Customer loyalty is the key to successfully promoting a company, attracting new customers, and strengthening a positive brand image. It’s that emotional connection with the audience that needs to be established and “fed” regularly. It takes a lot of work to win the favor of potential customers and grow interested in the brand.
About 50% of loyal customers go to other companies that better meet their needs. That’s why it’s so important to constantly engage with customers: choose the right channels of communication, make personalized offers and provide relevant content.
The lifetime value of customers (LTV), with whom the brand managed to build an emotional connection, is 30% higher. They often recommend the company to their relatives and thus create a natural increase of new customers.
In this article, we will explain how to increase customer loyalty through email marketing, and consider the most successful cases.
How to increase customer loyalty via email
Despite the increasing number of communication channels, e-mail marketing is still one of the most effective ways to communicate with your target audience. Today 3.9 billion people are active email users, and by 2022 that number is expected to grow to 4.3 billion. Every dollar spent on email marketing brings $32 in profit.
Personalization of mailings
It’s not enough to just send emails, people won’t be happy with the standard mass mailing. They want to be special customers for the brand. 74% of marketers confirm that personalization increases audience engagement. Personalization is the competent use of the personal data of consumers to create relevant email campaigns and increase sales.
To create personalized content, marketers use a variety of techniques:
- add the name of the buyer to the newsletter;
- segment letters on gender, interests, geographical data;
- create trigger mailings based on shopping history or behavioral factors.
The more you know about the customer, the more relevant your letters will be.
Trigger letters
These are automatic messages that users receive after performing certain actions on the site or in an email. Trigger mailings have a 4x higher CTR than regular promotional mailings.
To build effective communication with subscribers and increase loyalty, it is important to send different types of trigger letters.
“Welcome” chain
Such letters are sent after the user’s subscription or registration on the site. Approximately 76% of users expect to receive a greeting mailing immediately, and the view of such messages is 82%.
Triggers based on the wish list
Users regularly add the products they like to the wish list. In this way, they plan future purchases. To motivate them to order, send a reminder, backed by a special discount. This method of sales promotion is actively used by the Aliexpress trading platform.
Triggers based on an abandoned cart
87% of buyers with an abandoned cart are ready to return to purchase later. There is a portion of customers who simply forgot about the pending product or were distracted at the time of ordering. Both a simple reminder and a special offer will be able to bring back such users.
Triggers based on a waiting list
Sometimes the product runs out, and then the users can not buy what they want. In such cases, set up a newsletter that notifies the user that the selected product is available.
Triggers based on shopping history and behavioral factors
Tracking the activity of a potential buyer allows you to create emails to convert involved users into customers. And mailings based on the history of purchases help to offer related products in time. For this principle, writers at WriteAnyPapers offer their services to their potential clients.
Transaction letters
It is an integral part of any service. They are sent to inform the customer about payment, order, or delivery status. Transaction letters allow you to keep the buyer informed. Amazon once revolutionized customer service by teaching all eCommerce owners to respond immediately to customer orders, notifying them of any changes. If you do not do this, the user will be confused – he has already made a purchase but does not understand what happens to his order next and when he will get it.
Triggers-greetings
Mailing to a special date helps to strengthen the emotional connection with the user and increase sales. You can greet the client both with the generally accepted holidays and with his personal.
For example, thank the user for a certain number of purchases and give a promo code or offer a personal discount to celebrate the anniversary of the subscription with shopping.
Letters with educational content
Providing useful content is a key component in increasing customer loyalty. Information and training campaigns allow you to maintain the involvement of the audience, and it makes sense to spend time creating such materials.
Here are some tips to help retain customers and increase interest in brand mailings:
- Send press reviews. For example, a list of the most relevant articles for the week or month.
- Create list. For example, 10 Twitter accounts about beauty, top 5 Lifehacks for evening make-up.
- Make video reviews of products and add them to newsletters.
- Send feedback and recommendations from other customers.
- Film interviews with experts in your field and opinion leaders.
- Teach to use the brand products. For example, prepare a series of messages about the characteristics and features of the use of top products.
- Make announcements of events, and then send reviews on them. This will help to warm up the interest of the target audience.
- Defeat any objections. Make emails with answers to frequently asked questions.
Loyalty program
This is an effective way to retain customers and encourage resale. They motivate buyers to come back to you.
Bonus programs can also be a crucial argument in the case of the reactivation of inactive users.
Creativity
With the help of creativity, you can create and strengthen the emotional connection with consumers, and motivate them to share content with friends. However, it is important to avoid misunderstandings and negativity. It’s best to use creativity when you know the advantages of your audience and are confident that they will understand you. To avoid making mistakes with creative solutions, conduct A/B testing. So you will see what works well and what does not.
If the user does not like to receive such letters – he can unsubscribe from the personal account. After unsubscribing, Aviasales will send the customer more serious mailings – without jokes, cats, and dogs.
Audience segmentation
Segmentation allows you to create more relevant mailings for each audience segment. With its help, you can group the prepayers based on certain criteria: age, status, country, place of residence, hobbies. In addition, it helps with upselling and cross-selling.
Please note that in email marketing it is very important to regularly update subscriber data. Valuable information can be obtained through subscription forms, preference settings, surveys, questionnaires, transitions in letters.
With the help of such surveys, you will be able to learn interesting facts about the client (hobbies, names of pets, preferences in clothing) and in the future to pleasantly surprise with the most personalized offer.
5 ways to increase brand loyalty via email
Increasing loyalty via email is a never-ending task. 81% of customers trust the recommendations of family members and friends more than advertising. The interest of active subscribers should be supported, and those who for some reason stopped opening mailings should be reactivated.
- Show a special attitude to customers. Use clever personalization ссылка. Regularly expand your customer preference database to create relevant offers. Give personal discounts.
- Apply “human” content presentation. The simpler the language of communication, the better. Try to be as close to your target audience as possible.
- Do giveaways. The desire to win a prize will lead to involvement.
- Make unexpected surprises. To make a gift or a promotion, you only need a reason. Use the calendar of info-reasons or create a special date yourself. This approach will help increase future sales and letter opening rates.
Involve holiday marketing.
People today are not surprised by holiday offerings. They are waiting for them! Analyze audience needs, shopping history, and other data. Look at what your competitors are doing – and do better.
Helen Wilson
Content Writer
Helen Wilson is a professional content writer. Her main spheres of specialization are Marketing and Business. She studies topics about psychology and health, and also she provides help on how to include pictures in a research paper.
Hello Helen,
You’ve got pretty good material here.
What has worked for me over the years when it comes to boosting the loyalty of my customers via emails is creating value-based content consistently.
I ensure they never have enough of me.
I’m always thinking of how best I can help them solve one problem or the other by actually helping them.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.
– Emenike