Seven tactics to enhance your marketing email efforts

By Insight | Publication date: 17/11/2009 | Category: Tactics > Ecommerce and email

 

Social networking, SMS, and customer reviews aren’t in and of themselves new concepts. But using them in conjunction with email is, if not new, underused, according to marketing solutions provider Silverpop. In a white paper with the catchy title “Seven New Email Marketing Tactics You Have to Use in 2010”, it explains its selections:

1) solicit customer reviews. To help build up your website’s library of customer reviews, send emails to customers several weeks after they’ve purchased asking them to submit a review of the product. You should be able to set this up as an automated trigger email. This provides you with another reason to get in touch with customers and encourage them to revisit your site. What’s more, “you can then populate personalised emails with these reviews according to each recipient’s interests or purchase history,” Silverpop writes.

2) encourage social networking. Including icons with links to the social networks in which you participate is a start. But you also need to let readers know why they should bother posting about and engaging with your brand on these sites. If they join your Facebook group, will they be privy to exclusive promotions? If there is no obvious reward, be sure you show your appreciation in your email copy.

3) use web analytics. Tracking open rates and click-through rates is no longer sufficient. You need to be able to follow every point of contact an email recipient has with your website, not just the initial click-through of a link within the message. By analysing further interactions, you can better target additional messages to encourage more sales and repeat visits. “One particularly effective way of combining web analytics and email is to run a shopping basket abandonment campaign,” Silverpop advises. “Let’s say a customer visiting your website begins the process of making a purchase, but fails to complete the transaction. Marketers that implement triggered email campaigns to send a reminder message encouraging customers to return and complete the process have experienced tremendous results.”

4) personalise email delivery times. By analysing recipients’ behaviour, you can determine at what time of day or what day of the week individuals are most likely to open and respond to your messages.

5) complement emails with text messaging. Certain types of messages, such as special-event notifications or gift reminders, lend themselves to the brevity and immediacy of SMS.

6) make use of life-cycle marketing. When segmenting your email database, don’t overlook the importance of targeting recipients by their relationship with your brand. Someone who hasn’t yet purchased from your company should receive messages that encourage them to take the plunge: emails reminding them of the benefits of your products or services, introductory promotions. Active customers should receive “transactional emails with upsell or cross-sell offers,” according to Silverpop. As for lapsed customers, send them surveys so that you can determine why they haven’t made a purchase in some time and, if appropriate, follow up with incentives to give your brand another go.

7) measure engagement. Conversion rates are a key means of measuring engagement, of course. But consider other signs of customer engagement as well, such as how many recipients forward emails to friends.

Related articles: 

• How email can salvage abandoned shopping carts 

• Eight key metrics for email marketing 

• Easy email wins