Proven Ways to Customer Retention Using Email Marketing

What is the first thing you do as soon as you wake up? If it is checking your phone, you are not alone. Most Americans, around 80% to be more precise, check their cellphones within 15 minutes of waking up. As our society is becoming more electronically dependent, phones have played a significant role in increasing our dependability on the internet. Twenty years ago, ordering groceries online was a far fetched idea for most people. Today, it is business as usual.

I have to admit, having everything at my fingertips is great. Ordering groceries online, and picking them up later that day saves me a couple of hours of my day, which I can be working on other tasks. It is reasonable, right? Well, many studies that argue the habit of checking your electronic device first thing in the morning could be making you unhappy. Furthermore, many other studies support the claim of social media, causing unhappiness. For this post in specific, let’s put aside these studies and talk about the habits of most Americans, and how that can be leveraged in your favor.

We are addicted to our phones, which is a known fact to most marketers, and they have fully taken advantage of it. A lot of the emails are sent overnight to be one of the first email messages you see. With this in mind, it puts a small business owner, with no budget for professional marketers, in a difficult situation.

The naked truth is, if you cannot hire a reputable company to conduct studies on your audience, your campaigns will suck. Understanding the psychographics of your public is difficult, and takes time, patience, and many testing to create effective campaigns.

Small businesses don’t have a large budget for marketing, as a matter of fact, most don’t even have a budget at all. The following tips will assist you to stand out and will help get more engagements in your campaigns. But remember, it will time take and patience. The key is to be consistent.

When you consider the email opening rate for people who opted-in, there is a considerable variation depending on the industry. The highest is around 30% and the click rate between 1-4%. Out of 1,000 emails sent out, only 300 of those will be opened. Perhaps only 40 will click them.

Imagine this scenario. We are the owner of Roasted Rock Coffee. You need customers. You decided to purchase five thousand emails to promote a special. The site you bought them from seemed robust and reliable, even BBB certified. You chose people showing interest in coffee, within 30 miles radius of your store.

You created a beautiful campaign, with great photos, and you sent it. For this example, we will disregard the fact that your email might end up in the spam, and no one will ever lay eyes on it. Let’s say 100% landed in the intended person’s mailbox (not likely).

Jack lives 4 miles away from your shop, and his email was one of those your purchased. He just woke up, and while laying in bed, your prospect picks up the phone, as he does every single day, to check his email. He notices an email from Roasted Rock Coffee. He never heard of Roasted Rock, and immediately deletes the message, or ignores moving on to another more pressing matter.

Suppose the email opening rate for the restaurant industry averages 30%. Roasted Rock Cafe email marketing is on the edge of failure. The 30% open rate has drastically dropped to perhaps 20%, if not lower. At the very best performance, about one thousand people opened the email. Maybe only 40 clicked on the link.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER purchase an email list

People might argue this is a common practice and you can squeeze something out of it. If you are spending money buying a list, you might as well flush that money down the toilet. Besides the many rules and regulations about mass email, useful email lists are not for sale. Most email marketing companies, such as MailChimp and ConstantContact, will not allow you to send emails unless you collected that email via subscription.

How to collect emails for a successful campaign?

In a previous post, I explained email marketing and its importance. Now you must understand the proper steps to collect the emails to create a relevant campaign.

Newsletter sign up through your website

Having a box where anyone visiting your site can just put their email is a great way to start. Offering valuable information for an email might increase the odds. For instance, Roasted Rock Cafe can provide something like – How to brew the best coffee you will ever have in 4 steps – with a place for the email and a download now button. Alternatively, a 10% discount for the next purchase could work even better.

Ask your customers for their email.

When someone comes to your store and make a purchase, ask them for their email. Tell them about the weekly specials, which is available only for people who provide their emails. Try that for a month and see the results. Keep notes of how many people will give their email.
In the following month, tell your customers if they give you their email, they will receive a free cup of coffee coupon in their email. Try this email for a month and compare the results.

Facebook Leads

Facebook Leads is a reasonably new feature offered by the company. Currently, the social media giant has over 2 billion active users worldwide. The likeliness of a prospect to be an active user is very high, which makes it a massive source to find leads. While this is a paid feature, many business owners have given thumbs-up and provided positive reviews. The cost of a lead could run as low as $30, which is reasonably low.

Promote contests

Roasted Rock Cafe is a pet-friendly coffee shop, and to bring more customers to the fold, you have decided to run a contest. You are giving away a $20 gift card, a coffee cup with your logo in it, and a pack of your high-end gourmet coffee. To enter the competition, the person must sign-up for the newsletter and post a picture of their pet on social media tagging your page. You not only have the person’s email, but you also have their friends looking at your social media.
Promoting contests are easily overlooked by many entrepreneurs. If done right, it can bring huge turnouts, especially in social media.

Offer a birthday Club

Offer something special for your customer’s birthday. Roasted Rock Cafe now offers a free cup of coffee with a pastry for your birthday. Put a call-to-action button on your website. If you use Square, you can add the email collection tool. It is a great way to get your customers to sign up for your newsletter. The birthday club will also increase the loyalty of your customers.

Offer a loyalty program

The loyalty program is highly effective. A survey has shown that membership has increased from 3.3 million to 3.8 billion between 2014 to 2016; which is a huge jump. Plus, the same study shows that 69% of customers consider loyalty when shopping.
Further, the prospect must use their email address to sign up for the loyalty program. Our coffee shop is now offering a free cup of coffee for every six cups purchased.

Host an event

It does not have to be related. Roasted Rock Cafe is hosting an open mic night with karaoke. The participants will be recorded while singing, and it can be either given away or sold for a small sum. The proceeds will be donated to a local charity. The winner will take a gift card and a bag of coffee. During the event, there will be samples of the signature gourmet coffee, as well as a newly introduced pastry.
That is a perfect example of an event that can attract people to your establishment. There is a vast array of options when it comes to functions for your business. If you do not have a storefront, there are options for online events. In those cases, doing a trivia night, and the winner takes a prize is an excellent way to do it.

Several marketing tools are available to assist you with your email collection. The important take away is to be consistent. Do a weekly or monthly newsletter, even if you only have one person signed up for it. Promote your contests or do your events. Overtime your name will get out there, and people will come and participate.