Boost your customer lifecycle email strategy

Your email subscribers will have different levels of engagement and needs at depending on where they are in the customer lifecycle. You can improve yourcustomer lifecycle email strategy by focusing on three strategies: 1) send welcome messages; 2) convert your subscribers into clients; and 3) implement a reactivation programme. Before we look at these in more detail, let’s focus on the planning stage and the importance of personalisation.

Customer lifecycle email strategy – the planning stage
To achieve the maximum ROI and the highest possible conversion rates and engagement levels you need to have an understanding of your customers’ needs, behaviours and preferences and evaluate this against your needs as a business.

Before you send out your email campaign you need to think about the targets you want to achieve, how you can get to know your recipients better, how you will collect email addresses and how best to segment your data.

Email personalisation is key
Once you’ve collected enough information from your subscribers, you’ll gain a better understanding of your audience and be able to personalise your email messages. Think of a global communication strategy then tailor your messages specifically to your recipients so that they feel they are unique and not just an email address.

Recipients will see your messages as a response to their needs and this, in turn, will improve their engagement with your brand or product, as well as the performance of your campaigns.

Build mutual trust with email recipients
Essentially, it’s all about building mutual trust between you and the user facilitated by the knowledge you have about their preferences, habits and behaviour.

If you can demonstrate that you know your customer at every step of the their journey, and apply the best practice principles set out below, you will have an ever more efficientlifecycle email marketing strategy and be able to increase the results of your email marketing campaigns.

1. Send welcome messages
As soon as a user registers, makes a purchase or downloads a file, send a welcome message so the first contact is made at the moment they are the most receptive.

This is also the right moment for you to introduce your email programme, by explaining the frequency and type of messages your new contact will receive. However don’t forget that if you have a welcome series, you can try to get some more information about your recipient, i.e. their preferences, to match your communication with their needs and have a lifecycle approach to build a long-term relationship.

You can implement a whole automated welcome programme, including several messages based on the behaviour of your new contact. Don’t forget if you have a clear start, you will inspire trust and confidence, which are essential for your future relationships.

2. Convert your subscribers into clients
People on your recipient list will have different levels of engagement with your brand. Therefore, it’s important to segment your list and split it into several groups according to their behaviour. The new subscribers need to have a specific welcome communication before landing into your regular newsletter list.

New subscribers receiving your newsletters who haven’t made a purchase will not be engaged with your brand and message from the outset. It’s your job (as a marketer) to give customers tailored reasons to buy your products, by having good offers, showing your best sellers, giving a special reduction on prices or free shipment for the first purchase.

As soon as a recipient makes a purchase, you should aim to maintain the interest of this customer by offering rewards for repeat buying, for example. Look at your data around purchases, opened emails over the last week, month or three to six months and implement a triggered email campaign to retain engagement.

This way, you will be able to adapt the content of your message according to the lifecycle of your customers and drive sales by having the right offer at the right moment, including clear call to actions.

3. Implement a reactivation programme
The real challenge for all of us is to keep the lists active. Don’t ignore less active recipients; create a specific group for them with a specific treatment/campaign. Dormant addresses decrease the performance of your email campaigns and are not cost effective.

By addressing these customers with special messages you can encourage them to open your emails. You also can create a reactivation programme including different messages to test behaviour or to understand why your subscriber doesn’t want to hear from you anymore. Ask the question - is the email frequency too high, are they no longer interested in the content anymore, do they want to be removed from your lists?

By testing your email message content and special offers, you should find the winning strategy to re-engage your inactive contacts and not only make them open your emails but also encourage them to make a purchase. It’s a sure way to keep your email marketing cost down and save money by using existing contacts that previously showed an interest for your brand or products.

The success of email marketing is not only a question of money, but also a question of tactics used to drive more traffic to your website and of course to drive sales.Segmenting specific emails, product recommendation in newsletters and automatically delivered emails are all tactics you should use and test.

Simon Bowker, UK managing director, eCircle

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