What is an email newsletter? How does it benefit businesses? And how can you start building a newsletter subscription? Read on to find out.
There’s a reason why 81% of B2B marketers use email newsletters the most for content marketing. It’s one of the best ways out there to establish an instant connection with your target customers, establish long-term relationships by providing value, and drive sales by encouraging them to make a purchase.
But if you don’t know how to get started, then this guide is for you. Here, we’ll explain how you can create an email newsletter in five easy steps:
1. Have an email newsletter tool ready
When creating a newsletter, we highly recommend having an email newsletter tool as this makes the job a lot easier.
The next important step is to identify your business goal and how the newsletter fits that goal.
Many companies launch a newsletter strategy to achieve the following goals:
Drive more traffic to the blog
Generate leads
Drive more traffic to the website
Promote new products and services
It’s also important to have KPIs and metrics ready to assess your performance. But make sure these metrics can meaningfully assess the impact of your newsletter efforts. For example, open rates do not necessarily mean you are already generating leads. Some metrics can better assess that like clickthrough rates or conversion rates.
3. Prepare your design and content
Next, using your chosen newsletter tool, select a template for your email newsletter. Then add in your chosen content.
Make sure your content is intentional, responsive to customer needs and preferences, and timely. These criteria increase the chance that your target customer will open and click on your email.
You can also allow your target audience to only subscribe to certain themes or topics to limit the type of content they will receive.
4. Hit send
The next thing to do is to send your email, monitor your performance, and make decisions based on the results. Don’t forget to test your email first on how they’re going to appear on different browsers and different devices before sending.
5. Assess and Evaluate
The last thing to do when having a newsletter is to assess and evaluate its impact and effectiveness. Identify how it contributes to your brand and determine what needs to be done to improve its performance.
Having a tool that prepares the analytics for you would be extremely helpful so that all your sales and marketing will have to do is focus on more important tasks such as interpreting the results and making strategic business decisions based on them.
Have a Newsletter Today
Excited to find out how a newsletter is going to impact your organization? Talk to our experts at Saphyte and try having one today! Book a demo here for FREE.
Abandoned cart emails are a great way to encourage customers who have abandoned carts to make an actual purchase. Learn how to best do it from these great examples.
There are more abandoned carts online than you think. Research found that an average of 69% of online carts are being abandoned. But with abandoned cart emails, customers are enticed to visit their carts again and make an actual purchase.
To learn how you can craft an email to encourage customers to pick up their abandoned carts and make a purchase, we’ve curated a list of the best examples of abandoned cart emails for you:
1. 23andMe
This biotechnology company has become known for its comprehensive ancestry breakdown and personalized health insights over the internet.
The company’s abandoned cart email is simple and straightforward. It integrated its brand’s color palette into the email, proposed its value, and its CTA button revealed a sense of urgency.
2. Google
One of the most successful companies in the world is successful for a reason— and this extends to their sales and marketing efforts.
Here, you’ll notice a great copy from Google. The texts “Going, going, (almost) gone” is not only engaging and compelling, but it also has a sense of urgency that makes customers want to make a purchase right away.
The email also contains the actual product of the abandoned cart and the CTA redirects the recipient to the cart.
3. Moschino
A visual company needs a visual email and Moschino does it so well with their abandoned cart email.
The email contains the products that the customer added to the cart. It prompts the customer to check out what they’re missing. The CTA button is simple and straightforward. Visual cues such as “secure payments” and “easy returns” also help improve customer trust and experience during checkout.
4. Warby Parker
This New York-based online retailer of prescription glasses, contact lenses, and sunglasses starts its abandoned cart email with a catchy subject line:
The email also includes a call to action to complete the checkout plus customer testimonials that make it easy for customers to make the purchase through social proofing.
5. Zalando
This Germany-based online retailer of shoes, fashion, and beauty has mastered the art of abandoned cart emails. Its subject line is timely and compelling, making it highly likely for customers to click on the email and proceed to checkout.
Zalando also displays the item that is on sale, showing the original price and the discounted price.
6. Esqido
This beauty company also does so well with its abandoned cart emails. It contains critical elements that make an abandoned cart email successful such as urgency, simplicity, and social proofing.
The CTA is simple and straightforward. It also imposes a sense of urgency.
The email also contains positive 5-star reviews, making it easier to convince customers who abandoned their carts to proceed to make a purchase.
Effortless Email Marketing
Email marketing can now be done easily. With a digital ecosystem like Saphyte, you can now automatically create a list of customers and send targeted emails based on specific criteria. This helps you achieve marketing objectives in no time.
Want to know more about how you can send abandoned cart emails without breaking a sweat? Learn from our experts at Saphyte. Book a FREE demo now.
Want to know how you can segment your audience for your email marketing campaigns? Learn how to do it in seven easy steps.
Sending an email blast to a list of customers without understanding their needs and priorities is not only wasteful of time, energy, and resources, but it also risks customers having a bad impression of your brand.
To make sure you’re only sending relevant information, it’s important to segment customers based on commonalities.
Some of the common factors that bind customers together are their interests, age, gender, and company industry. When you segment customers together based on these commonalities, it helps you understand customers’ challenges better.
You’re also 130% more likely to know their intentions, according to research, which helps you launch a more responsive sales and marketing strategy.
How Does Email Segmentation Work
Email segmentation works by dividing your email lists into smaller “segments” based on certain criteria such as age, sex, interests, buying intention, etc.
No two customers are the same. That’s why it’s important to understand why a customer subscribed to your email list and what type of information they want to get in the future.
One of your subscribers may find promotional offers and discounts helpful, while others may only want guides or expert advice coming from you.
By separating these two apart, you ensure that you only send information that is relevant to a target segment— promotional offers to the audience that actively looks for promos, and expert advice to the audience that only wants to get advice from you.
What is the Best Way to Segment Customers
Here’s how you can start segmenting your audience:
1. Gather as much information about your customers as possible
The first step to segmenting customers is to identify first who they are. Gathering as much information about them as possible. More data can help you in your analysis.
Tools like digital ecosystems and customer relationship management (CRM) systems can help you massively when doing this.
2. Divide your audience based on commonalities
After gathering important data about your customers, the next step is to divide your audience into segments, based on commonalities. Find the common features among your audience. And be sure to keep each segment distinct from the others.
3. Create customer personas
Customer personas are more accurate representations of your customers based on data and information you’ve gathered from them and the market. It helps you design content that is responsive and relevant to them and their values.
When creating personas, try to identify the friction points between your business and your target customers. Address the objections that they may have to your product or service and prepare to address future concerns. Match your brand’s voice to your customer personas’ preferred communication styles.
4. Explore customer needs
After crafting your customer personas, the next step is to understand your customers’ needs at a deeper level. This includes digging deeper into your audience’s desires, value systems, and even needs that your customers do not know themselves.
This can be done through surveys at stages through progressive profiling. You can also include a customer feedback loop to know more about your customers’ thoughts and experiences with your brand. You can also delve deeper into what your customers think about your competitors’ products and services.
Another thing to note about customer needs is that you can identify them by determining research keywords, search terms, and frequently asked questions (FAQs) related to your product. This helps you know more about your customers’ needs without asking them directly about these needs.
5. Link your product and service value to customer needs
The next step is to connect the needs of your consumers with your brand’s product or service.
This is where sales and marketing step in. Try to highlight how your products and services address the pain points of your customers. And how it can deliver value over time.
6. Prioritize high-value segments
Some segments offer higher value than others— meaning, that in terms of sales, they generate higher value than other segments. Channel your focus on these segments. And prioritize these groups when you have to invest in sales and marketing efforts.
7. Evaluate your strategies
All strategies have to be evaluated at the end to ensure they work. Strategies cost companies resources to run, so make sure they’re delivering results.
Email metrics are important to assess whether your email campaigns are working to your advantage. Read on to find out more about email metrics and how you can improve your lead conversion with them.
Email marketing is one of the most used strategies nowadays. It helps businesses engage customers and keep the brand on top of mind. The problem is: many businesses don’t know what to look for to know if their emails are working.
That’s why in this article, we’ll list the most important email marketing KPIs you need to watch out for and how you can improve them.
1. Open Rate
The email open rate refers to how many people opened your email out of the total number of recipients. This metric is important in determining whether your subject line is catchy enough to capture the attention of your target audience or whether your brand is trusted by your target audience to open your email.
According to a study, the average email open rate for all industries is 21.33%, so if you score a better rate, that means your campaign performance is above average.
To improve your email open rates, we suggest A/B testing your subject lines, determining the best time to send emails according to your target audience, or conducting email segmentation for your customers.
2. Click Rate
Click rates refer to how many of your delivered emails resulted in a click. This metric is important in determining the number of recipients who clicked on at least one link in your email.
The average click rate globally is 1.27%, so if your result is lower than that, then you might want to try the following:
Optimize your email content by making them more timely, relevant, and responsive to your target audience’s needs and interests.
Testing a more catchy and responsive headline.
Segmenting your audience
Changing your lead generation strategy to attract more qualified leads— those interested in engaging with your brand.
3. Conversion Rate
Conversion rate refers to the number of recipients who have completed the desired action in your email— clicking on a call-to-action (CTA) button, making a purchase, etc.
There are a number of ways to improve your conversion rate, which include improving your mailing list, making your email content more targeted, or designing a more appealing landing page, as mentioned above.
4. Email Open Time
Email open times refer to how long your audience is taking to open your emails. The shorter the time, the better. This metric allows you to understand if your audience is eager to interact with your email.
To improve your email open times, try determining the best times for a particular segment (ex: customers segmented based on location or job positions).
5. Email Read Time
Email read times refer to how much time your recipients are spending reading your email content. This is important in determining the relevance of your content to your target audience. The longer the time, the better.
Improving this may require some time and effort (trial and error). But you can start by experimenting with email structures and content types, and by integrating personalization.
6. Email Marketing ROI
Email marketing ROI refers to how much your business is getting from the resources it spent on email marketing like ad spending, manpower, etc. This metric is important to determine whether you should continue with email marketing as a marketing strategy in general.
To improve your email marketing ROI, you need to improve your other email marketing metrics as well. You can also use tools that allow you to implement smart automation.
This means that the tools will handle the email marketing for you such as sending emails based on schedule or when certain conditions are triggered (e.g. a new subscriber).
This reduces the resources necessary to run email campaigns (i.e. you don’t need to hire additional manpower to perform email marketing tasks), which leads to better email marketing ROI.
Better email marketing with Saphyte
Want to learn more about tools to improve your email marketing performance? Talk to our experts now. Book a FREE demo here.
Learn more about how to organically grow your email subscription list, a crucial part of running a meaningful email marketing strategy.
Many companies do not know how to organically grow their email subscription list. This makes it hard for them to run their email marketing strategy and achieve meaningful sales and marketing objectives.
To make your job easier for you, we’ve listed down tips on how you can grow your email list without buying them off the internet. Let’s get started.
1. Offer value in exchange for subscription
One of the most effective ways to get someone to subscribe to your email list is to offer something that the customer would find valuable. This can be information that they’re interested in or are actively looking for or tools that can help them work easily.
Many companies offer lead magnets such as an eBook, a PDF report, an inspiring or motivational video series, an infographic, or even a discount on a product or service.
Find something that your target customers would find valuable and offer that as your lead magnet.
Companies like HubSpot offer guides to get leads’ contact details for their email campaigns.
Customers have different needs and priorities at every stage of the sales process. You may even be able to predict what they need depending on the sales channel they’re using.
Because of this, it’s important to personalize your offers depending on what they need. Offering them discounts at the first stage of the sales process may not be needed as the customer is still looking for information about your product.
Offering detailed product information may no longer be needed if the customer has already gone through many steps after discovering your brand and is close to purchasing your product.
Making sure your offers are personalized ensures a high level of success in closing the deal.
3. Differentiate yourselves from competition
When offering lead magnets, it’s important to identify and communicate to customers what you can do that your competition isn’t able to do. This guarantees that the customer understands your unique value proposition, and will make it likely for the customer to avoid scanning the market for alternatives.
4. Have a straightforward CTA button
Your CTA button should also be simple and straightforward and redirect the customer to a landing page where they need to be. This must be sensitive to their stage of the sales process.
Do not redirect customers that still need a lot of convincing to a page where they would make a purchase. It’s important to note that the CTA button must communicate clearly what value the customer will get after clicking the button.
5. Make your content shareable
If you’re trying to grow your email list, make sure your content is shareable. Those that have subscribed to your email campaigns may find it valuable enough to share it with friends and family. This makes the spread of your content through word-of-mouth communication easier to do.
6. Connect through social media
Social media is one of the best places to get customers to sign up for email campaigns. Not only are most people active on social media platforms, but these social media platforms can deliver and spread information fast.
It’s also easy to promote your brand on social media organically or through paid content. This allows you to instantly connect with a massive target audience and get them to sign up for your email campaign.
A/B testing is an important way of assessing the effectiveness of the elements of your sales and marketing strategy. This type of testing will tell your subscribers’ preferences over things such as:
Subject line
Type of Content
Color or Style
Schedule When Email is Sent
8. Engage through your employees
Get more people to sign up by making your messages sound more personal by coursing them through your employees. Have a “human tone” by signing off using your employees’ signatures.
Below is an example of how Semrush, an American SEM company, uses a “human face” to communicate with target audiences.
You can also add customer reviews or feedback to social proof— making it easier to convince your target audience to sign up to be part of your email list.
Easier Email Marketing
Get access to a complete set of tools to easily gather customer data and grow your audience now with Saphyte.
As Amazon now allows businesses on the platform to send free emails to shoppers, how can you maximize this feature for the holidays? Learn how to get started.
Amazon recently announced that it will let brands and merchants send marketing emails to shoppers for free, a feature that may help boost sales for brands on the platform amidst slowing sales.
The “Tailored Audiences” tool allows sellers to send emails to shoppers who purchased recently, those who made repeated purchases, and those who spent the most. The sellers may also reportedly monitor their results using the platform.
With this new feature, what are the things to keep in mind to help you get started? Check out our tips for Amazon email marketing for 2023.
1. Avoid spamming your customers with non-personalized, zero-value emails
After the announcement of the feature’s release (which will be early next year), many of the concerns revolved around how it could spam the inbox of Amazon users with useless emails.
Although customers can opt-out of marketing emails anytime, it’s still important to consider the power of email marketing and the importance of keeping your target customers connected.
You can prevent customers from unsubscribing by providing emails with value— those that are not only responsive to their needs and preferences but also those that educate customers and allow them to participate in.
2. Gather data and experiment with results for each category
Data is extremely important when it comes to email marketing. The data and information that you’ve gathered from your target market help you decide what content to send and to whom.
But gathering data isn’t enough. You also have to determine whether your email marketing strategy is working for each customer.
For example, some repeat customers may want variety, while others may prefer information related to their past purchases. Or discounts may work for some high-value customers (those who made above-average purchases), but they may not work for some.
That’s why experimenting with results is important. It helps you understand your customers better as one trick may not work for all.
3. Reward those who stay
With customers able to opt out of your email list, it’s important to remind them that it’s good to stay connected as they will be rewarded for it.
Email marketing has been proven to help increase brand loyalty and drive sales. But it will only work if your customers are convinced that it’s beneficial for them.
Make your emails catchy. Reward them for opening them. Offer email-exclusive promos or discounts. Determine the most effective ways to get them to stay.
4. Take advantage of events and seasons
Emails should not just be responsive to needs and preferences, they should also be timely.
Seasonal email campaigns help you take advantage of seasons and calendar events and offer time-limited promos. These emails also help you provide a sense of urgency to customers to take an action within the specified time.
5. Promote your business values
One thing to help you set yourself apart from the competition, especially when you’re competing for attention in your target customer’s inbox, is by promoting your business values.
Values like transparency, integrity, and social responsibility help you stand out and be remembered by your audience. You can demonstrate these values through your content like blogs, videos, and newsletters.
Learn how you can improve your email marketing
Discover how you can do email marketing outside Amazon with a complete digital ecosystem like Saphyte.
Saphyte is built to provide you with all the tools and features you need to upgrade your sales, marketing, customer support, and team connectivity. Talk to our experts now and book a demo for free.
Content marketing
is a way for businesses to attract leads, convert them, and keep them engaged.
Read on to find out why it’s important to do it in 2022.
Articles, e-books,
videos, and any information you get from a brand— whether entertaining or
educational— can be called content and it’s designed to make you aware of the
brand and keep you engaged.
Some forms of
content remind you that the brand is there on the market. Other forms of
content motivate you to make an on-the-spot purchase.
So what is content
marketing and why is it important in 2022?
What
is Content Marketing?
Content marketing
is a marketing strategy that involves the use of articles, videos, and other
forms of content to attract, engage, and convert leads into customers, and retain them.
This approach helps
the brand do the following:
Promote brand awareness and top-of-mind awareness
Establish credibility in the market
Encourage purchases to drive sales
Motivate leads to make their first purchases
Businesses often
use search engine optimization (SEO), social media, and email marketing to forward their
content to their target audience.
The following are
reasons why content marketing is an important strategy that businesses should
use in 2022:
Content marketing works. According to 42% of B2B marketers, content marketing works and they’re effective in producing results.
They bring in necessary traffic. According to content marketing leaders, they experienced a 7.8x higher year-over-year growth in unique site traffic when content marketing is done right.
They help you get more leads. Businesses with blogs report getting 67% more leads than other companies.
Content determines buyers’ next steps. According to a report, 47% of buyers view three to five pieces of content first before engaging with a brand’s sales rep.
Content helps build loyalty, nurture audiences, and drive sales. According to a report, 78% of successful organizations use content marketing to build loyalty, nurture leads and audiences (64%), and generate sales and revenue (57%).
Content marketing
can help you establish and nurture your relationships with your prospective and existing customers. When the recipient of your
content thinks of your company as credible, trustworthy, and responsive to
their needs and interests, they’re more likely to choose you among your
competitors when it’s time to buy.
How
Content Marketing Works
Every buyer has a different set of needs and
expectations at every stage of the buying process. Knowing the right content to
send helps you nudge them to move forward to the next stages.
For example, a buyer at an awareness stage may
need to know more about how your brand’s products and services can address
their pain points, challenges, and questions. A buyer at a consideration stage
may need to know more about the specific features or functions of your products
and services and how they differ from what’s available on the market. A buyer
at the closing stage may need to know how choosing you can benefit them in the
long run.
Sending them the right content at the right
time is crucial in closing these deals. Some tools are built and designed to
help businesses automate this process.
Here’s an example
of how you can engage your leads and customers through email with ease:
How to
Get Started
To make content marketing easier, here are
things to take note of:
Know your audience. The first step to making a content marketing strategy is to know who you want to reach and how to reach and engage them effectively. This requires you to determine their needs, preferences, and interests, among others, so you’d know what type of content to send them.
Get a team. Hire professional writers and editors to make your content for you. Remember, a small error in content, typography, or grammar can make you lose your credibility and discourage prospective customers.
Determine your distribution strategy. Know where your target audience is hanging around, when they’ll be most active, where they’re more likely to click on your content, and what type of content works best for them.
Use tools. To make the entire content marketing process easier, use tools and technologies designed for it. Some can help you distribute your content automatically with just a few clicks.
To achieve business goals,marketers need to develop a content
marketing strategy that is designed for their organization’s needs, as well as
their audiences’. Read on to find out how to start making yours.
Many businesses plan to write some blogs, post on social media and send bulk emails to their target audience. But many also don’t know where to begin.
It’s
understandable. According to a report, 74% of companies observed
that content marketing increased their lead generation results. Those with a
content strategy also achieved 27.1%
higher win rates and 18.1% higher
quota attainment. That’s why, in 2022, 90% of marketers continue investing
in the channels they focus on using a content marketing plan.
In this post, we’ll
talk about what content strategy is, why it’s important, and how you can
develop your own content strategy that is designed for your unique business
needs and your target audience. So let’s get started.
A content marketing
strategy is a plan of action or policy that uses content (blogs, articles,
videos, among others) designed to help organizations achieve their business
goals.
Most business organizations use the content for the following:
To increase brand awareness in the market
To attract and generate more leads
To engage leads, nurture them, and convert them into customers
To remind customers of the brand and make a repeat purchase
To retain customers and reduce customer churn
A successful
content marketing strategy will help businesses achieve their targets and
goals, like those mentioned above.
Why is it important?
A content marketing
strategy is important because it ensures that the content that you’re sending
out is doing work. Remember, it’s not free to produce content. It requires
time, energy, and company resources to write articles or publish videos. That’s
why a strategy is important to make sure that they work.
It’s also important
to note that your competition is sending out content too. Your strategy should
take this into account because the first content the customer receives may lead
that customer to ignore all other options and make their first purchase.
7 Essential Parts of a Content
Marketing Strategy
What should your content marketing strategy be
made of? Here are seven essential elements to take note of:
Your target audience
Their needs and preference
Your competitive edge (USP)
Your content format
The channels to focus on
Your team
The evaluation
1.
Your target
audience
The
most important element of your content marketing strategy is understanding your
target audience. Who are they? How do they behave? Getting the right idea about
your target customers lets you decide what to do in the next steps so you can
get your message across effectively.
2.
Their needs
and preference
Of
course, each customer has a need that they have to address. Understanding each
customer’s needs and preferences lets you provide an offer that is relevant and
responsive to their unique situation.
3.
Your
competitive edge
You
need to know how to market your unique selling proposition (USP). What makes
you different from the rest? Why should the customer choose you among the
competition? Knowing your competitive edge allows you to drive your message
home— telling the customer to ignore all other options and just focus on your
brand.
4.
Your content
format
Not
all customers respond positively to blogs and articles, some prefer the video
format. Choosing the right content format for the right customer is critical to
getting them to consume your content.
5.
The channels
to focus on
This
is extremely important especially when you market on social media.
Understanding which platforms your target customers is likely to use lets you
optimize your content performance, especially when you choose to run paid ads.
6.
Your team
The
success of your content marketing strategy depends on the team executing it.
Choosing the right people to implement tasks and run workflows is an important
part of the strategy.
7.
The
evaluation
Last
but not least, evaluating your performance lets you spot what needs to be
corrected in your strategy and what needs to be retained. Use the right tools
and metrics. Learn from industry peers and be ready to adapt.
5 Steps to Develop a Content
Strategy
Now that you know what elements to focus on
when developing your content strategy, it’s time to make one! Let’s dive in.
Set a goal
Know more about your customers
Choose your tools
Determine your content
Explore and experiment
1.
Set a goal
Goals are what would
determine what your plan is going to look like and how it’s going to be
implemented.
There are many goals
to choose from. When planning their content marketing strategy, many businesses
aim to:
Generate more leads
Establish brand awareness
Drive sales
Retain more customers
2.
Know more
about your customers
Clearly defining your
content’s target audience also allows you to be more specific about your
content marketing strategy.
It lets you produce
more relevant and valuable content that they’ll want to consume and which will,
later on, push them to become customers.
Customer profiling
helps you know more about your customers:
3.
Choose your
tools
It’s going to be hard
to run a content marketing strategy, especially if it’s your first time.
Choosing the right tool makes the job easy and also helps you become more
efficient in your tasks.
Tools like Saphyte’s
Drip Marketing lets you send emails automatically on schedule to your target
customers.
4.
Determine
your content
There are several
content formats to choose from and your content will largely depend on your
target audience. Among them are:
Blogs.
Videos
Podcasts
Infographics
Emails
Case Studies
Ebooks
Lead magnets
5.
Explore and
experiment
The success of many
content marketing strategies today can be attributed to their willingness to
explore and experiment. Evaluate what’s working and what isn’t. Try something
new and see how far it goes. The sky’s the limit.
Relationship marketing plays a crucial role in increasing
customer lifetime value, the amount of value a customer contributes to your
business from their first purchase towards their last. Read on to find out the
things you should know about relationship marketing and why you should consider
this approach.
Focusing on building valuable and lasting
relationships with customers improves retention. And customer retention is
becoming more important these days, especially when businesses aspire to grow.
What do these numbers mean? All of these mean
that in order for companies to increase their sales, cut their expenses, and
grow their profits, they should find ways to build customer loyalty and reduce
customer churn. And one proven way to do this is through relationship
marketing.
What is Relationship Marketing
Relationship marketing is the process of
building long-term personal, individualized connections with customers. It
focuses on providing value and relevance through content, product, and services
for a continuing, lasting relationship.
Companies that implement relationship
marketing seek to get to know a customer better to improve their experiences
with the company. They do not stop after a deal is closed.
In fact, they continue to reach out to the
said customer by sending relevant content, personalized offers, and discounts
to encourage repeat purchases and consequently increase the chances of customer
retention.
The way relationship marketing works is often
illustrated with customers going through a lifecycle process. They start by
discovering the brand and end up becoming advocates of that brand.
The following are examples of how relationship
marketing works:
1.
IKEA
IKEA is one of the
few companies that focus on relationship marketing as a primary means of
growth. It is considered the world’s largest home furnishing retailer and has
more than 400 stores worldwide.
The company is famous
for using demographic, psychographic & geographic segmentation to provide
personalized experiences to customers and offering value at every stage of the
buyer’s journey. It gives importance to customer retention, establishing
loyalty, and building long-term relationships with its customers.
To “deliver a clear,
consistent, and compelling message about the organization and its product,”
IKEA uses a combination of experimental
marketing, customer engagement and content marketing, and digital marketing and
social media engagement, among others.
2.
Starbucks
Starbucks didn’t just
rise to the top because of good coffee. The company has been known to provide
excellent customer experiences that make it easy for them to be the topic of
conversation.
Starbucks starts with
providing customers with comfort and peace at their stores— a different feeling
that customers don’t commonly get elsewhere. A personalized product option is
then offered to every customer— whether they want 2 pumps of syrup, soy milk to
replace dairy milk, a scoop of java chips, or anything else added to their
drink.
Starbucks
communicates with its customers via text, email, and direct mail. There, they
provide content to customers and also open accessibility for purchase.
Starbucks also allows customers to turn their mobile phones into electronic
rewards cards to redeem free drinks, a birthday gift, or a free sample menu
item.
3.
Amazon
Amazon’s success story rests primarily on its ability to provide a customer-centric experience to its over 300 million customers.
The company built its
own Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to collect customer data,
such as location, searched items, and previous purchases, to instantly modify
and personalize users’ on-site experience.
Amazon uses email to
connect with customers and keep them purchasing. They also have the Prime
customer loyalty program where customers get free and fast shipping, free cloud
storage, and free streaming services, among others, by paying extra for
membership.
6 Things You Should Know About
Relationship Marketing
When talking about relationship marketing,
here are six things that you should know about:
1.
Personalization
is key
Personalization is
the process of crafting an experience or message to match a recipient’s needs,
interests, and other factors, based on the data the company has gathered.
For example, if the
customer has searched for hair products in the past few minutes, it’s likely
that the customer needs a hair product or is interested in buying one. Having
this data allows companies to offer relevant product recommendations which
increase the chances of the said customer making a purchase.
Personalization is
key to a relationship marketing’s success. Companies need to be able to offer
relevant and valuable information for customers to continue to interact with
them. When a brand’s product and services do not match the customer’s needs,
interests, or preferences, it’s likely for a churn to occur.
2.
Repeat
customers are more likely to spend more
A study found that repeat customers spend
three times more per transaction compared to non-repeat customers. They’re also
easier to sell to, which means that in relationship marketing, retaining
customers is more important than anything else.
When repeat customers
become advocates of your brand, they’re not just there to make repeat
purchases. They’re also there to influence others to make a purchase, spreading
good word-of-mouth marketing to promote your brand and increase your sales
revenue.
3.
Technology is
an advantage
Improving customer
relationships through personalization would be impossible without technology.
Technologies like CRM software allow companies to
seamlessly collect and sort customer data for instant use.
CRMs help inform
sales and marketing teams what a customer needs, what they’re likely to
purchase, and what to do to encourage them to make a purchase. With CRM tools
and features, companies can also automate tasks involving personalization such
as email marketing, catalog offering, and customer profiling, among others.
4.
Everybody
loves incentives
To keep customers
engaged, companies need to keep sending content that helps customers maximize
the use of their purchased products or encourage them to browse for other
products for enhanced use and experience.
But nothing engages
customers more than incentives. Incentives can take the form of discounts and
freebies.
Many companies
incentivize their customers through a loyalty program, where customers gain
points with every purchase. These points can be exchanged for free items and
products.
Each purchase allows
the company to gain more details about the customer— their needs, preferences,
and other information that can be used to provide a more personalized
experience to the said customer.
5.
Customer
feedback and insights are game-changers
To encourage
customers to provide real feedback, companies have to find ways to reward
honesty, make providing feedback accessible and convenient, and be transparent
about how the feedback would benefit the customer.
6.
Provide a
multi-channel experience for every type of customer
For companies to
truly capture every type of customer’s interest, they need to be sensitive
about their marketing channels— how the customers found out about them and how
these customers interact with them.
This way, the company
can map the whole experience of the customer and look for ways to improve this
experience. A different journey may then be provided for a customer that used
online marketing channels compared to traditional marketing channels.
Customers expect a consistent, quality experience throughout and that’s why the brand’s identity and values should be unified and consistent as well across these channels.
Upgrade Your Relationship
Marketing
Improve the way you build relationships with customers. Get in touch with Saphyte’s support team now to know more about relationship marketing and the tools you can use to connect with customers.
Curious how digital ecosystems can help improve your business?
Check out how digital ecosystems can boost your company performance by getting started here.
Companies that
value customer experience gain 4-8% higher revenue than their competitors in
their industries. They are found to be 60% more profitable than companies that
don’t focus on customers. Find out what customer relationship is all about and
how it transformed the way companies deal with their customers.
When companies talk about customer relationships, they usually refer to the marketing strategies a company implements to encourage customers to stay for the long haul. Customer relationship strategies aim to build loyalty and they typically require determining what customers uniquely need and want first before anything else.
However,
right now, companies face roadblocks in identifying these needs and
preferences. The global pandemic caused a shift in consumer preferences and
changes in consumer behavior, which means that the consumer data that companies
have gathered in the previous years may be rendered irrelevant.
Without
the right data about your target customers, it would be hard to offer the right
solutions. This puts a strain on the customer relationship. Some customers may
avoid coming in contact with the business again after the business failed to
address their needs and preferences.
How Customer Relationship Works
All
customers start from a point where they had zero knowledge about the brand.
Along the way, they come into contact with the brand via advertisements,
word-of-mouth communication, or other promotional activity of the business.
This
is where brand awareness starts. When the brand messaging piques their
interest, they may seek more knowledge about the brand. And after weighing
options, or when a need arises, they may proceed to select the brand’s product
and services out from the competition.
They
will then use the product. Here, an experience will be formed. If it’s a good experience,
the customer may consider buying the product again in the future. In fact, they
may even act as brand ambassadors, actively promoting the product and the brand
to other people.
If
it’s a bad experience, the customer may no longer choose the product in the
future and may even discourage others from buying the product.
Customer
relationship then aims to keep the customer moving from the first stage
(awareness) to the last stage (advocacy). It seeks to keep customers loyal to
the brand (and promote the brand to their social circles) by identifying the
customer’s specific needs, offering the right solutions, and consistently
offering a positive experience throughout their journey.
How Customer Relationship Transformed Marketing
Many marketers began to prioritize customer relationships after seeing successful companies implement a customer-centric model.
According
to a report, 45.9% of business professionals would consider customer experience as their #1
priority for the next 5 years.
And
this is because many customers now would prefer experience over anything else.
In fact, according to research, 86% of customers claim that they are willing to pay more for a great
customer experience.
It’s
not stopping anytime. At the end of 2020, a study expects customer experience to overtake price and product as the key brand
differentiator.
How to Integrate Customer
Relationship in Marketing
To
emphasize the concept of customer relationship when engaging customers, take
note of the following:
1.
Prioritize
gaining customer trust
You can never build loyalty without gaining customers’
trust first. That’s why, in all things you do, always ensure that you will be
able to gain the customer’s trust at the end of the day.
To do this, your products and services must be
reliable. They must create a positive experience for your customers. They
should be able to fix a problem or provide a solution to a challenge.
2.
Understand
customer’s intent
Understanding why your customers became your customers is essential in running a customer relationship marketing strategy. It helps you predict intent and anticipate the needs of your customers before they even say it.
Here, you can create a roadmap that leads to a smooth
journey for the customer, leading to customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Integrating technology may be necessary to speed up processes and increase
service accuracy and reliability.
3.
Identify
opportunities through customer data
Throughout the journey of the customer, sales
opportunities may arise for the business. Identifying these opportunities will
not just increase revenue but may also enhance the experience for the customer.
Sending personalized offers or promotions, for example, is a way to enhance the customer experience and exceed their expectations. Gathering customer data through tools and technology is an effective way to personalize offers.
To enhance the customer experience, the management must first agree that this is top priority. Drafting customer-centric company policies are, therefore, necessary to ensure that employees collectively follow protocols that aim to give customers a positive experience.
These policies must also align with company goals,
mission, and vision. To build genuine relationships with customers, those at
the top of the organization must lead in doing so.
Transform Your Marketing
Learn more about how to use tools and technology to gather customer data and provide a personalized experience. Get in touch with our experts here at Saphyte. Click here to get started.
Curious how digital ecosystems can help improve your business?
Check out how digital ecosystems can boost your company performance by getting started here.
