by Claudia Bruemmer

Email marketing has been around since the early days of the Internet and is still one of the most popular and cost-effective ways to reach your wholesale customers and prospects. While some may believe email is strictly a direct response marketing tactic, think again. Email campaigns can extend beyond sales and conversions into branding with customer conversations, feedback and customer engagement.

Once you have permission, you can communicate with your customers about your products and services while giving them the option to unsubscribe if they so wish. That means you can send them coupons, sale notifications and other promotional emails in addition to the transactional emails they receive when buying your products or services. Since email is free, a few examples of keeping in touch with customers are:

• Thank you for your order
• Confirmation of shipment
• Confirmation of receipt
• Information about orders/returns
• Request feedback on products or service
• Customer success stories
• Happy birthday

There are many ways to keep in touch with unobtrusive emails that maintain a good relationship with your customers and remind them that your wholesale company appreciates their business. These email messages provide the opportunity for your customers and prospects to form an opinion of your brand. Well-executed email campaigns that do not solicit sales go a long way toward improving your company’s image.

Another great way to brand your wholesale business is to create a company newsletter that informs on product news, trends and styles. Try to anticipate what your customers want to know and then create that type of content. For instance, clothing, accessories and jewelry wholesalers can research the latest styles and trends each season, publishing information on those topics. Your content might even become so popular that you can sell a few text ads to brand suppliers in your newsletter. Just remember to give customers something they care about so they don’t delete or unsubscribe.

You can monitor the opens, clicks, traffic, blog comments, etc., to see what resonates with your readers. When it comes to frequency, there is no hard and fast rule. Publish as often as you can provide valuable content. A suggested frequency is once a month, but if you can’t, publish quarterly. Be consistent and announce the frequency ahead of time. If you publish industry news regularly like we do at TopTenWholesale, you might want to send your newsletter out every two weeks.

Yet another great idea is to create a members’ club offering exclusive discounts or promotions to your email list subscribers. You can make them feel special by creating unique offers that make customers feel appreciated and part of an exclusive club.

Lastly, don’t forget to continually solicit new email addresses wherever you can. You can solicit email subscriptions to your newsletter through different media: in your email sig, on social media, on your website or on your business card. Make it easy for customers to subscribe. Once they give you their address, you have the opportunity to communicate directly with potential and existing buyers. That’s the beauty of email marketing – so take full advantage of it to build your wholesale brand.