We see a lot of this question at SamsonMedia: “How often should I be emailing my customers?”
Email marketing is crucial to growing your business and keeping in touch with your prospects, leads, and customers. Not surprisingly, there are competing opinions on this topic. Some say to send as many emails as possible, while others think that too much could annoy potential and existing customers.
You should consider three main factors before deciding how often you’re going to email your customers. It comes down to your goals and depends on your product/service and your audience.
Do you need help with email marketing? Book some time with us to chat!
Define Your Goals
Think about what would make your email marketing efforts worthwhile. You might want to nurture leads until they purchase. Or you’re sending exclusive discounts.
So you know your business, you know what you want to get out of email marketing. The next step is to figure out how to get it. You should have specific goals for your email marketing strategy. If you’re getting started with email marketing, it’s easy to have a general plan like “sell more stuff.” This will guide your strategy, but to determine what subject lines to use, what sales copy to write, and what content to create, you’ll need something more profound.
Even if you’re not 100% sure of what exactly you want your readers to do after they read your email, make sure that you define what ‘success’ is to know whether the email marketing strategy has been successful.
Here is one goal-setting method to define your email marketing goals.
S.M.A.R.T. Goals
S.M.A.R.T. goals are goals you set that are specifc, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Let’s Break down what each of these means.
Specific
A goal that isn’t specific will be challenging to achieve and will likely lead to a lot of frustration. If your goal is vague, you might wonder, “What exactly am I supposed to be doing?” and “Who is in charge of making sure this happens?”
Measurable
Instead of saying “I need to get more website traffic,” a goal like “I will get 2,000 new visitors to my website,” which includes a metric that can be measured and tracked, is much more effective. Measurable goals are more effective because they help you keep an eye on your progress and let you know when it’s time to celebrate.
Attainable
This is when you pause to confirm that you and your team are on the same page. Goals should be practical and achievable — not something that towers over your team.
Relevant
Now, consider the greater perspective: Why are you setting this goal? Your goal should be tied-back to an overall business initiative. With that in mind, ensure you reflect the context in your goal.
Time-Bound
When setting your goals, make sure they don’t lose their edge over time or fizzle out before you reach them. It’s important to remember that SMART goals are typically more effective when time-bound.
Do you need help setting S.M.A.R.T. goals? Book some time with us to chat!
Understand your audience
Understanding your audience is key to producing content and messaging that aligns with your customers. People connect with brands that understand them. And they’re more likely to follow brands on social media, visit their website, and make a purchase if they feel like the brand has the same values and interests.
To understand your audience, spend time researching and analyzing your data. When you dig into the data, you’ll be able to understand trends in price, quantity, open rates, and more. You should also understand industry standards and benchmarks for your customers and company.
Use this data to do the following:
- Define the demographics of your audience.
- Survey your audience about their challenges and goals.
- What is their pain point?
- What role does your product or service play in their work?
- What is their main priority?
Using this information, define the characteristics of your ideal customer. Then, it’s time to get to know your audience on a deeper level by asking questions that will help you understand what they want and need to achieve.
Although you will never entirely know your audience, you can steadily get to know a lot about who they are by reviewing what you’ve already gathered. Once you take the first step in reviewing and analyzing your current data, additional information will come naturally.
Whether you perform this first step personally or hire someone from outside to do it for you, ensure that whoever gathers this information is on the same page as your business. If not, you may overlook some essential details.
Email Marketing Strategies for Product vs. service-based businesses
Product-Based
Back In Stock Alerts
You are probably familiar with the scenario: you want to buy a product or make a purchase, but when you get to the online store, you find out the product is out of stock. In some cases, you can’t even find out that the product is not in stock.
Don’t pull the product from the page when it’s out of stock. Instead of forcing them to search for an alternative or losing them to another store, add an email capture form to send your customer a personalized email notification when your product is back in stock.
Abandoned Cart Series
Unfortunately, many customers abandon their carts for a variety of reasons. Cart abandonment can mean a lot of lost revenue for online retailers. Even though it’s hard to know for sure why shoppers abandon their carts, you can still create an email series to attempt to re-engage those customers and get them to complete their purchases.
Abandoned cart emails are sent to customers a few minutes after they abandon their shopping carts without making a purchase.
Shipping Notifications
“Order shipped” emails are sent automatically to your customers when an order has been shipped. These emails can be customized with unique content and visuals, making it the perfect opportunity to send a personalized message.
Do you need help with email marketing? Book some time with us to chat!
Service-Based
Customer Activation Emails
An activation email helps you turn initial interest into a real-life action – like a quote, call, or purchase. Once someone signs up for your service, you want to be sure they turn into raving fans, which means identifying the right touchpoints at the right time.
It’s essential to keep in touch with your new contacts and keep them moving down the funnel. By sending customer activation emails, you can build on the relationship you’ve made with them and remind them why they should choose your business over your competitor’s.
Referral Campaigns
Referrals are a tried and true way to boost your bottom line, but do you know there’s a better way to increase your sales than by sending out referral emails?
If your business is still waiting for customers to come knocking, it’s time to shake things up.
We’re not saying referral programs are a terrible thing. They’re not.
We’re just saying that you should never rely solely on your customers to bring in new customers. Inbound marketing is the best way to start new relationships and offer great experiences to existing ones.
Onboarding series
Many companies only send a single welcome email, but that’s only the first step in onboarding.
Let your customers know what to expect from the service they’re receiving or break up your onboarding process into a multi-part email series that your customers can easily read and digest.
Creating an onboarding series allows you to develop a more cohesive environment for your customer. As your customer becomes more familiar with your service, your emails will become less of a reminder and more dialogue between you and your customer.
Email marketing with Inbound
According to Ellie Mirman, former Director of Marketing at HubSpot, “Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. It includes blog posts, social media posts, infographics, and — you guessed it — emails.”
An inbound-focused email marketing campaign is a great way to attract customers, increase your reach, and refine your message.
Do you need help with email marketing? Book some time with us to chat!