Most businesses have two kinds of customers: those who are actively using their products and those who are infrequently engaged.
While there’s no silver bullet for ensuring all customers will become active users, there is a proven strategy to building momentum through customer lifecycle communications that increase the likelihood they stay engaged.
When embarking on a customer relationship strategy—whether it’s getting them to make a first purchase or simply complete an account profile— direct mail best practices and successful email marketing techniques can lead the way.
It all starts with building a front-to-end migration strategy. And getting started isn’t as complicated as it sounds. What’s required is a fundamental understanding of how to employ the right marketing channels and communications cadence. What follows are direct mail best practices and successful email marketing techniques designed to build and sustain customer momentum.
The first wave: Building momentum via direct mail best practices
The customer relationship starts whenever you’re launching a new product. And direct mail is still one of the best ways to do this. Today, direct mail is one of the few media that can immediately reach customers, introduce your brand and drive action. Unlike email, which requires a pre-existing relationship, direct mail does not require explicit consent.
Direct mail also helps control the trajectory of the customer relationship. Put simply, direct mail has the real estate to carry complex messages that are required for carefully considered purchases.
Think of the first direct mail letter as a springboard for all the communications that will follow. The stronger the base, the stronger the supporting elements. If you send out more than one direct mail letter for a campaign (and we recommend that you do), direct mail best practices suggest each one serves a purpose and builds upon the last to keep the momentum going. Your first letter should serve as an introduction piece, outlining key benefits and the steps for taking action. The next should remind customers to take action and reframe your product benefits from a different angle. The last letter should increase urgency. In all cases, your direct mail campaign should rally around a time-sensitive offer.
In addition, direct mail should always seek to capture customer email addresses upon signing up for your product. This is critical to the customer lifecycle. In a recent pilot campaign, we noticed that customers who recently responded to direct mail were 150% more likely to respond to email.
In all cases, be sure your campaigns are following direct mail best practices.
The second wave: Employing successful email marketing techniques
Part of any successful email marketing campaign involves breaking down barriers to adoption. Once customers purchase your product, they tend to disengage. Often, they might not realize that there are more ways they can benefit from what you have to offer.
Therefore, it’s important to leverage email to continue the dialogue with new customers. Successful email marketing campaigns are proven to work when you’re looking to get a customer to adopt a new behavior, increase transaction volume or purchase a new product. In fact, we recently attributed a 17% year-over-year increase in transaction volume to one of our more robust adoption campaigns.
Relationship-based emails are also widely accepted. In many instances, customers prefer email over other types of communications. This is a win-win for marketers because email is environmentally responsible, cost-efficient and can reach customers on the go via mobile devices.
Successful email marketing campaigns require continuous improvement.
Topics: Email Marketing
