Tools to convert prospects to loyal customers

Experience makes it evident that profitability is all about creating and maintaining loyal customers and doing repeat business with existing customers. It is also evident that it is around 12 times less expensive to sell to an existing customer than it is to a new customer.

Statistics show that on average it takes around 5 to 8 contacts to flip a lead into a deal and this 5 to 8 contacts can be time and money consuming. That’s where email marketing can become an essential part of your marketing mix.

Turn prospects into loyal long term customers

Email Marketing enables us to proactively communicate with our customers / prospects / suppliers etc. thereby adding to the bottom line and improve the ROI.

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available today. It is easy, affordable, direct, actionable and highly effective. When you add email to your marketing mix, you spend less time, money and resources than with traditional marketing vehicles (e.g. direct mail or print advertising) And, with email marketing, you can communicate more quickly which means your time-sensitive information is disseminated in minutes, not days or weeks - and you can see the results of your efforts instantly.

Email marketing is at it’s most effective when used in communications to your existing customer list or “house list” as a means of customer retention.

The most cost effective channel to communicate

Email marketing is an affordable way to stretch a tight marketing budget. It can cost as little as fractions of a penny per email! With a response rate five times greater than direct mail and 25 times the response rate of banner ads, email marketing is the most effective way to increase sales, drive traffic and develop loyalty. Unlike direct mail, there is virtually no production, materials or postage expense. So, with email marketing, you can easily and affordably create more communications that are valued by your customer, and you can make those communications support and enhance your brand in a way that substantially differentiates your company from the competition. Your communications can include newsletters, preferred customer promotions, sale notifications, new service announcements, event invitations, greetings and more.

Studies show that both senders, and recipients increasingly prefer email marketing.

Email is the increasingly preferred method of communication for businesses. In a recent report, Gartner predicts that 80% of companies engaged in direct marketing will send at least one email campaign by the end of 2005.

According to DoubleClick, permission-based email is far and away the preferred method of online communication for consumers. 75% rated it as their preference, with only 25% preferring postal mail and 0% choosing telemarketing.

Make way for Long-Lasting Customer Relationships

Email is an easy and inexpensive way of establishing early and long lasting relationships with your prospects and customers. And the benefits of these relationships are far reaching. When you inform and educate prospects and customers, they begin to perceive you as capable of addressing their needs. Even better, they may look to you as an expert. This develops trust, opens the door to two-way communication and allows them to share their pain points with you. Using the information you gain from your prospects and customers, you will be able to better serve their ongoing needs, hone your unique selling proposition and slowly close the door on your competitors. In the process, you may discover hidden sales opportunities that you may not be addressing.

Measure of success or failure of your email marketing.

The benefits derived from most types of marketing and advertising are very difficult to measure. With email marketing, however, you can easily measure the number of emails sent, emails opened, bounce backs, unsubscribe and click-through rates. You can also tell who opened your email, which links in your email motivated the most clicks and, even more specifically, who clicked on each link. All of this useful information can help you send highly targeted campaigns to the individuals most likely to respond to your offer, thus improving results going forward.

In conclusion

Email marketing offers business owners an opportunity to reach out to customers and prospects, and increase customer retention in ways that were simply not possible just a few short years ago. Whether you do it yourself, use a service like SixChannels, or hire an agency to handle the entire process, email marketing should be a big part of your customer relationship efforts.

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