team is seeing for 2020. 

1. Politics.  Political outreach and spending in 2020 will be huge, and email is in demand now more than ever. Even hyper-local campaigns can target registered or unregistered voters across the political spectrum, and in larger markets select other filters such as age, sex and income - all using Site Impact's simple Counts System platform. 

2. Retail.  Borrell and Associates' 2018 study showed that of 151 companies surveyed, retailers (34%) were likely to use email. Look for retailers who have e-commerce sites and a regional footprint and periodic sales that can be boosted with targeted email marketing. Email is an easy way to reach people in a geographic region, and with the right age, income and levels of interest.

3. Health care.  22% of health care companies in the Borrell study said they are using email marketing. Site Impact has found this category is interested in larger campaigns, taking advantage of email’s ability to target new audiences by age, sex, geography and interests.  Email is ideal for reaching and messaging close targets such as new mothers, or sportsmen at the right age for hip and knee replacements. This category also typically invests heavily in local communities. 

4. Advertising agencies. While many agencies already have access to programmatic buys, opt-in email is one category where agencies have fewer choices. They also represent industries  including health care and finance companies that may need help from agencies in fielding the most effective email marketing options. 

5. Automotive. Car dealers are always looking for new ways to become successful in their ROI-based marketing goals. Fortunately, the data sets in the automotive category are especially robust. For example, if a Mercedes dealer wants to target owners of older BMW vehicles for a new $300 a month lease program, it can select individuals within 100 miles, who have a BMW older than 5 years and an income of $100K plus. Clicks to the VDP, Vehicle Detail Page, from email are highly valued. 

6. Finance and construction. In the top seven categories, finance and construction are at the high end of the market. When it comes to loans and construction, these entities rarely have access to the names and emails of people with the right income who live in the right neighborhoods and have the right interests for many of their high-end products. The ROI for these categories is also huge!  Look especially for outliers, such as new construction, manufactured housing and other entries that have an exciting story to tell if they can reach the right people “ one-on-one.” 

7. Arts and entertainment. Finally, a key category that has always relied on email is arts and entertainment and that is even more true today. A partnership with Evvnts, a national calendar listing service that now sells email as an upsell, shows the demand for extra email marketing, especially for national conferences, events looking to generate additional buzz or those that are ground-breaking with only a limited amount of time to attract an audience.

8. Real estate. Many newspapers are already engaging in “win-back” strategies that allow agents and brokers to gain listings. Email is a great way to "farm the neighborhood" by sending the equivalent of a postcard to home-owners in a selected area, and interacting with them by showing new sales nearby, asking them to sign up for alerts and linking to listings. 

9. CBD products. While every state is different, Google and Facebook both have rules for restricting advertising for cannabis and CBD products, which limit their promotional opportunities. Email is a great way to reach people in a variety of demographics and interests that coincide most closely with the legal use of these products. 

10. Email senders Companies that already send email sometimes bring this up as an objection, but actually they are some of the best prospects because most of the work  - crafting the message, selecting an image, putting the template together and so on, has already been done. Intersperse these messages with a "sign up”" offer to help them expand their free list.