Email marketing and customer retention
After many years in business and relentless efforts towards growth and procurement of new customers, eventually we all fall guilty of this same wrongdoing – forgetting to look after our existing client base.
They are already your customer, they already know the services you provide, they know and trust you so why bother wasting your valuable time on them when you could be drumming up new business – right?
Wrong!
“Retaining customers is five times cheaper than acquiring new ones”
How do you stay in touch with all your customers?
Whether you have 20 customers or a database of 2000, the most effective way to connect with all your customers is via email newsletters, otherwise known as email marketing. This can seem like the impossible; writing the content, trying your hand at designing something that looks professional enough to send out and then the arduous task of thinking what to write about each time! All this while dealing with new prospects to grow your customer base and getting your actual work done too. After all, a day only has 24 hours!
“The probability to sell to an existing customer is 60-70%, whereas selling to a new prospect is only 5-20%.”
I don’t want my customers to think that I am spamming them
It’s likely that your first thought coming to mind is “Ugh, why should I invest time in a newsletter when I know it will end up as spam and it’s going to be deleted without being read!” Fair point, there are those newsletters that spam our inbox and we delete them without hesitation. However, I bet you have a few Newsletters that you subscribe to, which you open every morning or evening and you don’t even catalogue them as Newsletter or Spam. They deliver highly valued information right to your fingertips about the latest changes in your industry or it might be from your favorite shoe shop with new sale items. Newsletters you receive and look forward to, that you value for one reason or another.
What are the benefits of email newsletters?
Now that we all agree that newsletters are not always spam, let’s look at why it is so important to send them to your clients. First of all, they save you time while allowing you to stay in touch with all your customers – we are not reinventing the wheel, simply reminding you of the benefits of email marketing.
- By sharing your knowledge, you will build credibility (we all prefer dealing with people we like and trust)
- The newsletter might arrive just at the right time to solve a problem for your customer and generate an enquiry
- It helps you to strengthen relationships by staying in touch and engaging with your customers
- Newsletters help you to stay top-of-mind without much effort from your side (get more from doing less!)
- You will increase traffic to your website and your Google rankings will go up too
“Existing customers are 50% more likely to try a new product and spend 31% more than a new customer”
All of the above will help you to retain current customers without much effort from your side. Now you might think, sounds great, but I simply don’t have the time for an extra chore in my day… and anyway, what should I write about?
What to write about
Believe it or not, but you are an expert in your industry and your customers want to hear what you have to say! Your newsletter will be opened, read and possibly even shared on social media. A newsletter is not about finding business news to share and it’s not about wracking your brains to find the right topic. It’s about sharing relevant information with your customers and providing them with value.
Write an article about something:
- that’s currently changing or happening in your industry
- that is important to know for your customers
- or simply a how-to-guide to help answer a question that you’ve been asked recently
You see, there is plenty to write about and it’s not a chore as your newsletters will be about topics you are passionate about and that help your customers. It potentially will save you time in the long run as you can refer your customers to your blog articles many times over.
“Increasing customer retention quotas by 5% will increase profit by 25-95%”
Ways to make email newsletters easier
As you begin to write newsletters you will begin to build up a library of valuable articles, which means you may as well start a blog – blogs otherwise known as articles, are written and stored on your website. Your blog and email newsletter will go hand-in-hand and we recommend making the feature article of your newsletter a snippet of your latest blog. View an example of how Monster Graphics demonstrates this in our monthly newsletter here.
There are plenty of ways to make this proven marketing strategy easier and achievable for busy business owners like us. Here are our helpful tips on how to get your email newsletters underway:
- Make sure you have your database in an electronic format
- Chose which email management system to use, (we use Mail Chimp)
- Get a professional to design a newsletter template (yes, we can help!)
- Always include an offer
- Personalise the newsletter with your customers first name
- Test, check and test again before sending
Don’t keep waiting to start sending out your email newsletters, provide your customers with some extra, free and valued information. And the best part is – we can help you with all of the above! Get in touch with Monster Graphics to start thinking about your email marketing campaign – the consult is always free. Contact [email protected]
“With 56%, Newsletter marketing is the most effective digital marketing strategy for customer retention, followed by social media marketing with 37%”
