Email Marketing - Are You Communicating Enough?by Compiled by GymLink (Online Marketing Consultants)
Statistics show that it can take up to six to seven contacts before you can turn a prospect into a customer. All that contact can be expensive and time consuming. That's where email marketing becomes a critical part of any organisation's marketing efforts. Email Turns Prospects and Visitors into Loyal Customers Email marketing enables you to proactively communicate with your existing customers instead of passively waiting for them to return to your facility or website. With email marketing you can solidify existing relationships, initiate new ones and convert your one-time visitors and members into repeat business and long-term customers. No matter how your visitors, prospects and customers found you; perhaps you paid for search engine placement, sponsored a newsletter, placed an ad in the local newspaper, distributed a flyer or sent a postcard; email marketing adds to your bottom line because it allows you to maximize your investment in those expensive and time consuming marketing efforts and improve the return on investment (ROI) of every dollar you spend to obtain new business and develop profitable customer relationships. Why is Email Marketing the Answer? Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available today. It is easy, affordable, direct, actionable and highly effective. When you add email to your marketing mix, you spend less time, money and resources than with traditional marketing vehicles (e.g. direct mail or print advertising) And, with email marketing, you can communicate more quickly which means your time-sensitive information is disseminated in minutes, not days or weeks - and you can see the results of your efforts instantly. Email marketing is at it's most effective when used in communications to your existing customer list or "house list" as a means of customer retention. Communicate More Information, More Often Email marketing is a great way to stretch a tight marketing budget. It can cost fractions of a cent per email! With a response rate of up to five times greater than direct mail and 25 times the response rate of banner ads, email marketing is the most effective way to increase sales, drive traffic and develop loyalty. Unlike direct mail, there is virtually no production, materials or postage expense. So, with email marketing, you can easily and affordably create more communications that are valued by your customer, and you can make those communications support and enhance your business in a way that substantially differentiates you from the competition. Your communications can include newsletters, member promotions, sale notifications, new service announcements, event invitations, greetings, staff introductions, referral programs and much, much more. Educate Your Customers Information and education makes your customers and prospects much more valuable because they are more likely to buy when they can make an informed decision. Why force prospects to look elsewhere for the important information they need? Your email communications can gently lead a prospect through the sales process, provide important data and drive the prospect to your website or even your front for more details and/or a purchase. For example, an email newsletter is uniquely suited to accomplish the long-term goals of customer retention and loyalty, while it can still contain calls-to-action that provide short-term benefits. For most businesses, a well-educated customer uses products and services to their greatest advantage. And, guess who will be the first in line to buy when something new becomes available? Foster Long-lasting Relationships Email is an easy and inexpensive way of establishing early and long lasting relationships with your prospects and customers. And the benefits of these relationships are far reaching. When you inform and educate prospects and customers, they begin to perceive you as capable of addressing their needs. Even better, they may look to you as an expert. This develops trust, opens the door to two-way communication and allows them to share their pain points with you. Using the information you gain from your prospects and customers, you will be able to better serve their ongoing needs and hone your unique selling proposition. In the process, you may discover hidden sales opportunities that you may not be addressing. Easily Measure and Improve Your Results The benefits derived from most types of marketing and advertising are very difficult to measure. With email marketing, however, you can easily measure the number of emails sent, emails opened, bounce backs, unsubscribes and click-through rates. You can also tell who opened your email, which links in your email motivated the most clicks and, even more specifically, who clicked on each link. All of this useful information can help you send highly targeted campaigns to the individuals most likely to respond to your offer, thus improving your results going forward. Good luck with your campaign! |
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As a business owner or manager, ask yourself how many times during the year/quarter/month your customer needs you, or your products or services, and let that be your guide to determining how often to reach out and touch your audience. Think of this number as a minimum, and build from there.
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