Exclusive: How email still reigns supreme for small business marketing

Email has reasserted itself as the central pillar of small business marketing in Australia and New Zealand, even as artificial intelligence accelerates and inbox rules tighten across global platforms.

New research from Constant Contact shows the channel is not only holding its ground, but also delivering the strongest business outcomes for small and medium businesses across the region.

According to the company's most recent Small Business Now survey, email marketing was rated the most effective marketing channel for driving business results by 47 percent of ANZ SMBs this year.

"Constant Contact is a small business marketing platform, and what I'm really proud of is we've been almost three decades, and we are solely and singularly focused on the small business, and that's unique, because the needs are different," said Frank Vella, Chief Executive Officer of Constant Contact, during a recent interview.

"So much has changed in the last year because technology has changed, and our mission has always been to be at the forefront of technology to simplify it and put it in a package that the small business can use."

Image details: Frank Vella presenting on stage at Howard Smith Wharves in Brisbane.

What are the challenges?

Despite email's popularity, the survey highlights persistent challenges for business owners.

Forty percent of ANZ SMBs said getting people to open or click on email campaigns was their biggest hurdle, followed by crafting the right message for customers (37 percent), and creating content or designing emails (32 percent).

"The data has always shown that," said Vella. "What was refreshing is how the marketing community has come back to that. Email marketing has always been there, but the place of email marketing is evolving."

"You have to complement email with social. You have to have follow-up like SMS," he added. "But the core communication and connection point between a small business and their customer is still email."

Beyond engagement, many SMBs are struggling to measure success. Almost a quarter (23 percent) said their biggest frustration with marketing is that it's difficult to tell what's working, while 22 percent said it takes too much time to manage and 20 percent believe it's too expensive to do well.

That lack of clarity is reflected in confidence levels.

Just 11 percent of ANZ SMBs said they were very confident their marketing efforts were driving meaningful business results - the lowest confidence level across all regions surveyed.

AI tools

Vella said artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to ease those pressures, particularly for small businesses without in-house marketing expertise.

"I think it'll always be an important part," he said. "However, it becomes less effective by itself if you're not supplementing it with social, if you're not using AI to to enhance or refine the message."

"We used to help the small business create it," Vella added. "Now we try to create it for them using their web page, their look and feel and their logo. We create content for them with just a few keywords."

"Our customers don't have the know-how or the access to create AI tools themselves."

"With a few prompts of tell us what you're doing and give us your website, we will get your colours and your logo and your feel," he said. "We'll craft the message. You'll approve it or you'll change it. If you change it, we'll learn what your voice and your tone is like."

"What I've seen over the last year is the realisation that the human interaction is an important element of making it right," Vella added. "There's got to be an approval process so you can make sure it is your tone and your feel and represents you."

Image details: Frank Vella standing with Renée Chaplin, Vice President of Asia Pacific (APAC), and five Constant Contact customers.

Fatigue rules

While inbox fatigue remains a concern, Vella said the issue is increasingly being addressed through stronger platform rules and better targeting.

"It starts like a health problem," he said. "The email not getting opened is the ultimate symptom, and what are the root causes?"

"If you don't craft the right message, then it's just irrelevant inbox fodder," Vella added. "There's a little bit of fatigue with customers getting too much email."

"The email providers have done a good job of putting more rules in place," he said. "Google and Microsoft have made sure that if you're a provider like me, you go through a lot of checks and balances."

"You can't just buy a list and start emailing people because they didn't subscribe to you," Vella added. "The scrutiny over it is getting better and better every year."

Omnichannel

Vella said email works best as part of a broader, integrated approach.

"In order to compete, you have to be where your customers are, and you have to be where your competitors are," he said. "Your larger competitors do all of it, therefore you have to do all of it."

"You have to take that conversation somewhere else, and that somewhere else is email," Vella added. "Now I get to learn about my customer through the clicks and the activities and how they engage."

"When a customer has given permission to receive SMS and you use it responsibly, it's a 98 percent open rate," he said.

"We don't think of ourselves as an email marketing company," Vella added. "We are the platform where a small business can tell their story."

Image details: Frank Vella with Anne Nalder, CEO & Founder of Small Business Association of Australia.

Local focus

Constant Contact has also recently acquired the Guru Conference and education assets, a move Vella said reinforces the company's focus on supporting small businesses through community and education.

"The Guru platform is a virtual marketing conference that is an assembly of providers that help a small business market."

"We want to be part of a community that helps the small business," Vella added. "This is a very social-first audience."

"Since it's a virtual platform, taking it globally and having Guru Conference Australia with Australian partners and Australian content matters," he said. "Being local matters."

"Small businesses are about community," Vella added. "And we have to be in the communities they are."