Outbound Call Center Featured Article

To Make E-Mail Marketing Work, Know What Customers Want

By Jacqueline Lee
Contributing Writer

As social media marketing campaigns enter the spotlight, many companies are cutting back on E-Mail  marketing. Article after article has proclaimed the death of E-Mail marketing, but according to Econsultancy’s E-Mail in Action survey, E-Mail  is alive and well. Econsultancy says that the companies that create precise and unique E-Mail  campaigns, instead of the companies that blast large volumes of E-Mail  with no relevance to the recipients, will succeed at E-Mail  marketing in 2012.

Regina Gray, vice president of strategic services for Experian CheetahMail, says that the key is to understand what customers want while creating those precise and unique E-Mail  campaigns. She lists four customer desires that top the list: to belong, to be known, to feel special and to be treated well.

At first read, these desires sound almost like the perks of a good marriage. According to Gray, customers are taking more control over their relationships with marketers and are forcing marketers to engage them in ways that work. And what works for Cupid, it seems, may work for marketers as well.

Helping customers to feel as though they belong may start with something as simple as a welcome campaign. Instead of just sending a single welcome E-Mail , Gray suggests a “welcome series” that includes strategically crafted messaging, creative elements and calls to action. She says that each treatment of the series, if uniquely composed, will double both open and click rates. Marketers may also see returns up to three times those generated by other promotional mailings.

Customers also want to be known. Simply using the customer’s first name in an E-Mail  subject line from time to time, for instance, may increase the open rate. Images of products that customers want, such as items left in shopping carts but not purchased, can entice customers to click through the E-Mail  and go back to the e-commerce site to complete the purchase.

Like any good spouse, a marketer should make the customer feel special. Customers want to be rewarded for loyalty, purchases made and engagement with the brand. Friends and family E-Mail s, loyalty points and rewards communications are just some of the ways that customers can feel unique and appreciated. Just using the word “exclusive” in the subject line, according to Gray, can increase the open rate by 14 percent.

Finally, customers want to be treated well. All E-Mail s should include links to Help Desk or Customer Service pages. Also, E-Mail s for shipping confirmation should include a simple “Thank You.” Shipping confirmations that simply take the time to thank customers are rewarded with more than 60 percent open and transaction rates.

By making customers feel special, Gray argues that businesses will both increase customer engagement and improve program performance. That sounds like good advice for any relationship.