Hurricane Ian hit our area quite hard last week.

In fact, we're still under a flood warning, 5 days after the storm.

The river near our home hasn't crested yet!

As Hurricane Ian’s path was becoming more defined early, it looked more and more like we were going to get a direct hit.

It just continued to strengthen in the Caribbean and the Gulf, and it became a Category 4 hurricane just before landfall on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

It was pretty scary.

Now, hurricanes do tend to weaken as they go over land, so we weren't expecting 150 mile an hour winds, but 100 miles an hour plus winds were likely.

As it turns out, it veered further south and further east of where we are, but we still got 85 mile an hour winds.

Many homes and businesses in Ian's path were wiped out.

Thousands continue to be without power, 5 days after the storm.

Curiously, I got a phone call from one of our favorite local restaurants on Sunday afternoon.

They said: “Hey, we're open for business. Do you want to order from us?”

Well, it was sort of a shot out of the blue for them, but they were trying to let people know they were back in business - and looking for their customers to return - probably knowing that many customers found alternatives while they were closed.

(We were among them.)

I can't imagine making individual phone calls to hundreds (or thousands of) customers, one by one.

While I was pleased to hear that the restaurant is back open for business because they got their power back on, what occurred to me was, wouldn't it have been great for them to be using email marketing and let people know their status en masse instead of having to make calls one by one by one by one?

I have no idea how many people they called, and it sounded like it might have been a teenager making the call - probably not trained on what to do.

Just "dialing for dollars".

Maybe the owner of the business just said to whoever they had available: “Here, I've got this list of phone numbers.

Would you call them and let them know that we're open again and see if they want to place an order?”

Wouldn't it have been great to receive an email from them that said: "We are back open for business"?

Or if they weren't open, to say: "Here's our status" or "Here's how to reach us, and we can't wait to see you again!"

You get the point.

That's where email comes in.

You see, email marketing is really relationship building.

If the restaurant was using email marketing, they would have gotten back on their feet faster.

They could have made the message simple: "We're open!" or "$5 off your next order" or "Happy Hour all day today"

You know your customers are far more reliant (and dependent upon) on email for communication.

Far more so than social media - the data proves it.

An email marketing "win back" message to get people back in the store would have taken minutes instead of hours or days of phone calls.

If you send emails on a regular basis - no matter what type of business you have - you are building strong rapport with your customers.

Email marketing is a way for you to not only stay on the radar screen, but let your clients and customers know that you are closed, or that you're open, or that your business hours have shifted, or that you have a service that they might benefit from.

Rather than leave it to chance, rather than hope that someone remembers who you are or that you happen to show up on a Google search, wouldn't it be great to let people know electronically and en masse that you are still open?

So, learn from this experience.

On a regular basis, let people know that you're open, that you're in business, that you're here to serve, that you're ready to do business, that you're ready to help people out when they have a need, whether it's an emergency or otherwise.

Stay on your customers’ and prospects’ radar screen with email marketing so you're not leaving it to chance that maybe they will find you when they do a Google search.

Use email marketing. It's easy to use when you use it on a regular basis.  Almost as easy as driving a car.

If you need help, I'm happy to get on a call with you to teach you how to send an email campaign in minutes instead of hours - or days.

Interested?

Book a free "Ask Me Anything" call with me.

I'll give you what you need in under 30 minutes, without a sales pitch.