Knowing your audience and their current status within the customer lifecycle is key to a "fully baked" email marketing program. Messages that you send your newest customers shouldn't necessarily be the same messages you are sending to your best customers or, for that matter, to customers who haven't interacted with your organization for some time. The concept of one-size-fits-all marketing in the email world leaves many underutilized opportunities to convert, grow and retain customers.
Map your customer lifecycle
So where do you start? Look at your customer database.
There are five general stages within an active customer lifecycle: acquisition, conversion, growth, retention and re-activation. Looking at your customer database, you should be able segment your customers into one of these stages. Each stage will either have a timeline or other benchmarks associated with the individual stage. Each stage is an opportunity to create relevant and timely messages.
Acquire
Your welcome message is one of the most critical steps of the customer lifecycle. A welcome message can and should reinforce the benefits of receiving your communications just as much as it should provide an opportunity for customers to purchase a product or service. In a recent study completed by email deliverability firm Return Path, 60 percent of online marketers are not sending welcome emails to new subscribers. Ensure that your sign-up for emails is easy to find and is listed on every page of your website.
Convert
Your new customers are anticipating messages from your organization. They signed up to receive your message because they are interested, so strike while the iron is hot. Your initial marketing messages should focus on lead nurturing and conversion. Messages at this stage of the customer lifecycle should be clear, concise and strengthen your brand identity. If you were able to collect additional information during the registration process that can help you target a more relevant message to your customer, use it.
Are you using a shopping cart or can you track specific clickthrough activity for your recipients? When a customer interacts with a marketing messages and shows interest in a specific product within your communication or adds an item to the shopping cart and doesn't purchase, you should create specific campaigns for those that are abandoning a potential purchase. By querying your database for these "shoppers," you can remarket to these individuals by offering more information about the product, reassuring them of any guarantees that you might offer or letting them know if the product in which they are interested is now available with a discount.
Grow
Just because your customer has purchased doesn't mean that the marketing process is complete. Taking advantage of timely up-sell and cross-sell opportunities can drive incremental revenue as well as provide a more robust purchase experience. From travel to technology purchases, there is more than likely additional products or services that you can offer shortly after a purchase to either enhance or complement a customer's original purchase. Although "add-ons" are usually offered during the purchase process, not everyone takes advantage of these offers at the time they buy.
Retain
Good customers should receive special treatment. Happy customers are familiar with your brand, are more likely to return for additional products and services, and are even more likely to interact with special messages. Loyalty programs enables you to push special or limited inventory offers to your best customers. You can also incentivize by way of additional discounts, special access to services and functionality or gifts with purchase, to name a few. A strong retention program also enables your customers to provide information on customer satisfaction. Your best customers will be more apt to complete surveys or provide feedback on how to improve the way you do business with them. Use this valuable information to improve your interactions throughout the entire customer lifecycle.
Re-activate
Win back inactive or non-responders. Even with targeted and relevant messages, after a time your best customers may become non-responsive. Identifying these indifferent recipients by way of clickthrough and purchase tacking (or lack thereof) can be a rich source of customers who, at one point, were interacting with your messages and completing purchases. Create fun and enticing offers that are specific to this segment. This is also an opportune time to again survey these non-responders to ask why they have not interacted or what new items they are looking to purchase. Leverage these opportunities to notify these customers on what is new -- new products that you are offering, as well as changes in look and feel or enhanced functionality within your website.
Conclusion
Think beyond your database. Knowing the right message to send to your customers based on their location along the customer lifecycle will increase relevancy of your communications, help you close the loop and result in happier customers spending more with your organization.
Chris Lovejoy is an account executive, strategic services, at Premiere Global Services.
