USING OPT-IN EMAIL TO CREATE CUSTOMERS FOR LIFE
| Category: E-mail Marketing | Date: 2002-07-18 |
E-care is different from the mass interaction of sending announcements and offers to your opt-in list. E-care incorporates email and your database to customize and cultivate your relationships with your customers, one at a time.
To set up an e-care program, first consider all the ways you interact with your customers: phone, fax, face-to-face, letters, etc. Now identify the ways you can conduct these interactions--whether theyre handled by sales, support or other departments--via email.
Conducting these customer communications via email will not only allow you to offer quicker responses, but more importantly, you can record customer preferences across a breadth of data fields. Some examples of the data you could collect include name and contact details, whether they own a cat or a dog, what theyve purchased from you in the past, how often they respond or click through on an email you send them, and if they want text or HTML emails.
Having this data allows you to tailor future customer interactions to their preferences and background. The database storing the information must be available to everyone in your organization who might have additional contact with that customer (via any medium). You could use a web-based database, for example, to make the information available across your company.
INTERACTIVE AND AUTOMATED
An e-care system also takes into consideration the response and feedback from your customers. A tool from a company called Close the Distance, for example, lets marketers create automated and interactive campaigns that manage in-bound email, not just outbound.
With this tool, different incoming messages trigger different outbound messages based on specific sorting criteria. An in-bound email triggers the database to read customer type, order date, geographic area and other data, and factor that into the response. In addition, responses can be sequenced, so one outgoing communication can be broken into a series of messages that can be delivered according to different schedules.
Heres an example of how an e-care system can work. Suppose you publish a magazine or run a website that sells advertising. You have sales reps located throughout the country. An incoming email tagged from a specific state would trigger a standard, prewritten response, but it would come from the email address of the sales rep that serves that geographic area.
Heres another example: Your database includes information on a customer, including which product hes purchased, which ones he inquired about, and the date he made a purchase. An incoming message about service would trigger a response from tech support or sales that is specific to the product he purchased or is interested in. If you only offer tech support free for the first year, the database would read his purchase date and send a response saying that his free support has expired, but here are some other options. This process of adapting a response to a particular inbound email based on database criteria is known as adaptive response monitoring.
ONE-TO-ONE
"The goal is to develop one-to-one marketing messages, messages tailored to individuals rather than some sort of demographic or broad customer type," says Steve McCullough of Close the Distance.
Measure response in every possible area: the number of repeat customers vs. one-time customers, the number of customers with expanding account sizes vs. customers whose accounts stagnate or shrink, and positive vs. negative customer feedback. Finally, of course, measure changes in profits based on the lower expenses and higher revenues that result from an effective e-care system.
CUSTOMER RETENTION
But remember that the number one goal in e-care is customer retention, and keeping customers informed goes a long way toward that goal. To keep its customers well-informed, Wells Fargo created a web-based communication system for its customers, its 4,000-person sales team, and its marketing staff. The intranet is managed by software called Portalware from Glyphica. Portalware automatically sends email updates whenever documents or messages are changed or sent, allowing Wells Fargo to update customers on issues such as pricing and availability.
Implementing a customer e-care plan requires buy in from your whole organization, at least everyone in your organization with an email account and interaction with the outside world. Set a policy about how quickly to respond to every incoming email, and the level of professionalism of the response.
But success makes e-care more difficult. The better email communication works for your customers, the more active your email will become as a customer care channel. Reward employees who understand email’s powerful impact on your corporate image. Reward those customers who stick with you by continuing to improve the care they receive through email. For example, make the product improvements they recommend, respond quickly to their email messages and make better communications available to them through this preferred channel.
About the Author
By Shannon Kinnard
Shannon Kinnard is a writer specializing in email newsletters, and the author of "Marketing With Email," due this October by Maximum Press.
shannon@ideastation.com
To set up an e-care program, first consider all the ways you interact with your customers: phone, fax, face-to-face, letters, etc. Now identify the ways you can conduct these interactions--whether theyre handled by sales, support or other departments--via email.
Conducting these customer communications via email will not only allow you to offer quicker responses, but more importantly, you can record customer preferences across a breadth of data fields. Some examples of the data you could collect include name and contact details, whether they own a cat or a dog, what theyve purchased from you in the past, how often they respond or click through on an email you send them, and if they want text or HTML emails.
Having this data allows you to tailor future customer interactions to their preferences and background. The database storing the information must be available to everyone in your organization who might have additional contact with that customer (via any medium). You could use a web-based database, for example, to make the information available across your company.
INTERACTIVE AND AUTOMATED
An e-care system also takes into consideration the response and feedback from your customers. A tool from a company called Close the Distance, for example, lets marketers create automated and interactive campaigns that manage in-bound email, not just outbound.
With this tool, different incoming messages trigger different outbound messages based on specific sorting criteria. An in-bound email triggers the database to read customer type, order date, geographic area and other data, and factor that into the response. In addition, responses can be sequenced, so one outgoing communication can be broken into a series of messages that can be delivered according to different schedules.
Heres an example of how an e-care system can work. Suppose you publish a magazine or run a website that sells advertising. You have sales reps located throughout the country. An incoming email tagged from a specific state would trigger a standard, prewritten response, but it would come from the email address of the sales rep that serves that geographic area.
Heres another example: Your database includes information on a customer, including which product hes purchased, which ones he inquired about, and the date he made a purchase. An incoming message about service would trigger a response from tech support or sales that is specific to the product he purchased or is interested in. If you only offer tech support free for the first year, the database would read his purchase date and send a response saying that his free support has expired, but here are some other options. This process of adapting a response to a particular inbound email based on database criteria is known as adaptive response monitoring.
ONE-TO-ONE
"The goal is to develop one-to-one marketing messages, messages tailored to individuals rather than some sort of demographic or broad customer type," says Steve McCullough of Close the Distance.
Measure response in every possible area: the number of repeat customers vs. one-time customers, the number of customers with expanding account sizes vs. customers whose accounts stagnate or shrink, and positive vs. negative customer feedback. Finally, of course, measure changes in profits based on the lower expenses and higher revenues that result from an effective e-care system.
CUSTOMER RETENTION
But remember that the number one goal in e-care is customer retention, and keeping customers informed goes a long way toward that goal. To keep its customers well-informed, Wells Fargo created a web-based communication system for its customers, its 4,000-person sales team, and its marketing staff. The intranet is managed by software called Portalware from Glyphica. Portalware automatically sends email updates whenever documents or messages are changed or sent, allowing Wells Fargo to update customers on issues such as pricing and availability.
Implementing a customer e-care plan requires buy in from your whole organization, at least everyone in your organization with an email account and interaction with the outside world. Set a policy about how quickly to respond to every incoming email, and the level of professionalism of the response.
But success makes e-care more difficult. The better email communication works for your customers, the more active your email will become as a customer care channel. Reward employees who understand email’s powerful impact on your corporate image. Reward those customers who stick with you by continuing to improve the care they receive through email. For example, make the product improvements they recommend, respond quickly to their email messages and make better communications available to them through this preferred channel.
About the Author
By Shannon Kinnard
Shannon Kinnard is a writer specializing in email newsletters, and the author of "Marketing With Email," due this October by Maximum Press.
shannon@ideastation.com
Copyright © 2005-2006 Powered by Custom PHP Programming