Email marketing can be a highly effective way to nurture your relationship with your existing customers or subscribers, and ultimately drive web sales, accommodation bookings, or general enquiries.
Simply put, this is because when you have legitimately captured data about your potential and existing customers, you are sending out email marketing campaigns to audiences who, in varying degrees, have engaged with your brand before (whether that’s signing up on your website, purchasing a product, or joining a loyalty club).
On top of this, 70% of consumers prefer to receive email communications from businesses they follow over other marketing materials (Campaign Monitor, 2020), with sales-led emails having a highly trackable ROI of approximately £38 for every £1 spent, which is very good value in digital marketing terms.
While this figure cannot always be achieved with every campaign you send out (not all emails are sales-focused), there are lots of tools you can use within email marketing platforms like Campaign Monitor to allow you to improve the customer experience, nurture relationships, and ultimately drive repeat business to achieve this. We’ve outlined three of our favourite methods below:
Do you ever receive emails straight after you’ve added something to your basket, but not completed your purchase? Or perhaps you’ve signed up to an email marketing list and immediately received an email to say ‘thank you’ with a special offer or incentive.
This is referred to as an automated email, where a certain action on a website or platform automatically triggers an email to be sent out to you. This could either give you a nudge to complete a booking or purchase, or simply provide a more joined up customer journey and improve your experience of the brand.
If you run an online shop or are an accommodation provider, this type of email marketing campaign can be used to drive sales and bookings. An example of this could be sending a 10% off voucher via email, shortly after a potential customer has added something to their basket but not checked out, where the small discount can be a great incentive to drive that sale.
Another clever (but not too time-intensive) tactic that you’re able to use in email marketing is segmenting your customer database. This allows you to categorise your mailing lists by certain types of data (for example, post code, D.O.B etc), and send them highly targeted emails relevant to their interests.
An example of this could be capturing data about a customer’s birthday month and filtering them into a segment. You could then send them a voucher in the month leading up to their birthday, thus incentivising them to make a purchase or visit your venue.
If you run a chain of pubs or restaurants, another option would be to capture details of their favourite venue, with offers about that venue shared with those people accordingly to drive footfall.
Setting up a loyalty scheme is another great way to nurture your brand’s relationship with existing customers, encourage repeat purchases, and drive brand advocacy.
Our approach to this would be to promote the loyalty scheme as an exclusive club which makes customers feel special by giving subscribers early access to sales and new products, bespoke discounts, and more.
Another example of this could include a forward to a friend scheme, which encourages brand advocacy and referrals, where both the existing customer and their friend can be rewarded with a free gift or financial incentive.
These are just three of the many ways in which you can use email marketing tools to drive web sales and bookings, provide a joined up customer experience, and nurture your relationship with your existing and potential customers.
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help with email marketing, email [email protected] or call the office on 01208 895089.