Email marketing is a powerful tool for boosting sales, revenue, and profits. However, there is more to it than just putting together various campaigns, promotions, and sales updates. When utilized properly, you build and strengthen your relationships with your customers and audience. You are able to stay top of mind with them while keeping them engaged. All of which pays dividends later through robust relationships with your audience, customer loyalty, and increased sales.
Check out our beginners guide to email marketing and how the ROI on email marketing may be as high as 4400% here.
Let us take a look at different ways you may build relationships with customers using email.
Why should you build and nurture customer relationships with email?
As we have seen an enormous push to work-from-home (WFH), contactless communication is more important than ever. Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to build and nurture customer relationships. If you are still on the fence about email marketing, check out a few of these statistics:
- Fifty-nine percent of B2B marketers state that email is their top channel for revenue generation. – Emma
- Approximately 320% more revenue is driven from automated emails than non-automated emails. – Campaign Monitor
- Forty-seven percent of marketing professionals believe that email marketing is the most effective lead nurturing tactic. – TechJury
- Email marketing has the single highest average ROI of all digital marketing channels, with an average of $44 for every $1 spent. – Campaign Monitor
- Sending an average of three abandoned cart emails can result in nearly 69% more orders than a single reminder email. – Omnisend
- Nearly 55% of consumers prefer email messages that contain products and offers relevant to them. – Liveclicker
Create and deliver high-quality content
This tip reaches beyond the realm of email alone. You also want to be delivering high-quality and engaging content on your website and social media channels, as well. When you create and deliver high-quality content, you will instill within your audience the desire to view your content more. You will be memorable, staying top of mind. With consistency, your audience and customer base will know what to expect from you, associate you with high-quality content, and therefore, high value.
Take an interest in, and get to know your subscribers
What is the first thing you do with another person when establishing a relationship with them? You get to know them, of course! Learn more about them, what type of content they like to digest. You may learn this through various means; review past campaigns to see which performed best, ask your audience questions, survey your audience, and more. When you set up your email subscription box, set it to capture their birthday. Then set up your email marketing to send them personalized birthday messages on their birthday.
Send a friendly welcome email
When someone subscribes to your email, it is a nice touch to have a friendly welcome email hit their inbox. You want to connect with them while the iron is hot and do not want it to take too long for them to receive an email from you.
You may automate this in the email marketing software you are using (check out Mailchimp). Automating the process helps to prevent anyone from slipping through the cracks. Use the welcome email to introduce them to your brand, mission, and what you are all about.
Provide value immediately
How do you provide value to new subscribers immediately? Setting up a lead magnet, a gift to new subscribers for providing their email information is a way to achieve this. We have discussed lead magnets briefly in the past. They may be an e-book, a mini version of a course, industry trends report, or a downloadable checklist you gift them.
You must keep your gift relevant to your business and audience, connecting with them right away and beginning to build a great relationship with them.
Don’t be “salesy”
Let’s face it, who enjoys being sold? We’ll go out on a limb here and say just about nobody! If you push mainly sales in your emails, your subscribers are going to stop opening your emails, unsubscribe, or even report you to spam.
Your mission with email marketing is not to pummel your audience with promotional emails, your mission is to build a relationship with them. You are looking to nurture this relationship while cultivating trust and engagement from your audience. Find a nice balance between sales and other high-quality content. We feel safe with the 80/20 rule, 80% non-sales-related content, and 20% sales/promotional content. We lean a little away from this, more around 85/15, but you’re safe at 80/20. Use the non-sales-related content to bring value to your audience while establishing yourself as an industry authority.
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