Your relationship with customers is one of – if not THE – single most important thing to remember for your company. After all, no matter how great your employees or how perfect your marketing plan might seem, they mean very little without a good relationship with customers.
Building loyalty from your clients and customers can help them keep using your business, increase the chances that they’ll tell others about your business, and more. In short, they’ll be the key to building your company’s bottom line.
Using behavior based email marketing is a perfect way to go about doing this, and there are several primary things to keep in mind that can help you create a strong customer relationship through the use of this service. The way that you utilize your email marketing software and process will have a tremendous impact on your success at turning leads into lifelong loyal customers.
Here are some of the main things to remember when using email to connect with customers and build a relationship with them.
Reach The Right Customers In The First Place
No marketing strategy will be as effective if you’re not marketing to the right people. Behavior based email marketing can be built around the online behaviors of internet users. By looking at searches, newsletter memberships, and how they browse your own site, good software can give you the info you need to target them with information or emails that they’ll actually use.
This allows you to directly reach the customers who are actually interested in what you provide to them, not those who would never spend time or money on your product or service. Targeted marketing matters – currently about 61% of consumers enjoy getting weekly promotional emails and nearly 30% want to receive more of them! That number can increase when you’re sending the right emails to the right customers.
Provide Them With More Than They Expect
Once you have the customer list you need to target, the next step is keeping them interested in your company. With behavior based email marketing this isn’t difficult to do – you can identify the things that appeal to the broadest selection of your clients or customers and then establish yourself as an authority in the field.
For example, using your email to deliver news stories, ideas or fun facts about your field, and tips can all help them see that you’re providing them with info they’ll use. Give them product recommendations that are personalized for their interests and add in some digital, email-only coupons, and you’ll keep them as a customer for years to come.
Keep Their Experience Hassle Free
One of the biggest reasons that companies lose online customers is through poor design of their website or their services. When a customer has to fill out three different forms and provide more information to you than they provide on their taxes, you’ll likely lose them.
A better option is to keep things simple. Yes, you want more than just their name and the more info you can get, the better. But don’t bombard them with endless forms. The simpler it is for them to sign up to your newsletters or to join your rewards program, the better.
From there, it’s also important that you don’t complicate their life. This means not sending out too many emails in a day or constantly asking them to interact. Surveys are great from time to time, but most customers just want a weekly or twice-weekly email that gives them some useful info, introduces a new product, and maybe offers them a coupon or discount. Don’t complicate their lives and they’ll appreciate it.
Treat Them Like More Than A Number
Your customers are people, and sometimes companies overlook that simple fact. Instead of looking at them like a number in your bottom line, it’s better if you actually take the time to treat them like human beings.
There are plenty of ways to do this in an email. You can use personalized greetings, send out a specific email to them on their birthday, suggest products that you know they’re interested in, and more. You can also follow up with them after a sale – a quick “How did we do?” email could help them see that you value their experiences and want to give them the best results possible. In short, treating them like more than a number is an important part of building a stronger customer relationship.
Integrate Social Media and Engage
Email is still one of the keys to good online marketing, with about 77% of consumers still preferring to receive marketing communications through their email accounts based on a recent study. But integrating social media into email marketing campaigns and even into each email you send can do even more.
Think about it – millions of people check their Facebook or Twitter accounts daily. This gives you the chance to interact with them directly – responding to their questions or comments, sending them targeted ads based on social media usage, and more. This can help you find new customers and to strengthen your relationship with existing ones.
And when you consider that something as simple as an email with a social sharing button ends up with a 158% increase in click through rates according to new data, it becomes clear that you can’t afford to ignore what social media can offer to you.
All in all, your customers are the lifeblood of your business. Reaching them and engaging with them correctly means the difference between success and failure at your online marketing strategies, and building strong customer relationships through something as simple as your email is indeed very possible.
We can help you get the best results from your email efforts. By providing you with a wide range of different tools including behavior based email marketing and the ability to personalize email through our software, we can make sure that each of your customers ends up getting the experience that will turn them into loyal customers for years to come. Contact us to learn more.
