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Maximize Email’s Value
Beyond the Sale
I would like to see our
Q: company use email in more
ways that just selling our products
and following up with customers.
What do you suggest?
Most email marketers tend to focus
A: on email marketing’s role to generate
revenue or some conversion activity. Justifiably
so, because email typically generates the
highest ROI across your marketing channels
and activities.
However, at its core, email is a communications
vehicle, with sales being just one of its many
uses. Equally important, and even more so at
times like this, it’s the quickest way a company
can reach out to its customers.
Consider the global financial crisis of a few years
ago, when in the United States banks were failing
at a rate of more than one per week, and the
U.S. government was bailing out major corporations
and financial institutions.
The current global financial meltdown serves as
a great reminder of the broader role email can
play in maintaining or enhancing your customer
and subscriber relationships.
I have direct customer relationships
with three major financial
institutions. In those
rocky weeks,
only one of the three communicated with me to
reassure me, explain company actions or advise
me on how best to weather the financial storm.
Coincidently and not surprisingly, a survey from
Opinion Research Corp. found at the time that
46 percent of respondents said the bank in which
they have the most assets was not communicating
with them enough.
One of the incommunicado institutions, in fact,
was a well-known bank whose recent troubles
kept it in the headlines. It missed a prime opportunity
to reassure concerned depositors, explain its
bailout, or explain how to get questions answered.
What Else Can Email Do?
Every message you send should provide value to
your customers or subscribers and help achieve
your business and lifetime customer value goals.
As the global financial quagmire continues and further
contributes to an economic slowdown, smart
marketers will use email to help retain customers
and maintain or strengthen their brands.
Take a step back and look at your email program
more broadly. What would you as your own company’s
customer want to receive? The following
are just a few different examples, as the opportunities
to use email to enhance customer relationships
are numerous:
Update – Customers don’t like surprises. Use
email to regularly keep your subscribers and customers
up to date on issues that affect their ability
to use your product or service.
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