Email marketing services for UK small businesses, what OYM offers
Most small business owners I meet have tried email marketing at some point. They set up a Mailchimp account, sent a few newsletters, got mixed results, and quietly stopped. The problem was never email. The problem was how it was being used.
Email marketing consistently produces the highest return on investment of any digital channel. According to the DMA, the average return in the UK is around £35 for every £1 spent. In 18 years of working with Derbyshire and East Midlands businesses, I have seen email do things that social media and paid ads simply cannot. It builds real relationships, it works when platforms change their algorithms, and the list belongs to you.
This post covers exactly how we approach email marketing at OYM. I will explain each part of the service, what it actually involves, and why the decisions we make produce better results than a generic broadcast approach. If you are a small business owner wondering whether email is worth your time, I want to give you a straight answer grounded in real experience.
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Take the free scorecardWhy email marketing outperforms social media for small businesses
Social media is excellent for discovery and brand awareness. But when it comes to generating actual enquiries and repeat sales, email wins. The reason is simple. When someone signs up to your email list, they are giving you explicit permission to contact them directly. There is no algorithm deciding whether your message gets seen. No platform deciding whether to show your post to 3% of your followers or 30%.
OYM's own SocialCLUB newsletter reaches over 25,000 subscribers each week. It consistently produces more direct enquiries and more traffic to new content than any of our social media channels combined. We have built that audience deliberately, one subscriber at a time, and we apply exactly the same discipline when we manage email for clients.
There is also a resilience argument. Platform changes, algorithm updates, and even account suspensions can wipe out a social following overnight. Your email list cannot be taken from you. That makes it one of the most valuable long-term assets a small business can own.
After 18 years I still think email is the most underused channel for small businesses. People chase followers and ignore the one channel where they have full control and full access to their audience.
Stuart Baddiley, Optimise Your Marketing
Building an email list that is actually worth having
There is no point sending email campaigns if you are sending them to the wrong people. List quality matters far more than list size. A list of 500 people who genuinely want to hear from you will outperform a bought list of 5,000 every time. Bought lists are also illegal under UK GDPR, so they are never an option we discuss.
We help clients build their lists through a combination of lead magnets, website capture forms, event registrations, and loyalty programmes. Each approach is chosen based on the business model and what is most likely to attract the right kind of subscriber.
Lead magnets that work for SMBs
A lead magnet is something valuable enough that a prospective customer will give you their email address in exchange for it. A guide, a checklist, a discount code, access to exclusive content or events. The key is that it has to be genuinely useful to the specific type of customer you want on your list.
For Croots Farm Shop in Derbyshire, we have helped grow the email list to over 12,000 subscribers using a combination of in-store sign-ups, seasonal offers, and event-based capture. For a professional services client in the East Midlands, a downloadable guide generated over 300 new subscribers in a single campaign. The specific mechanism matters less than making the value exchange feel fair and relevant.
GDPR and consent
UK GDPR requires that subscribers actively opt in to receive marketing emails. We make sure all sign-up processes are compliant, that consent is recorded properly, and that unsubscribe links work as they should. This is not optional and it is not complicated. Handled correctly from the start, it protects you and builds trust with your audience.
12,000 subscribers and growing
Croots Farm Shop in Derbyshire grew their email list to over 12,000 subscribers using a structured list-building strategy we developed together. Email now drives consistent footfall and revenue around key seasonal events. Our CRM and email marketing service covers exactly this kind of structured growth.
See our CRM and email serviceCampaign strategy and copy that earns the open
Most small business email campaigns fail because they try to do too much. They contain three different offers, four different calls to action, and no clear reason why the reader should care right now. Every email we write or plan for a client has a single objective. Drive footfall. Promote an event. Launch a product. Re-engage lapsed customers. Nurture a new enquiry. One email, one job.
Subject lines are where campaigns are won or lost before the body copy is ever read. According to Mailchimp's 2024 benchmark data, average open rates across industries sit at around 21%. The best campaigns we run for clients consistently exceed 35 to 40%. The difference is almost always the subject line and the relevance of the send to the specific segment receiving it.
Which platform should you use
We manage email for clients across Flodesk, Mailchimp, and other platforms depending on what is already in place and what best fits the business. We are not attached to any particular tool. What matters is that the platform gives you reliable deliverability, usable reporting, and the ability to segment your list as it grows.
If you are just starting out and your list is under 2,000 subscribers, Mailchimp's free tier is a sensible place to begin. If you want something with better design templates and a flat monthly fee regardless of list size, Flodesk is worth considering. What we do not recommend is choosing a platform and then never moving beyond the default templates. Every email you send is a representation of your brand.
Email automation: marketing that works when you are not
Automation is where email really starts to justify the investment for small businesses. A well-built automated sequence means your marketing is working in the background without requiring manual effort for every send. This is particularly valuable for businesses that cannot afford a full-time marketing team.
The sequences we build most often for clients are:
- Welcome sequences for new subscribers, introducing the business, setting expectations, and moving towards a first purchase or enquiry
- Follow-up sequences after enquiries, so a lead is nurtured automatically rather than going cold while the owner is busy
- Re-engagement sequences for subscribers who have not opened an email in 90 days or more
- Post-event sequences to convert attendees into clients after workshops, open days, or exhibitions
- Abandoned basket sequences for e-commerce clients who want to recover lost sales
For our own Buddy AI tool, we built a lead capture and follow-up sequence that runs automatically every time a new user engages with the tool. Within the first 30 days, the sequence drove a measurable increase in paid sign-ups without any additional manual effort. The same logic applies to any business with a clear customer journey to automate. The work is done once and it keeps working.
A welcome sequence is often the highest-performing email a business sends. The subscriber has just raised their hand. That moment of attention is worth far more than a broadcast to a cold list of thousands.
Stuart Baddiley, Optimise Your Marketing
Segmentation: why sending the same email to everyone is costing you
One of the most common mistakes I see from small businesses that have been running email for a while is treating the list as a single audience. Your subscribers are not all the same. Some are existing customers, some are cold prospects, some bought once three years ago and have not been back. Sending them all the same message is a missed opportunity at best and actively damaging at worst.
Segmentation means dividing your list into meaningful groups and sending content that is relevant to each group. This does not have to be complicated. Even a basic split between customers who have bought in the last 90 days and those who have not will allow you to send a re-engagement offer to the lapsed segment while sending something different to active buyers.
We help clients build segmentation into their lists from the start, so the data you collect when someone signs up or buys is actually used to make the marketing more relevant. This is where CRM data becomes genuinely powerful. When your email platform and your customer records are aligned, you can stop guessing and start sending the right message to the right person at the right time.
Reporting and testing: the difference between guessing and knowing
Every email campaign we run is reported on. Open rates, click rates, unsubscribes, and where relevant, direct revenue or enquiry attribution. We use that data to improve every subsequent send. This is not optional. Without it, you are repeating the same campaign and hoping for different results.
Tuesday sends in the early evening consistently outperform other days and times for many of our clients. But we always test rather than assume, because every audience behaves differently. A retail client with a weekend-heavy customer base may see better results on a Thursday send. A B2B professional services client may get higher open rates mid-morning on a Wednesday. The only way to know is to test, record, and act on the data.
Three things to test in your next email send
Test one variable at a time: subject line length (under 50 characters versus over 60), send day (try Tuesday versus Thursday), and call-to-action phrasing (a specific action like "Book your place" versus a generic "Click here"). Record the results and build from what works.
Good reporting also tells you when to stop. If a segment of your list has not opened a single email in six months, continuing to send to them hurts your deliverability score and wastes resource. A structured re-engagement campaign followed by a clean-down of unresponsive subscribers is often the single fastest way to improve the performance of an existing email programme.
How email fits into the BIG12 marketing framework
At OYM, we structure every client's marketing around the BIG12 framework. The 12 pillars cover every meaningful marketing activity a small business needs to manage, from SEO and lead generation through to test and measure.
Email marketing sits primarily within the CRM pillar. CRM is about managing the relationship with your existing customers and contacts, nurturing leads who are not yet ready to buy, and building systems that keep your business front of mind without requiring constant manual effort. Email is one of the most effective tools within that pillar, but it works best when it is connected to the other 11.
A business that has strong website traffic from SEO can convert a proportion of that traffic into email subscribers. Those subscribers can be nurtured with content that builds trust and positions the business as the obvious choice when the prospect is ready to act. The email list becomes the bridge between awareness and purchase. Without that bridge, a lot of marketing spend generates traffic that never converts.
See how your email and CRM activity stacks up
The free BIG12 Scorecard benchmarks your email marketing alongside all 12 pillars in under five minutes. Most businesses find at least three areas where quick improvements are possible.
Take the free scorecardThe challenge is never learning. It is doing.
Most business owners who read this post will already know that email marketing works. The statistics are not new and the principles are not complicated. The reason most small businesses still do not have a functioning email programme is not a lack of knowledge. It is a lack of time, a lack of resource, and a lack of someone to take ownership and actually get it done.
That is exactly what we do at OYM. We handle the strategy, the copy, the automation, the reporting, and the ongoing optimisation. You get a structured email programme that works in the background, produces real results, and gets better with every send. We have been doing this for 18 years from our base at Cromford Mills, and we have the Derbyshire and East Midlands client results to back it up.
If email marketing is something you know you should be doing better, the next step is simple. Book a free 90-minute audit and we will look at exactly where you are and what to do next. You can book directly with me here.
Book a free 90-minute audit with Stuart
We will look at your current marketing, benchmark it against the BIG12, and give you a practical set of actions to take. No sales pitch. No fluff. Just 18 years of honest advice applied to your business.
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