SACRAMENTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--StreamSend, a leading email marketing service provider and creator of the social marketing tool suite StreamSend Share, has shared some of the top techniques for marketers to use email and social marketing to win and keep customers with lifecycle marketing.
“Lifecycle email marketing, particularly when powered with social marketing, consistently shows far greater results than messages that are irrelevant to recipients’ interests and relationship with your business,” said Dan Forootan, president of StreamSend Email Marketing. “The key is to recognize customers’ lifecycle categories, then act on that information with targeted messages that are valued and shared. Here are eight important steps towards creating those kinds of one-to-one messages and building strong, profitable customer relationships.”
1. Divide and Conquer
Segment your audience according
to their status: Prospects, Engaged and Inactive. Three very different
groups requiring very different approaches.
2. Set Goals by Group
Each of the categories deserves
its own goals, respecting recipients’ interests and aligning with
marketers expectations. This is where it starts to feel like one-on-one
communication.
3. Prospect by the Numbers, 1:1
Prospects have shown
interest and supplied an email address, but not yet engaged with a
business. The first step here is to make an introduction – a welcoming
one that explains how you obtained their information – then build
credibility by showing customer success, while supplying an incentive to
make that first purchase and start the relationship
4. Rules of Engagement
Engaged customers can be
sub-divided according to new or established customers. Newer ones should
be nurtured to handle questions, supply contact information and the
guidance necessary to develop the relationship. Messages to the
established customer can range from newsletters, company updates and
targeted promotions. This group is also more likely to share your
message socially.
5. Get Active
Inactive customers are inevitable,
despite the most nurturing relationship. But they don’t have to be lost
and messages that leverage existing information about their interests
can be effective. After acknowledging their absence, businesses can send
surveys to look for reasons, and offer incentives that offer benefits
and savings to get them active again.
6. The Lifecycle Triangle
Lifecycle marketing is
based on the three corners of the lifecycle triangle: offering the right
message to the right audience at the right time. Email auto-responders
based on segmented lists let businesses leverage the customer
information they have compiled to complete the triangle.
7. The Message that Keeps on Sharing
Inside the
email, responses to widgets and offers let business create new,
segmented lists with up-to-date, increasingly relevant information.
Sharing can include favorable blog mentions, product reviews, getting
involved in promotions – but the big payoff is when audience members
start sharing your well-targeted messages with their network of friends
and peers.
8. Go Viral
No matter which customer corner of the
lifecycle triangle is being targeted, the Share option needs to stand
out, loud and clear. Prospects, excited at the offers to bring them into
the customer fold, may want to pass on those benefits to friends.
Engaged customers are often ready to endorse the business sender and
want to share the high quality and trusted value that relationship
represents to them. Inactive customers, reminded and impressed by the
commitment to bring them back, can want to share the rewards as they
renew this relationship. And as these customers send the message viral,
an unlimited number of fresh leads enter the picture, and the lifecycle
triangle.
About StreamSend
StreamSend offers an easy-to-use,
affordable and reliable email
marketing service designed to help businesses maximize the reach of
their marketing budget when sending an email
newsletter or using Social Media. StreamSend offers a number of
industry-leading standard pricing plans, private-label and affiliate
programs and hands-on personal client service. Started in 1998,
StreamSend is a leader in Email Marketing.