Email has become a critical part of any firm’s communications and marketing plan. It can help retain customers, keep members informed, increase sales, fill seats, raise brand visibility and help you grow your business.
Email is faster and more affordable than traditional print mail, and, by some measures, it offers the best return on investment (ROI) of any marketing medium.
However, its usage is mostly warranted as a customer loyalty tool and using it as an acquisition tool is usually not recommended. I will discuss the stages of the sales process a marketer can use Email for.
Before the Contact
Email marketing does have its uses in the pre-lead process and comes in two flavors; push and pull.
Push marketing is often used in cooperation with a partner by placing a text message or banner ad in relevant newsletters or by buying the right to mail to a partners’ list. Especially the latter requires extra diligence to arrive at an acceptable ROI.
One way of mitigating the risk of mailing to a rented or bought list is structuring the fee to be a cost-per-acquisition. This means paying for every lead generated as opposed to paying for every mail sent out. If this is not an option then segmenting (as much as possible) to your target audience is recommended. The content of these emails should be actionable, to the point and promotional in nature.
Email marketing is also an excellent tool to build the in-house address list. Generating this Pull can be done by offering informational value by writing newsletters, whitepapers, how-to’s and other content and asking the visitor for an email address to do so.
It is often a smaller step to sign up for a great email newsletter then signaling high-level interest by requesting product information. Many online marketers consider a sign-up a ‘mini conversion’ and spend considerable amounts of money to market their newsletters as opposed to their products or brands. Once on your list there is a high chance you will receive revenue through direct-conversion and word-of-mouth.
It is recommended to keep promotional content to a minimum.
Before the Sale, after the Contact
Before a customer actually buys there are many ways to get contact data. Email marketing can be very effective in keeping your product (and their interest in it!) top of mind while at the same time being a non-intrusive means of contact.
While it is good practice to offer informational value in the early of the sales process it is recommended to keep the emails product and brand oriented by being promotional in nature. Informational value offered should be product oriented by tying any information given to usage of the product.
After the first Sale
Keeping constant contact with customers increases top of mind awareness. The optimal use of email marketing to current customers is offering value while keeping promotional content to a minimum.
While this is counter intuitive to most sales organizations the best way to generate more sales is actually not selling in this stage. The customer is already convinced of your product, they wouldn’t be a customer otherwise. Note that promotion of products the customer is not using (or is decreasing in volume with) is usually a good idea.
So, increasing customer loyalty is the objective of email marketing in this stage. The idea is to offer value by sending informational emails like a newsletter. Market news, how-to guides, pod or vod (audio or video) casts and whitepapers are universally well received.
Conclusion
Even though Email marketing has never been gone there has been a focus on other media channels lately. However, seeing PPC, Display and SEO getting more and more competitive, you should expect a revival of interest in Email marketing. And, as the market becomes more and more sophisticated, so does the average consumer.
This is really the time to start thinking about your marketing channels from a sales cycle perspective. Email can and should be a big driver of loyalty and awareness. Key is using it strategically. Are you?
