Email: Triggers To Up Your ROI

Whether you're a small business or an international company with lots of branches "People do business with the people they know, like and trust." And your success is based on building relationships.

The larger your list of the 3 F’s (friends family and friends), the more daunting the task of sustaining one-on-one communication. Fortunately, today's online relationship marketing technologies give marketers the ability to join together the things they know about their 3F’s with the capability to automate specific types of messages that are based on a customer action.

With behavior-based marketing you can actually shorten the time and effort, while at the same time build trust, increase engagement and creating new possibilities. But, to do this, you must have some major elements in place to have success.

Common Reference points
According to the Direct Marketing Association's Email Experience Council, directed email campaigns have 96 percent higher open rates and 125 percent higher click through rates than other kinds of emails, yet sadly they only comprised 2.8 percent of the total email sent. The most common types are the "Welcome" emails you get that are sent right after your sign-up has been completed, and the "Thank you" email, sent when someone has just made a purchase. If you've at least got these kinds of customer communications automated, you’re at least on the right road!

But there are so many more functions you can automate. Things like like birthdays, anniversaries and abandoned shopping carts and the like. But what are some lesser-recognized opportunities that organizations can take advantage of?

Product Lifecycle Emails
Using a campaign that involves the lifecycle of a product or service is a very powerful way to cross-sell and build a customer relationship.

"What is a lifecycle email campaign?" simply put, it is one that is based on predictable future as to the needs or desires of the prospect or customer, as shown by a previous action. This then activates a series of emails designed to be sent out at prescheduled intervals. These kinds of campaigns can also be based on certain behaviors or changes of status as well

For your prospects that are not easily targeted, you can look at their data to better understand the way they wish to be communicated with. Ask yourself how do they want to hear from you and what do they want to hear? In looking at their unique preferences, share offers, competitions, events, product information and other details that will effectively elicit a response.

Status Change Events
Another often overlooked chance to touch your customer base revolves around changes they make. This could be one that indicates they have become even more attached to your brand, for example, if they started following you on Twitter.

A change based on these types of actions taken is a great way for a relationship to build and follower retention. It shows your customer that you are listening to them and that you care respect them and what they like and, don’t like.

In today's challenging economic climate, every customer matters. According to Adobe's 2012 report, "The ROI from Marketing to Existing Online Customers," 40 percent of revenue comes from returning or repeat purchasers, who represent only 8 percent of all visitors.

Keep consistency and frequency in mind: When done right a targeted campaign should seem perfectly natural. Make sure all of your data is integrated and up to date: When you make the choice to build a relationship with your customer this way, you need to keep your data up to date. If a customer suddenly receives something that makes no sense, it can totally take away any trust you've worked to build.

Larson Notes & Satire:  If you work at it it will happen. As in all things it’s about being consistent. This kind of an email attack can only help you in that consistency. Keep it constant, keep it focused, keep it directed and you will get results.

If you need help we could make you an email star!

“We don’t sell lists, we find customers.”

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
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