When developing an email marketing campaign it is not only important to strategically plan the content of emails but it is also critical that businesses spend time planning when and how frequently emails will be sent to customers. Emails should be sent frequently enough to remind customers of the services and products but not too frequently that customers become frustrated and mark the messages as spam. According to a survey done by TechnologyAdvice, 45.8% of individuals surveyed stated that receiving marketing emails too frequently was the leading reason why they mark marketing emails as spam. Therefore, sending too many emails can be just as detrimental to a business as not sending enough.

Just as customers are all unique in their interests and buying habits, they also all have different relationships with your business. For example people fall into a variety of categories including potential customers, new customers, established customers, or lapsed customers. Therefore, email campaigns should be designed to take into account where individuals are in their customer lifecycle. Aligning an email marketing campaign with customer lifecycle data allows a business to send the most relevant emails to the right customers, therefore grabbing customers’ attention and encouraging them to buy.

Here is a general guide for sending marketing emails:

After Getting a Potential Customer’s Email Address

When potential customers initially sign up for a mailing list, businesses should immediately send them an email thanking them for their interest in the company and also providing them an incentive to make the initial purchase. The incentive could be a discount, free shipping, or a complementary item. However, make sure to give the incentive is only valid for a limited time, for example 2 weeks to a month, so that potential customers are encouraged to act quickly and buy.

After the First Purchase

Once a customer has made an initial purchase begin sending them an email series (comprised of 1-3 emails) that introduces the customer to your business. These emails can depict the history of your business, your mission statement, a survey to rate their initial experience or purchase, and finally include a second promotion to encourage a second purchase.

Abandoned Cart/Abandoned Search

If a customer is browsing your website and places a few items in their cart but never checks-out, send him an email to remind him of these unpurchased items. To encourage the customer to purchase the items in his cart offer free shipping or an additional 10% off. Sometimes customers just need a little extra push or reminder to complete the transaction. Similarly, email customers who have been looking at items on your webpage but have not put them in a cart or completed a transaction. Emails for abandoned searches can include advertisements for items that they were browsing or related items.  However, come up with criteria for an “abandoned search.” The criteria can be based on the number of times a customer visits the webpage, a specific item, or category. Creating a criteria or benchmark for an “abandoned search” will help eliminate unnecessarily emailing people who only visited the website once or who were not seriously looking for items.

Birthday Emails

When customers sign up for the mailing list or create an account with your company ask for their birthday or birthday month. Therefore, on their birthday or birthday month you can wish them a happy birthday; thus strengthening the customer/vendor relationship. In a birthday email include a discount or a complimentary birthday gift as an incentive to come into your store and shop. Birthday emails have proven to be one of the most effective types of marketing emails. According to Experian, birthday emails experience a 481% higher transaction rate than promotional emails while also maintaining a 342% higher revenue per email than promotional emails.   

Promotional Emails

Notify customers in advance of sales like a Memorial Day sale or Black Friday. Giving customers advanced notice allows them to plan ahead and also keep your store in mind while they are shopping.

Appointment or Order Reminders

If your business schedules appointments, such as a hair salon or doctor’s office, send clients email reminders before upcoming appointments or reminders to schedule future appointments. People will appreciate your proactive approach and organization. Reminder emails also encourage customers to continue to use your services by scheduling future appointments. Similarly, if you sell items that need to be restocked, like diapers or vitamins, email customers before their supply runs out to encourage them to reorder the products. If a person orders a 30 day supply of diapers, send an email around day 20 to remind her to place an order for the upcoming month. This reminds customers to order from your business and not a competitor.

Newsletter or Monthly Email

Let your customers know what your business has been up to while also keeping your business fresh in their minds. Newsletters are a great way to connect with customers while also sharing valuable information with them. However, if you are going to start a newsletter adhere to a schedule. Avoid sending out newsletters sporadically because it fails to consistently remind people of your company, shows a lack of organization, and people will be less likely to read them.

When developing content for a newsletter consider including:

• FAQ section: Include a section of commonly asked questions about the business, its work, or its products. An FAQ section will help inform subscribers about the business while answering any common questions or concerns that they might have had.

• Employee or customer spotlight: Engage with employees and customers by highlighting their exceptional work or contributions to the company.

• Success stories: Let subscribers hear from people who have had a great experience with the business’s products or services. Their positive experience can influence other individual to use your services.

• Dates of upcoming events: Keep customers informed about events and special offers or sales.

Emails and newsletters should always include an unsubscribe button. The CAN-SPAM Act, which regulates and provides rules for commercial emailing, gives recipients the right to request that a business stops emailing them. If an individual opts out of an email list, the business must honor that request within 10 business days. Typically, unsubscribe buttons are placed at the very bottom of emails that a company sends out. Giving customers the option to unsubscribe allows them to feel in control of the content they are receiving and to easily opt out if they no longer want to receive emails.  

Win-Back Emails for Lapsed Customers

Keep a close eye on customers’ purchasing histories to avoid losing customers. Look for customers who have not made a purchase in the last 35 days. Email them on the 36th day and encourage them to make a purchase. Include a discount or other incentive to entice customers to re-engage with your business. Customers who defect from a business are not likely to engage with that business in the future; therefore, encourage customers to begin making purchases again before they completely sever company ties. It is important to retain customers because most of a company’s revenue comes from established clientele, not new customers. According to Rejoiner typically, 80% of a company’s revenue is generated by just 20% of their customer base. Repeat customers tend to spend more than new customers and are more financially beneficial to a company. Therefore, by increasing customer retention efforts a company will likely see an increase in profits.

Conclusion

Email marketing relies on maintaining a balance between emailing customers enough to encourage them to engage with a business but not too much that they become annoyed. Customers should only receive emails that are relevant to their customer lifecycle position, purchasing habits, and demographics. Tailoring email marketing campaigns to a customer’s lifecycle is something that large companies like American Eagle and Amazon already do. Try scrolling through your email and look at what triggered large and established companies to send emails. You’ll notice that most companies follow a very similar formula as described above. Don’t allow your business to fall behind the competition because you lack an email marketing plan. Reaching the correct customers at the correct time is just as important as an email’s content.

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The post Tailor Email Marketing Campaigns to Each Customer appeared first on Kolau Blog.

While attracting new customers is important for expanding a business, researchers have revealed that loyal and solidified customers actually generate the most revenue. Research conducted by Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company show that by increasing a business’s customer retention rates by just 5%, they will see profits increase by 25%-95% on average. Loyal and established customers generally spend 67% more than new customers, and therefore can more positively impact a company’s profit margins. Email marketing retention campaigns are a great way to interact with a business’s customer base, lower churn rates, and increase profits.

Here are six simple tips for crafting a successful email marketing campaign:

1. Focused Target Audience

Email can be an invaluable tool because it allows a business to reach a broad and diverse group of people with very little expense. However, even though email can reach a wide array of people it is still important to tailor email campaigns by customers’ interests, demographics, and buying habits. If a department store was promoting a deal on women’s shoes it would not be beneficial to email their entire customer email list because it would likely include men and children who would not be interested in the sale. Therefore, it is important to think of which clients would benefit most from the information or deal, and target that specific group. Email marketing campaigns should always be tailored to each customer.

2. Clear Subject Line

The subject line is the first step in convincing your audience to open the email. It is impossible to convince the audience to engage with your business if they do not open the email. Subject lines should relate to the contents of the email. If consumers do not immediately find the information they expect they will likely click off or delete the email. When crafting a subject line try personalizing it with the recipient’s name. Research conducted by graduate students at Stanford University shows that people are 20% more likely to open emails if their name appears in the subject line. In addition, subject lines can serve different purposes such as announcements, announcing an upcoming deal or new product, or to notifying of a scarcity in products.

For example:
Personal: Sarah, check out your fitness progress for the week
Announcement: Introducing Kolau’s new marketing features
Scarcity: Only 10 tickets left. Buy now!

The subject line is the first thing that a customer will see and determines whether or not he will open the email so spend time creating an attention grabbing subject line.

3. Stick to the Point

According to a study by Microsoft Corporation, the average attention span of a human has decreased since the year 2000 which is widely considered to be the beginning of the mobile revolution. Before the year 2000 the average person had an attention span of 12 seconds. Now, researchers have found that the average attention span has decreased to about 8 seconds. Therefore, an email’s content and format should take into account a person’s shortened attention span.

Content should be:

–clear and easy to scan: Use bullet points, place important information at the top, get straight to the point, and keep it short.
-Visual: Humans are able to process images 60,000 times faster than they are able to process text. Therefore, utilizing images in a marketing campaign can be a powerful tool because a person can process an image in 13 milliseconds. Images are able to grab a reader’s attention. According to a study done by Vero, campaigns that contained images had a 42% higher click through rate than campaigns without images.

4. Follow CAN-SPAM Act Regulations

In 2003 the CAN-SPAM Act was created to regulate and establish guidelines for commercial emails and messages. Before creating an email marketing campaign review the CAN-SPAM rules to make sure that you do not violate any rules or regulations. Violating CAN-SPAM can be extremely costly and each email found in violation of the Act can receive a monetary penalty of up to $16,000. The Act forbids using false and misleading information, deceptive subject lines, and protects a consumer’s right to opt-out or unsubscribe from mailing lists. Therefore, when sending marketing emails always include an unsubscribe button at the bottom of every email. The unsubscribe button must work for at least 30 days after the email is sent and opt-out requests must be processed and placed into effect within 10 business day. As an advertiser, pay attention to where subscribers are located because businesses are required to follow all international laws that apply to subscribers, not just the laws for where the business is based. For more information about the CAN-SPAM Act visit The Federal Trade Commission’s website.

5. Avoid Spam Filters

Marketers and consumers often interpret the word “spam” differently. While companies spend time crafting emails that do not violate the CAN-SPAM Act and receive permission to send emails to subscribers, consumers often use “spam” as a broad term to describe any unwanted or irrelevant emails they receive even if they have give the company permission to send them emails. Therefore, legitimate marketing emails can often end up in spam folders.

Often times a person’s email will automatically flag emails that it believes to be spam. Spam filters look at several aspects of an email to determine whether the email will be sent to a person’s inbox or to the spam folder. Even if an email is sent from a legitimate company there is still a chance that it can end up in a spam folder. According to MailChimp only about 79% of marketing emails, that have received permission from the recipient, actually reach the person’s inbox.

Businesses can follow these steps to avoid landing in the spam filter:
-IP address: Some spam filters will examine the IP address that an email is sent from and will flag the email if spam has been sent from that address in the past.
-Content and formatting: Spam filters will often be triggered by certain content or images that an email contains. Try to market a campaign that is clear, concise, and stays with the brand’s image and design.
-Don’t include attachments in emails: Marketing emails with attachments will likely be marketed as spam. Instead place the content on the company’s website and put the link in the email. This way you avoid spam filters while also driving more traffic to the company’s website.
-Avoid spam trigger words: Spam trigger words have been identified by email servers as frequently used words in spam mail. These words can include “Clearance,” “Buy Direct,” and “cash bonus.” Get creative with the subject line and the email’s content. For more information on common spam trigger words check out “The Ultimate List of Email SPAM Trigger Words.”

6. Mobile Friendly

With increases in technology, email is no longer confined to our desktop computers. With the proliferation of mobile technology, it is estimated that over half of all emails are opened on mobile devices. According to Litmus, 54% of emails are opened on mobile devices. With consumers primarily checking their emails from mobile devices it is imperative that all email marketing campaigns are designed to be viewed on mobile devices as well as traditional computer browsers.

When designing emails for mobile viewing utilize:
–shorter subject lines
–larger font size/smaller image size
–a clear call to action

Send out test emails before sending the email to the target audience. A test email will ensure that the email is compatible with mobile devices, desktops, and that the content and graphics are working. Most people will immediately delete emails if the content is not loading properly.

Conclusion

Email marketing campaigns allow businesses to reach a wide variety of consumers at a fraction of the cost of other marketing channels and platforms. Combining email marketing and retention campaigns is a surefire way of revitalizing your business and increasing profits.

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Kolau is the easiest way to market your small business. Request early access and start owning your small business online presence today. No marketing knowledge needed. No agencies required. Now you know, now you can.

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The post Tips to Combine Customer Retention & Email Marketing appeared first on Kolau Blog.