When Tommi Wolfe, president and founder of The Startup Expert, realized her marketing emails weren't resonating with the intended audience, she tried to focus on a new plan, according to MarketingSherpa. The new plan got her coaching business a 600 percent increase in revenue

Wolfe first collected emails from everyone she met who had any kind of interest, then made a very clear survey via email to all of them with a good subject line. She gave recipients an an e-book as a reward for filling out the survey and said she not only got good results, but an increase in business. According to MarketingSherpa, Wolfe saw an 8.1 percent clickthrough rate, a 48 percent open rate and an 81 percent clickthrough rate for those who opened the emails, garnering her a 600 percent revenue increase.

"My biggest surprise was the high interest in generating passive income, which is not a great money-making technique unless you are already very established with a big list," Wolfe said to the news source. "This knowledge gave me an opportunity to get real and honest with clients about their misconceptions."

Lyris said small business marketing professionals looking to build relevance in email need to have good content, personalization, email list segmentation and a functional unsubscribe program. All of these can be used to help a business grow.