Having an opt-in email subscriber database is one thing, but using it to its full effect is another.
As time goes by, it’s inevitable that some people will unsubscribe. It’s therefore vital to maintain a steady inflow of new addresses to keep your database on track. Regular contact is also important in order to maintain the relationship you have built with customers – just make sure that it is meaningful, relevant and not mistaken for spam.
Here are some tips on how to ensure that your email communication is relevant, welcome and effective.
Capture addresses correctly and continuously
You need to ensure that you are POPI compliant for all the email addresses in your database, and that they are all valid – statistics has shown that as much as a third of the email addresses in a database can be obsolete. To ensure that your database doesn’t shrivel and die, you need to keep collecting addresses. But how can you keep replenishing this database?
One way is to incentivise your sales team to collect email addresses each and every time they make contact with a client, or confirm that the current address is still accurate and viable. Reward salespeople for every contact they collect.
Set up your point-of-sale system up in such a way that it captures an email address every time a customer buys something in-store or over the phone.
As soon as an email address is entered into the database, send a verification email with a click-back confirmation button that confirms permission to use the address for marketing purposes – but remember to assure the customer that you will maintain the confidentiality of this address.
Make the most of transaction emails
An often-overlooked communication touchpoint is the transaction email. This would be the confirmation email, e.g. “Your order has been received” or “Your package has been shipped and should arrive by this date”. Transaction emails have a higher open rate than promotional emails, as they are informative rather than persuading. As they are more likely to be opened and read, it would be remiss not to place subtle suggestions for future purchases, especially if these suggestions are specifically tailored to the customer’s specific demographic.
In order to make the most use of this tool, ensure that transaction emails are sent from your email marketing team instead of the shipping department or dispatch company to make sure they are in HTML and contain the correct promotional, tailored content.
Quantify how much your valid emails are worth
While offering incentives to salespeople in order to get email addresses (remember to follow the guidelines as set out in the POPI Act!), this expense still needs to be sanctioned by senior management. And that’s not going to happen unless you can show them the money (to be made) – provide numbers to show them the monetary worth of having an extended database of valid email addresses.
To show them how this database will translate into profit, you need to show how you can use it to boost retention and increase sales. You need to compile a lifetime value chart, which tracks the lifetime of the subscriber during the time he or she appears on your database. Show how much it cost to acquire each subscriber, and how much profit they provide from sales in the time they appear on the database.
Furthermore, you can then work out how much each contact is worth, and subsequently how much the combined database is worth. Yet this is all theoretical until you use the database to contact customers and translate those contacts into effective, long-term profitable relationships.
Use emails as measures of goodwill
Use your database to make your customers’ lives easier and better. Personalise gift cards and special offers around their previous behaviour. Look at what they are currently buying and make it easier for them to buy more. Make the whole buying experience one of ease and free of trouble and you will win them for life.
Let’s take an airline, for example. Instead of having customers go through the various (and many) frustrating processes at airports, they send them e-tickets. This means that Mr and Mrs Smith can print their electronic ticket at home. They avoid standing in check-in queues and can save 15 vital minutes – by simply sending an email, the company has added value and bought endless goodwill.
Best of all, the airline also saves money in having to employ fewer employees and less technology.
If you’re not an airline, you can still use your database to keep customers happy. Just put yourself in their shoes and think of what would make your life easier and happier.
Strategix’ data management tool, myDMT, can be used to support master data management by removing duplicates, standardising data (mass maintaining) and incorporating rules to eliminate incorrect data from entering the system in order to create an authoritative source of master data. Master data are the products, accounts and parties for which the business transactions are completed.
Put customer reviews to good use
One of the best things about emails is that they cost virtually nothing to send, which makes it a perfect tool to use on a large scale. You can send follow-up emails to ask customers whether they were satisfied with a product they received and ask them to rate the product and the service delivery. Once they reply, you can file their response under the product listing and enter them into your database – which means that every time an email about that product or product type is sent, they receive an email.
An added benefit of such product reviews is that they are generally trusted by customers – they feel that it is more authentic if ordinary people just like them share their opinions on products, and find it more trustworthy than the opinions of experts.
In short, email marketing is a cost-effective and efficient way to market your products and services, especially in a tough economic climate. Not only are emails easy and inexpensive to send, they also imply a personal touch, which can make the crucial difference in establishing and maintaining a relationship with the customer.
