|
Companies are cutting marketing budgets in offline media and now even cutting in online media as well. In the midst of the budget cuts email marketing can save the day.
It’s always a tough decision, what to cut, where to cut, businesses small and large have to be more creative and smarter in their marketing efforts and less wasteful. Now more than ever email marketing is a reliable, effective, and critical key to your marketing efforts in 2009.
Recognize The Value of Email Marketing
Studies have shown that when a business maintains ongoing communication with their existing customer base, that they can get 35% or more, first time customers, to buy their products or pay for their services again and again. Email marketing is still the primary channel in keeping in touch with your customers, letting them know that you are always conscious of their wants and needs, and continually offering your products and services to them.
Once you have acquired a customer, the cost of email marketing to get them to buy from you again is very minimum compared to the original cost of acquiring their business. So minimal businesses often forget how email marketing is/should be a vital part of your organizations ongoing marketing efforts to grow business.
Since email marketing is being sent to established customers, your response rate is also far higher than other forms of marketing. There really is no other method as cost effective as using email marketing to promote customer loyalty and keep them buying from you again and again. This is good news during budget cuts. So it’s important to recognize the value of existing customers and be smart by reaching out to them through well thought out email marketing efforts.
Are You on Your Customers Mind?
What company is on your customers mind when they are ready to spend their money? It’s the company that stays in touch with them through email marketing. Whether you are using email marketing software from a company like VerticalResponse or Constant Contact, or an in-house solution, it is critical that you stay in touch with your customers to keep your company fresh on their mind. This will keep them from going to your competitors when they see their marketing message. Email marketing helps keep your loyal customers loyal, and fence-sitting customers become loyal customers.
Email Marketing, Where to Start
Hopefully you have already been at least collecting your customers email addresses, whether it’s on your order form online, over the phone if most of your sales occur offline, (tell them you need to email them their receipt, and/or it’s the quickest way to maintain communication during fulfillment of their product/service.) If you haven’t been collecting email addresses, welcome to the 21st century, and start doing so now.
Email Marketing Software and Services
There are some relatively simple online solutions to help you get started, (which you can read our reviews on,) like the two previously mentioned, VerticalResponse and Constant Contact, and other comparable services. Many offer easy to use walk through wizards that help you create and launch an email marketing campaign.
Other features to look for when considering an email marketing software include a WYSIWYG editor, which stands for “What See Is What You Get”, which basically means that it’s an editor not that different from Microsoft Word, where you can edit things without having to have html knowledge. And how you see it is how your audience will see it as well.
Group Email Contacts, or in other words, create email lists to keep your emails organized so you don’t have one giant email list. You can categorize emails by customer type for example.
Email tracking features and reports, like a Delivered Emails report, Opened Emails report, Unsubscribe Report, and one of the main abilities you’ll want is to track the number/percent of people click- through from the email to your website. This will help you in optimizing your email marketing efforts to increase conversion. This tracking can be automatically provided from some email marketing software providers.
We cover email marketing software features in another post, but the list above should give you a decent idea of what to look for to start.
A Few Simple Steps to Email Marketing Success
Here are some simple steps to start seeing a real difference in your business from email marketing.
Collect Email Addresses
If you aren’t already collecting your customers email addresses, start today! One feature that many email marketing software’s have a simple email capture form, or box, that you can put on your website to invite visitors sign up for your Free Newsletter, or join your email list to receive special, discounts, news, etc. (Most email programs have an easy setup wizard to create this kind of email signup box/form.)
You can also ask for it from your customers when speaking with them over the phone, or in person. Have a log, or book handy for them to write down their email address. After your meeting with them, immediately add it to your email list in your email marketing software.
Give Your Customers Value
Make your newsletter a newsletter, not a sales pitch letter. There’s nothing wrong with mentioning specials, and even sending a sales promotion email. But for your regular newsletter, give your readers information they actually want to read and find useful. Remember this is a relationship, and to maintain it you have to share useful information that answers their concerns and needs as a customer. Things like tips and helpful information that you share with them just because you care and want them to see that you care more than just getting their money.
You should communicate that you are the experts in your field, and share with them your experience and expertise that will help them. This will make them want to open your email each time they hit their inbox, instead of deleting them, or worse unsubscribing. Instead they will open them, and even forward them onto friends and associates. And they will return to you again and again because you give them reliable, expert information they find useful.
Consistent Delivery Schedule
It is important to be consistent on when you send your email marketing campaign, whether it’s once a month, bi-weekly, or weekly. Send it the same time on a regular basis. This means that you will have to plan in advance for the next newsletter, and slot out appropriate time to write its content and put it together to send to your customers. Humans are creatures of habit, and your customers will quickly learn when you send out your email marketing newsletter and will expect to see it at those intervals.
Find Out What They Want
Don’t know what to write about in your email marketing newsletter, what to share with your customers? Well, sometimes it’s as easy as asking them what they want to hear about. You can ask them in an email what they would like to learn about in upcoming newsletters. You can send them a short survey to gauge where they stand on topics and issues.
Many email marketing software programs have a survey feature built into them, (which is obviously a good feature to add to your list of ones to look for.) And there are some other good and simple survey services that you can use like Survey Monkey.
In today’s economy, staying on your customers mind is more important now than ever. Email Marketing should play a vital role in your marketing efforts as a result. Start taking advantage of this effective channel of marketing to help maintain existing customers and grow your business. |