Email is the most profitable channel most small businesses own and the one they treat worst.
You own the list. Nobody can change an algorithm and take it away. It costs almost nothing per send. And the people on it have already, at some point, put their hand up. Compared with paying £4 a click to reach a stranger, it’s absurd value.
Yet the typical SME email programme is a monthly newsletter, written in a hurry on the 28th, about things happening at the company, sent to everyone. Open rates in the teens. Nobody enjoys writing it and nobody misses it when it stops.
The fix isn’t sending more. It’s sending five specific emails that do specific jobs.
First, the uncomfortable bit: your list
Email works in proportion to the quality of the list, and most lists are quietly rotting.
Stop importing everyone you’ve ever met. Sending to people who never asked damages your ability to reach the people who did — mailbox providers watch how recipients react, and one badly-received send affects the next good one.
Give people a reason to join beyond “sign up to our newsletter”. Nobody wants a newsletter. They want a specific useful thing: a guide, a checklist, a price list, a template, an early view of something.
Clean it every six months. Anyone who hasn’t opened anything in a year is hurting your deliverability, not padding your reach. Send them one honest “shall I keep you on this list?” email and remove the ones who don’t respond. Watching the number go down feels bad and does you good.
A list of 400 engaged people beats 4,000 indifferent ones on every measure that matters.
The five emails
1. The welcome sequence
When: immediately after someone joins, then two or three more over a fortnight.
The highest open rates you will ever see, by a distance. Someone has just chosen to hear from you and their interest expires quickly.
Most businesses waste it on an automatic “thanks for subscribing”. Instead: deliver whatever they signed up for, then tell them, over two or three short emails, what you do, who it’s for, what it costs, and what happened to a customer like them. Then invite a conversation.
Set it up once. It works for years. If you only do one thing on this list, do this one.
2. The nurture email
When: every two to four weeks, consistently.
This is the newsletter, but with the point changed. Instead of news about your firm, take one question customers genuinely ask and answer it properly. Short — 300 words is plenty. One idea, one link, one clear next step.
The job isn’t to sell this week. It’s to be the business they think of when the need arrives, which may be nine months from now. Consistency is what does the work, so pick a cadence you can genuinely maintain. Content marketing →
3. The quote follow-up
When: three days after a quote, then seven, then twenty-one.
The most under-used, highest-return email in small business. Most quotes are sent and then nothing happens, because chasing feels like nagging.
It isn’t nagging if it’s useful. Three days later: anything you’d like clarified? A week: here’s a similar job we did and how it went. Three weeks: are you still considering it, and shall I close the file? That last one is remarkably effective — people answer a polite closing question when they’ve ignored two reminders.
4. The reactivation email
When: twice a year, to customers who’ve gone quiet.
You almost certainly have more lapsed customers than prospects, and they’re far cheaper to win back. They know you, they’ve paid you before, and something ordinary — not dissatisfaction — usually caused the gap.
Keep it human and short. “It’s been a while since we did X for you — anything you need this year?” No campaign design, no offer necessarily. It reads as a note from a person, which is why it works.
5. The one-thing announcement
When: rarely, and only when it’s genuinely worth someone’s attention.
A price change with notice. A new service that solves a problem they’ve told you about. Something ending. A genuine deadline.
Rarity is the mechanism. If you send this monthly it becomes noise; if you send it twice a year it gets opened.
What to measure
Ignore vanity, and ignore open rates on their own — they’ve been unreliable since mail apps started pre-loading images.
Watch these:
– Clicks, and what people clicked on. That’s interest, and it’s usually the best list of who to phone.
– Replies. An email programme that never generates replies isn’t a conversation, it’s a broadcast.
– Unsubscribes — a small steady number is healthy; a spike means you got something wrong.
– Revenue you can trace back. Ask new customers where they came from and record it.
Tools, briefly
For most small businesses, Mailchimp is fine and its free tier goes a long way. Brevo and MailerLite are cheaper at scale. If you sell online, use whatever integrates with your shop.
Don’t spend three months choosing. The platform is not why email programmes fail — sending nothing is why email programmes fail.
Two legal points, because they matter here: you need a lawful basis to email people (consent for most B2C; legitimate interest can cover some B2B), and every email needs a genuine unsubscribe and your business address. —
How I do it
I set up the five emails above, write them properly, and either run them monthly or train your team to. Either as part of your monthly marketing or as a standalone piece of work — £350 a day, typically two to three days to get a full programme built and sending, then a day a month if you’d like me to keep running it.
I also do the handover version, which plenty of clients prefer: I build it, then sit with whoever will own it and train them until they’re comfortable. Then it’s yours.
Common questions
Does email marketing still work for small businesses?
Yes — it’s typically the highest-return channel a small business owns, because you’re contacting people who already know you and you’re not paying per click. What no longer works is the general monthly newsletter to an unengaged list. Welcome sequences, quote follow-ups and reactivation emails do the bulk of the earning.
How often should a small business send marketing emails?
Every two to four weeks for regular nurture emails, plus automated ones triggered by events — a welcome sequence when someone joins, follow-ups after a quote. Consistency matters more than frequency; a predictable monthly email beats a burst of four followed by six months of silence.
How do I build an email list for a small business?
Offer something specific and useful in exchange for the address — a guide, a checklist, a price list, a template — rather than “sign up to our newsletter”. Add the offer to your website’s main pages, ask at the point of purchase, and never import people who haven’t asked to hear from you.
Is Mailchimp good for small businesses?
For most UK SMEs, yes. It’s straightforward, its free tier covers a small list, and it does everything described in this article. Brevo and MailerLite are cheaper as lists grow. The platform is rarely the reason email works or doesn’t.
How much does email marketing cost?
Software is £0–£50 a month for most small business lists. The real cost is the writing and setup: agencies typically charge £500–£1,500 a month. I charge £350 a day — two to three days to build a full programme, then around a day a month to run it, or training so your team can.
The quickest win in your business
If you take nothing else from this: set up the welcome sequence and the quote follow-up. Two pieces of work, done once, that keep earning.
Tell me what happens now when someone enquires and doesn’t buy, and I’ll tell you what I’d put in place.
