Are you interested in the idea of communicating to your customers via email, but have concerns with maintaining a regular email communications program? If you have information that is not time specific, you should consider trigger-based or scheduled email communications.
How do Trigger-based / scheduled emails work?
Trigger-based or scheduled emails are simply email messages that are sent based on an action or a specific time. Triggers that can be used to send the automated emails can include:
a. Signing up to/unsubscribing from a database
b. Submitting a form
c. Updating their profile on your website
d. Time-related (i.e. 1 month after subscribe)
e. A specific time (i.e. 25th December 2010).
Here are some exampled of how these emails could be used as part of your email communications activity:
- When a customer subscribes, send a welcome email with an overview of what they can expect to hear from the brand and links to the most frequently sought information on the brand’s website.
- 2 weeks after a customer subscribes, send a request for feedback via email – “How have you found the information on our site? How can we improve the content for you?”
- Send happy birthday emails if you collect this information about your customers - you could even include some special birthday offers
- When a customer signs up to an event or enters a competition, send a confirmation email that includes links to related information, and/or other upcoming events/competitions
- Send an email reminder 1 day before an event is due to commence with relevant details
- "We miss you" emails - send communications with special offers to/ask for feedback from customers who haven't made any purchases in the last 6-12 months.
- Send specific messages to customers who update their details online. These customers are saying "I want to keep on hearing from you" - think about how can you communicate with this highly engaged audience.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Developing an Email Communications Plan
So you’ve decided that you want to start building a database of customers to communicate to via email. Before recruiting any new customers, it’s a good idea to have a solid plan for your future email communications. There is no use in collecting lots of email addresses from customers and then only contacting them once a year!
Likewise, it can be detrimental send emails without compelling content, with many studies reporting that the main causes of opt outs are lack of relevant content and sending emails too frequently.
Here are some things to consider when developing an email communications plan:
- What do your customers want to hear about? Good email communications balance what the customer wants to hear with what the company wants to tell them.
- How often will you communicate with your customer base? Will yours be a monthly communication, or ad-hoc? How often do your customers want to hear from you – and how often is too often? It’s a good idea to set a minimum and maximum frequency for communications within a given period. It’s also best practise to give your customers a good idea about what they will receive by signing up to your database and how often they will be contacted.
- What resources are available to compile, develop, send and measure your email communications? Ensure that your plan is within your capabilities!
- Can email activity support your other marketing initiatives? If you contact your customers with direct marketing, can you do an email follow up to increase conversion?
- What other opportunities are there for communicating with your customers via email? It’s likely that they will be most interested in hearing from you when they initially sign up – so why not send a welcome email? Are there other times when you can schedule an email to be sent over and above your standard email communications plan? Learn more about scheduling emails is this article: “Trigger-based / scheduled emails”.
Likewise, it can be detrimental send emails without compelling content, with many studies reporting that the main causes of opt outs are lack of relevant content and sending emails too frequently.
Here are some things to consider when developing an email communications plan:
- What do your customers want to hear about? Good email communications balance what the customer wants to hear with what the company wants to tell them.
- How often will you communicate with your customer base? Will yours be a monthly communication, or ad-hoc? How often do your customers want to hear from you – and how often is too often? It’s a good idea to set a minimum and maximum frequency for communications within a given period. It’s also best practise to give your customers a good idea about what they will receive by signing up to your database and how often they will be contacted.
- What resources are available to compile, develop, send and measure your email communications? Ensure that your plan is within your capabilities!
- Can email activity support your other marketing initiatives? If you contact your customers with direct marketing, can you do an email follow up to increase conversion?
- What other opportunities are there for communicating with your customers via email? It’s likely that they will be most interested in hearing from you when they initially sign up – so why not send a welcome email? Are there other times when you can schedule an email to be sent over and above your standard email communications plan? Learn more about scheduling emails is this article: “Trigger-based / scheduled emails”.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The benefits of email marketing
Jupiter Research estimates that the US will spend $1.1billion on email marketing in 2010. Of this, $557 million will be spent on retaining customers. If you are not doing so already, you should consider entering the world of email marketing.
The benefits of email marketing:
It’s quick: Not only is the time taken to develop and send the email quicker than standard direct mail or print advertising, the time to receive responses is also much faster. The bulk of emails are opened and acted upon within 3 days of the email being sent, where as you’d be looking at around double that (minimum) for a direct mail campaign.
It’s low cost: The cost per contact for email is generally far lower than other traditional forms of marketing.
It drives engagement: Email is a one-to-one communication that can help build relationships with your prospects and customers. When you consider that generally it takes 6-7 ‘touches’ before you can turn a prospect into a customer, email is a great way to engage your prospects with relevant content at a time that is convenient to them.
It delivers measurable results: You can see who has opened your emails, who never received it, who has clicked through to your website, and who thought the content was so interesting that they forwarded the email onto a colleague. You can test various elements and optimise the effectiveness of your email communications.
It accommodates targeted messages: Segmentation of your email database and targeting specific messages is a generally a simple process.
A good email marketing campaign can help you:
- Increase sales conversion rate
- Generate repeat sales
- Up-sell and cross-sell products and services
- Gain valuable feedback from your visitors
- Drive web users to make offline purchases.
Some things to think about before commencing email marketing:
1. Develop an email communications plan - make sure you know what you will say, how often you will say it and who you will be speaking to.
2. Trigger-based / scheduled emails - engage in conversations with your customers at exactly the right time for maximum impact
3. Email design - single or multiple templates? Postcard style or newsletter emails? Where do you position your logo?
4. Email database recruitment - How will you recruit and retain your customer database?
5. Managing your email database - manage unsubscribes, bounces, duplicate email addresses.
6. Email measurement - and email communications plan involves some effort - what is the return and how will you track it over time?
Read my other articles on email marketing for some more tips and ideas.
The benefits of email marketing:
It’s quick: Not only is the time taken to develop and send the email quicker than standard direct mail or print advertising, the time to receive responses is also much faster. The bulk of emails are opened and acted upon within 3 days of the email being sent, where as you’d be looking at around double that (minimum) for a direct mail campaign.
It’s low cost: The cost per contact for email is generally far lower than other traditional forms of marketing.
It drives engagement: Email is a one-to-one communication that can help build relationships with your prospects and customers. When you consider that generally it takes 6-7 ‘touches’ before you can turn a prospect into a customer, email is a great way to engage your prospects with relevant content at a time that is convenient to them.
It delivers measurable results: You can see who has opened your emails, who never received it, who has clicked through to your website, and who thought the content was so interesting that they forwarded the email onto a colleague. You can test various elements and optimise the effectiveness of your email communications.
It accommodates targeted messages: Segmentation of your email database and targeting specific messages is a generally a simple process.
A good email marketing campaign can help you:
- Increase sales conversion rate
- Generate repeat sales
- Up-sell and cross-sell products and services
- Gain valuable feedback from your visitors
- Drive web users to make offline purchases.
Some things to think about before commencing email marketing:
1. Develop an email communications plan - make sure you know what you will say, how often you will say it and who you will be speaking to.
2. Trigger-based / scheduled emails - engage in conversations with your customers at exactly the right time for maximum impact
3. Email design - single or multiple templates? Postcard style or newsletter emails? Where do you position your logo?
4. Email database recruitment - How will you recruit and retain your customer database?
5. Managing your email database - manage unsubscribes, bounces, duplicate email addresses.
6. Email measurement - and email communications plan involves some effort - what is the return and how will you track it over time?
Read my other articles on email marketing for some more tips and ideas.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)