There is no doubt that focusing on customer acquisition is the way for a business to grow and succeed. But one of the often overlooked keys to a company’s success is customer retention. Having a strong customer retention strategy has a lot of benefits including:
- Providing a better customer experience
- Improving the value of your marketing spend
- Increasing your customer lifetime value or CLV
When it comes to investing in customer retention, email is the most effective platform according to leading marketers.* In this blog we will cover four of the key messages to add to your marketing email strategy that will increase your customer retention, starting with:
Type 1: The Welcome Email
A welcome email is usually sent right after someone signs up to your newsletter or subscribes to your blog. A good way to offer a friendly introduction, sending a welcome email is also an opportunity to explain more about what your company offers. A welcome email also serves as an immediate reminder of why your subscriber signed up in the first place, ensuring that they won’t unsubscribe or mark your emails as spam. A good welcome email should have a catchy introduction, it should direct subscribers to your information center, and it should highlight some of your company or products features that your new subscribers might not know about.
Type 2: The Friendly Reminder
Friendly reminders are mainly used in e-commerce to make sure that your audience keeps buying, but they can also be used for engagement. You can use these emails to alert your subscribers to new blog posts or new features on your website. If you offer a free trial, sending a reminder when the trial is set to expire with a coupon code is an excellent way to have a customer upgrade and convert. If your company is e-commerce based, then emails centered around shopping cart abandonment would be your friendly reminders. This type of email is extremely moldable and can be made to fit any business’s needs, not just those that are e-commerce.
Type 3: The Exclusive Offer
Access to special promotions is another reason people sign up to receive emails. You can reward this customer loyalty by sending out premium content offers like eBooks or access to exclusive webinars. To further increase engagement, you can segment content offers according to your audience and their problems. If your company offers a free trial period on any items, sending an email with a discount near the end of the trial can serve as a reminder that their trial is almost up and a push for them to convert. Sending out exclusive content offers and rewards helps to keep your audience engaged, resulting in their continued investment in your products or services.
Type 4: The Review or Feedback Request
Let’s face it- everyone has an opinion about everything. Giving your customers an opportunity to provide feedback not only gives them a safe space to share their feelings but it shows them that you value their opinion. This also serves a dual purpose for your business: it keeps your customers engaged, and it provides you with constructive feedback that can be used for improvements. For E-commerce based businesses, you can send out review requests for products and service-based businesses can send out quick surveys. These emails can also ask customers to provide reviews on public forums, such as Google and Yelp!. Some customers feel more encouraged to provide feedback in a way that will help other shoppers and the public reviews can help to grow the reputation of your company.
If you have any questions about these types of emails or would like to learn how they can help your business grow, click on the banner below to schedule your free 30-minute consultation with us.
