Last December 8, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop organized by the Negros Online Workers (NOW) about Business Development and Digital Marketing. One of the main points discussed was email marketing and how it can help businesses grow. The speaker mentioned that email marketing still the most effective strategy wherein one can use it to create influence, relationship, and rapport among subscribers and followers. Once this is established, sales and marketing will be easier.
I have been following global speakers, authors, and coaches such as Tony Robbins, Sha Nacino, James Taylor and Brian Tracy. I have noticed that all of them are using email marketing to reach out their target audiences. What I like about the emails that they send is that these are not direct sales emails wherein they simply ask us to purchase a product or a service but instead, they are focused on sharing their stories, tips, and experiences.
Reading their emails seems personal as if it was sent by a friend or someone you really know and not just from a random digital marketer. Thus, it was no surprise that the conversion rate and sales derived from their email marketing is higher compared to all other marketing channels.
Thus, if you are also into email marketing, here are the 4 Ways to Build Customer Relationships with Email (Original article published at My Emma)
1. Set goals and map your customer journey.
Consider each decision your potential customer will face on their way to the action you want them to take.
For example, if you work for a university, your target audience, potential students and their parents, will have several questions to ask before choosing which school to enroll in. Think of it as a choose your own adventure that begins with questions like “Do I want to go to college?” and “How much will it cost?”, “What programs does this school offer?” and “What’s the food like?”. The more you can answer these questions on the front end, the easier your customer’s decision will be.
2. Make the connection.
Let’s say someone new signs up to receive your emails. Great! But your work here isn’t done — in fact, it’s just getting started. You want to make them feel at home with your brand and explain the value to them as a subscriber. One of the best ways to do that is with an automated welcome email.
A welcome email tells your brand story and introduces them to who you are and what you do. A welcome email is the best way to start your customer relationship strong. Not only that, it has 4X the open rate and 5X the click rate of other bulk emails.
3. Nurture and provide value.
Every good relationship needs nurturing. You set up coffee dates to catch up with friends and call those that live far away, so why wouldn’t you do the same for your invested customers? The best way to maintain a strong relationship is to create an ongoing, customized experience for each subscriber. Email service providers give you the customer insight and tools you need to group them by interest, create content they’ll love, and test the messages that resonate most.
Customized experiences go beyond the “hard sell” of cold calling and focus on the long-term goal of converting subscribers into lifelong brand advocates. Let’s say your customers signed up for a newsletter about pets. First, you’d start by addressing your subscriber by name and then you’d continue to “wow” them with selections based on their previous preferences.
This ensures your email is full of customized content that’ll feel more like a letter from a friend instead of just another business ad.
4. Listen and learn.
The definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” so let’s stay away from that in your email campaign. Instead of ignoring subscribers who opt out of your messages, be willing to find out why they unsubscribed. Take it as a challenge to re-engage inactive subscribers and customers who haven’t opened your emails in a while and spend time learning what type of content they’d like to receive.
Create effective tests to understand what’s working, and pinpoint the methods and messages that could use improvement. This will help you scale your efforts and success over time.
By the way, the team at Emma is willing to help you send better emails, they created a video series to equip you with all the knowledge you need to send messages your customers will want to open. In the video, Caroline Matis shares their proven blueprint for strong email strategy. Click this link to watch the video.